Last days in Kigali

I’m jumping all over the place in documenting my travels but such is life. I’m just glad I’m actually writing because I’m not gonna lie, my serotonin levels are below ground these days. I had to go back and read, and it looks like I left off writing about day 2 out of my 5 days in Kigali. Let’s continue…

Day 2/5 – Nyandungu eco-park, spa day, and delicious food

I remember sitting at that cafe typing away furiously on my phone and laughing aloud writing my last Kigali post because I think I’m hilarious. It rained that day, but I got very lucky that the rain was only going while I was in the cafe and not while I was scooting about town. I finished my delicious meal of bougie chicken & waffles + latte + waterbottle ($12.80 USD) and took a motorbike to the Nyandungu eco-park like I planned. Something about Kigali that’s easer to see now that I’m not there is that the language barrier made it the toughest place for me to be during my travels. I learned maybe 2 words of Kinyarwanda and that was not enough. Even in the city, not many Rwandans speak English and as I mentioned before, they all seemed to struggle with understanding how to read Google maps. In the end, I found it was best to just accept that I’d have to direct my motorbike drivers by pointing when it was time to turn or change lanes. Low tech solution, but it worked. Traveler’s epiphany: being lazy, wanting to see everything and being on a budget, I really need to pick only 2 out of those 3 things because you really can’t have them all at once and expect it to work.

Anyway, I stepped outside of the cafe and just like everywhere else in the city, I was able to flag down a motorbike driver in under 1 minute -something I loved about Kigali. I showed him Nyandungu Eco-Park on my phone and he recognized the name, so we were off for a smooth, easy ride of about 10 minutes. When I got to the park, I went into the little security building and paid the 20,000 Rwandan Franc entry fee -about $13.75 USD. I asked (after confirming the woman could speak English – it’s rude to assume) where the bike rentals were and the woman at the desk told me I should just keep walking down and I’d see them. Once I was in the park, it really felt like an oasis. Kigali is a big city with so many trees and plants, but this was a space just for nature and pedestrians. No motor vehicles with their smog, no crowds, just families and individuals going for a relaxed stroll in nature. So yeah I was happy. I walked the length of the main path to the next parking lot before finding some guys with a bunch of bicycles for rent. They gave me the price (I think it was 10,000 RWF for 1 hour) and I paid them. I saw a Rwandan guy come up and get a bike too and I asked him how much he paid to be sure I wasn’t ripped off and he paid the same as me. I love it when people are honest. I took off on my bike and it took me about 5 minutes to realize the bolt for adjusting the seat height was slipping, so I ended up riding like a clown with my knees up to my chest. That’s what it felt like anyway. So I went back and asked for a new bike. It took forever for me to get it to work because I couldn’t figure out how to gear up. Don’t worry, I know I’m the problem here 😂. So after spending about 15 minutes on getting a good bike and troubleshooting, I was finally set to go. Biking through the park was such a mellow experience. The air was refreshing, the atmosphere was lush, and there weren’t any hills that were too challenging. It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Kigali. There was also a restaurant at the park that looked like a great spot to get some grub and drinks with a beautiful, verdant view.

When it was time to leave, I stepped out to the main road and caught a motorbike to my next stop, the spa where I’d booked an appointment. I ended up showing up about an hour early, but figured I’d just hang out in the waiting room and use their wifi while I waited. They didn’t have wifi, but thankfully my phone was cooperating and I was able to spend some time on the phone while waiting. The massage, I have to be honest, was not good. I went all out and got a 1.5 hour treatment that included a mud wrap. My favorite part was when she wrapped me up and turned the table heater up and left the room and I fell asleep. Aside from that, I was pretty cold for most of it. Cold massage oil + cold shower to rinse off the mud was 😭. So to be honest, I was glad when the massage was over.

