rwanda

spent the weekend in rwanda with annie and morgan. Morgan and i made it to kigali *rwanda's capital city* after a long, but relatively smooth bus ride from kampala, which took about 10 hours. We took the 6 am bus, meaning that we had to wake up super early to make it to the bus station, the plus side of which being that we managed to sleep for the majority of the ride. Fortuante, considering the movie selection on the bus, which consisted of two quality arnold flicks dubbed over in lusoga so that the music also cut in and out, (one of these films may have been conan the barbarian????) The arnold flicks were interspersed with nigerian soap operas about a man cheating on multiple wives, to which the crowd on the bus booed and shouted at appropriately. After the soap opera and the second arnold film was a jackie chan film also dubbed in lusoga. classics all of them.

Rwanda is truly the land of a thousand hills, as they seem to go on forever. Kigali is an absolutley beautiful city, nestled among the lush hills and valleys of the country. Kigali is incredibly clean, well organized, and all in all... amazing, though a bit on the expensive side. the vibe is more like europe than anything i have ever experienced in africa. WE stayed at a hostel called One Love, which is also a japanese based NGO that builds artificial limbs for rwandans injured in the 1994 genocide, it also teaches rwandans how to build tghe limbs, use the limbs, and helps rehabilitate them into society. the staff was amazingly friendly- check them out at www.oneloveproject.org .
We spent our first night at an amazing restaurant called the new cactus where we were able to enjoy a delicious fondue and goat cheese pizza. okay. so this trip was a bit of a splurge.
the next we spent at the genocide memorial in kigali, which was worth the trip out there in itself. The memorial is really well put together, with its focus on education for prevention of future genocides. It gives a lot of information, and makes really good use of multimedia= from documents, quotes from both un officials, rwandan government and western government sources, as well as survivors- photos, articles of clothing, remnants of weapons and survivors, and a documentary film that is segmented throughout the memorial, gathering the experiances of several different survivors, what the experiance was like, and what it is like to keep living after the fact.

It was , as the guide book says, difficult to walk around the streets of kigali and imagine the horrors of the genocide that so recently occured there. Yet, at the same time, it was difficult to be in the city of kigali, or elsewhere in rwanda, and not wonder how many people had been touched by the genocide, how far it reached. In a sense, anyone over the age of 15 living in n kigali was in some way involved with the genocide, as a survivor, a bystander, or even a direct participant. the resulting effect is a that of a ghost town, and i wonder how rwandans will ever be able to fully gain a sense of community and trust for eachother.

after spending the day tooling around kigali, we returned to the memorial that night to hear a survivor speak and to watch the film "shooting dogs".. a hollywoodised version of the true story of several thousand tutsis and many europeans that sought refuge at a school in kigali that was also serving as a un military base. 2 days after the violence broke out, france sent its troops to evacuate all the white/europeans, 4 days later, the Un pulled out, leaving 2000 tutsis behind, trapped, surrounded by interhamwe (hutu extremist ) killers. It was a really powerful film, and i absolutley reccomend it . It is frusterating and upsetting to see how useless the un and the west was, and it blows my mind how you can walk away knowing you are leaving 2000 people defenseless, to a certain death. For more on rwanda, and this check out romeo dallaire's (unamir head in rwanda at the time) memoire, shake hands with the devil.

our second day in rwanda we went out to the beautiful lac kivu up in kiyoge. it was incredible. volcanoes in the backround, crystal clear blue lake, mountains, and a delicious lunch- it felt like switzerland. photos to follow soon.
after the trip, it felt great to head back to uganda (new visa in hand- yes! )- even with all the speed bumps sitting in the far back of a very bumpy bus ride.
We spent Saturday nite in kampala with andy and sarah, two of our volunteers for some last quality time with andy before he headed back to new york on tuesday. Had a delicious Ethiopian meal- my first.
Felt great to home to bujagali for sure- though a very worthwhile trip, for more reasons than one.