After leaving the spa, I walked back over to the restaurant where I had lunch and almost went in there to eat again, but instead I used their wifi from the parking lot to explore other options and I’m so glad I did because I found a place that ended up being so good that I went out of my way (20+ minute motorbike ride) 2 nights in a row to eat there. The place is called Cap 99 Bistro, and if you’re ever in Kigali, I HIGHLY recommend it. At that time, their Cameroonian fish platter with fried plantain was the best meal I’d had during my travels by far and cost just over $10 for a whole grilled fish seasoned to perfection. The waitress was really friendly, they had wifi, prices were excellent for the quality, and the vibes in there were great. Only problem is that it was empty. I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner then took the chilly, windy ride back uphill to the hostel. I made myself a hot cup of tea and relaxed with my hostel friends. One Nigerian woman asked me if I wanted to join her for church the next morning and I told her no because I fully expected to be sleeping in. I turned in that night expecting to watch Hotel Rwanda on my phone but instead I wasted time scrolling through garbage short-form videos on social media. Cheap dopamine, what a silly addiction smh.

Day 3/5 – Church, lovely views, loc maintenance and dinner

Well, I woke up at a reasonable time the next morning and thought, “why not go to church? It’s been a while and it’ll be interesting to see what it’s like over here”. Spoiler alert – it was in Kinyarwanda lol. So I got up and got ready, told Kemi I’d join her, and chilled upstairs with some people while she got ready. One man had made himself a plate of breakfast and I asked what the fruit on his plate was. He said he didn’t know, but he’d picked it up at the market and wanted to try it. I watched him try it and judging by his expression, still had no idea what this fruit tasted like which made me more curious. One of the really friendly hostel friends, Wycliff walked in and was like, “oh, that’s a tree tomato, those are really good for you!”. The guy let me try a bite and at this point, I don’t remember what it tasted like, but I was not a fan. It definitely tasted healthy though if you know what I mean. It did not taste like a tomato.

When Kemi was ready to go, we walked to the church. It took us a while to get there because she couldn’t remember where it was from the week before, but I enjoyed the walk. It was all downhill. It was kind of funny to be honest because Nigerians of her age tend to be very religious and she kept stopping along the road to say good morning and ask people if they knew where Christ Hope Church was. When they said they didn’t know, she’d be like, “does nobody here go to church??”

Well we eventually found it and ended up arriving like an hour before service started even though we got there around 9 and she told me it started at 8. So we sat and waited and listened to the choir rehearse. I was surprised to see a very different demographic from the church I used to go to in Seattle, where the average age is probably 55+. The majority of the congregation seemed to be younger than 55 and many of them appeared to be in their 20s without parents forcing them to be there. There were maybe 30 people by the time the service started. Instead of pews, there were plastic chairs set up about a foot apart from each other. A woman came and greeted us when she realized we were new. She spoke English and explained to us the sermon would be in Kinyarwanda, but we were welcome and she hoped we’d get something out of our time with them. I told Kemi I was hungry and had things I wanted to do, so I’d be leaving early because it turned out the service was almost 2 hours long and beyond the praise and worship, I didn’t get much of anything out of the service aside from watching peoples body language and imagining what they might be saying. So we left early after waving goodbye and thanking the woman for welcoming us. I went to the hostel to change because I was wearing some pants I’d gotten at a market in Nairobi that were too big and I was tired of having to keep pulling them up.

From the hostel, I took a motorbike to Eagle View cafe- the hostel owner had recommended it as having the best view in all of Kigali and it really didn’t disappoint. It was vibey and beautiful with stunning views, gorgeous art and the perfect R&B playlist. It was expensive though, so I told myself I’d just have a cup of tea. Well, it ended up raining hard while I was there so I had to stick around and wait it out. I ended up having some soup and spending a couple hours planning the next stop on my trip with my travel companion in Kenya. I liked that the place had blankets for customers to use because it was cold in there with the windows open.

Eventually the rain stopped and I had to get to another appointment I’d made for myself with a loctician. I started my locs myself in April and no one but me had touched them at that point. I was past due for a retie and also desperately needed a good wash with some hot water. It cost about $20 USD and it was so nice to have my hair looking and feeling fresh. The studio I went to was in a mall and it was poppin in there with 5 or 6 employees, all young. The mall though, was empty, with all the shops closed. I guess because it was Sunday. After getting my hair done, I went back to Cap 99 Bistro and had a burger and a cocktail, which tbh was just ok. The fish is the star of their menu. Then I went back to the hostel for my final night. It was a different kind of night, talking to a friend from the Nairobi hostel on the phone as he was going through some things in Thailand. Eventually I made plans to move to an Airbnb the next day and went to bed.

Day 4/5– Moving to an Airbnb and travel planning challenges

Getting to my Airbnb was *rubs temples*.

So if you recall from my first post from Kigali, there’s no Uber in Rwanda. I had my big bag to move and it wasn’t packed well because most of my laundry was dirty and I didn’t want to pack it up all compact. So I had more volume to deal with than I felt confident carrying on a motorbike. So I tried the rideshare app I’d downloaded at the airport, Yego. I was all packed and ready to go. Called my ride. In the app, you specify pickup and dropoff location, just like in Uber. The app tells me my driver is named so-and-so, driving whatever car, and is 2 minutes away! 10 minutes later, I get a call from a man who doesn’t speak English. Thankfully, there was a woman there with me who spoke Kinyarwanda. She gets on the phone with him and is speaking loudly with him, looking agitated so I’m like, “oh good I’m not the problem this time”. She hangs up and tells me the man doesn’t know where he is, but she tried her best to give him directions. I’m like, “he doesn’t have my location in the app???” Wycliff asked what app I was using and I told him Yego. They were both like LOL no wonder, you should use the Move app. So I downloaded the Move app and had a much smoother experience. I still had to pay cash, as the app doesn’t charge your card, but the driver actually knew where he was going which was refreshing. I got to the Airbnb to check in around noon and I was told they needed more time to get ready. I asked if I could do my laundry and they showed me the machine in the basement. I got laundry started and waited in the lobby for the apartment to be cleaned. Once I checked in, I used the wifi to plan my moves for the day. So I’d originally planned to travel to Cairo that evening, but I’d decided that day that instead I wanted to go to ✨my new favorite country✨ the next day instead. So I was trying to change my flight, something I couldn’t manage to do the day before online. I couldn’t change or cancel my flight the previous day because Ethiopian Airlines is a trash airline that feels like a prank honestly. My travel companion in Kenya made the call to their office for me because I didn’t have phone service and he advised me to go the the Ethiopian office and talk to the manager about changing my flight. So what did I do? I went to the airport. After getting on a motorbike, asking to be taken to the airport and the motorbike guy proceeds to drive us away from the airport… I told him pull over lol here take this money I’m gonna catch a driver who knows how to go to the airport. Honestly, I was probably being rude af because the previous day and that one had my stress levels eleeeevated. But I paid the guy and made sure to be extra sure that the next driver knew where the airport was before I got on his bike. Anyway, I go to the airport and they tell me to go to the Ethiopian office downtown LOL.

So I catch a motorbike to the office downtown where I see my first beggars in Kigali. This young man is asking me to please buy him food so I take him to a restaurant and order him a burger and fries for $7 because I’m trying to keep things in perspective and the kid actually looks like he could use food. When we get there, there’s a whole family outside asking me for food and I’m like no sorry. I wonder if that kid shared any of his food. Anyway, I walk to the Ethiopian office and have a conversation with this rude lady who laughs at me and tells me I can’t cancel my flight because it left already- false. So I talked to someone else and they charged me too much money to change my flight. I just ate the cost because I wanted the experience to be over and my head was already out of the country, I was so ready to leave. My companion in Kenya was like noooo you were supposed to talk to the manager and I was like whatever bro I’m done talking to people today.

I took a motorbike back to the airbnb where my clean clothes were hanging to dry on the roof under a sky that continued the threaten rain for the next 16 hours. I was so thankful the apartment building had a cozy restaurant downstairs called Mwene Gihanga. The women who worked there were so friendly and I felt so at ease, something I really needed. I had dinner and tried a locally made banana wine which was actually not bad. I went upstairs and ended my day with a hot shower, a true gift and an excellent way to wash off the stress of the day.

Day 5/5 – Kimironko Market, Genocide Memorial, and travels

My final morning waking up in Kigali, I was like ok, my flight is booked I’m ready to go! Spoiler alert: I was not ready to go. My flight wasn’t until evening, so I had the day to actually go see some of the sites in Kigali that I was too busy scrambling to see for the previous 2 days. I started the day off with breakfast downstairs then headed to Kimironko market. I was being super conservative with my cash and only took a limited amount, my new favorite budgeting hack. As expected, vendors were aggressively trying to sell to me. As soon as I walked in, like 4 guys swarmed around me like “come to my booth!” and I was immediately like oh wait a minute, I hate this. So I halfheartedly went to one guy’s booth since it was in the direction I was walking anyway and I was like nah, no thanks. Now listen I’m not gonna say all men are horrible people, but given the chance I will opt to support women nearly 100% of the time. So I told the guys to leave me alone, I don’t want anyone bothering me. My smiley American facade was fully melted away by this point. Thank you, Rwanda, for giving me the space to be me 😂. So I stopped by a couple of women’s booths and picked up some souvenirs. I walked around a little bit and admired the offerings. I actually do kind of wish I went with more cash and a better attitude because I could’ve gotten more stuff, especially the handmade crafts. But well, it was what it was. One side of the market had vendors selling crafts, souvenirs, home goods like pots and pans, batteries, everything. The other side was a produce market with massive piles of fruits and vegetables. I was tempted to stop and look but my desire to keep people out of my face was stronger than my curiosity at that point, so I just walked through and swept over the space with my eyes. On my way out, this one guy was like come to my booth, I’ll give you a free bracelet! I was like maybe next time. Because you never turn down free stuff. Save it for later.

After leaving the market, I went back to the bnb get my (thankfully) dry clothes off the roof and pack them up along with my new souvenirs so I could check out. I left my bag downstairs with security while I took a motorbike to my final stop and the one I was most looking forward to experiencing – the Kigali Genocide Memorial. When I arrived, I got checked in at the front desk and the man asked me where I was from. I was especially ashamed of my Americanness in that place so I told him Canada. He told me, “oh, there was a Canadian general, Romeo Dallaire, who was instrumental in peacekeeping initiatives during and after the genocide.” Reason # 85748942 I’m much prouder to be an imaginary Canadian than an actual American. He got me set up with the headset for the audio tour and directed me into the theater room off the lobby.

—- TRIGGER WARNING: The following section describes acts of extreme violence and brutality. If you’re not up for reading this, please take care and skip this section. Scroll down until you see the a photo of me smiling + a book cover and read from there —-

In the theater, a short film played giving an overview of the absolute horrors of the 1994 genocide. The museum and memorial isn’t just a place of education and remembrance, it’s also the final resting place for 250,000 Rwandans who were brutally murdered. The 1.5 hour walk through the museum that followed was heavy and really difficult to digest. Before the belgians arrived in Rwanda, the people didn’t really see themselves as belonging to one ethnic group or another. But the European need to categorize and distinguish people from one another became a national practice, as Rwandans were evaluated based on their physical features and classified on their nationally mandated IDs as belonging to the Tutsi, Hutu or Twa ethnic groups. The Hutus made up the majority of the population, but were considered “blacker” and therefore inferior by the colonizers, who really had a control over these people that they never should have in the first place – a story you’ll see repeated over and over as you study history on the continent and beyond.

Over the decades, tensions grew between the ethnic groups, with propaganda spread via radio, print, and even law solidifying the belief that the Tutsis were a threat to the Hutus. When you plant the seed in peoples minds that some other group is an inherent threat to them, it seems there’s no limit to the atrocities they’ll commit. In January 1994, the Canadian General Dallaire raised the alarm to the UN Security Council of an impending Hutu campaign to exterminate the Tutsis and the UN did what it did best – it withdrew security forces from the region and said, “ya’ll got this one”. Come June 1994, Hutu civilians were brutally torturing, raping, and murdering their Tutsi neighbors and countrymen. Seeing the things they did, even to children who they knew and helped to raise – man, my stomach was doing backflips in the worst way. The capacity for humans to do unspeakable evil is far greater than I’ve ever wanted to pay attention to, but this museum really put a spotlight on it in a way that you can’t ignore or belittle. And it isn’t even like it was only military personnel carrying out these acts. Everyday people were taking up arms against their own people- but they didn’t see them as their own people because they’d been convinced they were inherently different, as if they were a different species. Sickening.

[Ugh I was like how am I gonna write about this without digging a deep, dark hole. Well, there’s no getting around some things]

The images and quotes from survivors were truly heartbreaking to see. People who were children at the time of the genocide still live with memories of their entire families being murdered by neighbors who they had grown up welcoming into their homes. Tutsis were lured into churches by religious leaders and ambushed, violently raped by militants who knew they carried disease, and murdered. The genocide lasted around 100 days. It took time, but the capacity for human evil was displayed in equal parts as peoples’ capacity for mercy and forgiveness. Today in Rwanda, it is unspeakable to even ask someone what ethnic group they belong to. Everyone is considered Rwandan. I could not imagine knowing that my family was taken from me and turning around to forgive and continue with my life. Still, the horrors and crimes of the past have largely been forgiven and the country sincerely prioritizes remembrance and national unity in an earnest effort to move forward. So even though it was depressing, it made me look in awe at the survivors who were walking around and living their lives with apparent normalcy. This was only 31 years ago, so anyone, probably 34 years old and above, likely carries some memory and trauma of living through one of the most hellish experiences humanity has seen.

The museum and memorial was extremely emotional, excruciatingly eye-opening, and to be honest I am still processing it. I appreciate that the museum serves as an education center that profiles genocides that have been seen all over the world too – some of which I had never heard of or knew very little about – Cambodia, South Africa, and of course, Germany. I feel like Americans forget that our society isn’t only built on the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, but also the genocide of the indigenous peoples that occupied this land before the Europeans arrived. One of the key components of an impending genocide is the slow, but deliberate distinction between people of different identity groups. A situation you’ll see playing out in real time around the globe if you look around. Man, it’s difficult to find light these days, but facing the reality of darkness is good. [Please no one send me a DM asking me if I’m ok. I’m fine, just confronting the truth ya know.]

As I’m currently personally working through more than one attempt to forgive and never forget, the seemingly superhuman capacity of the Rwandans to forgive and show grace to those who took everything from them, it’s inspiring and I hope that one day the world will see more people living with the commitment to unity and cooperation that the Rwandan people live with today.

—- END OF SENSITIVE MATERIAL —-

At this point, my travel companion was in Kenya still struggling to book his flight to our next destination so I was like ok cool I’m going alone then cuz ain’t no way he’s making that flight. It really wasn’t that chill, I was actually really upset and still holding out hope but I’m not writing about that here. I will say that much of the issue arose from Ethiopian Airlines once again being the corporate embodiment of a rotting pile of garbage because they don’t allow customers to book flights online within 24 hours of the flight time using a credit card. Or so I was told anyway. So I headed to the airport and not until after I arrived did I remember that I had never applied for my travel authorization (the next destination used travel authorizations instead of visas, which are easy to apply for online, but should be requested at least 24 hours before your flight). So I stood by the check-in counter and quickly applied for my travel authorization on my phone, paying the premium to have it expedited and approved in the next hour. I was approved within 15 minutes and then proceeded to stand in the check-in line for over an hour – a line where there were only 3 people in front of me. Ethiopian Airlines, man. Never again. Slow and incompetent af. I will give them credit for a smooth and safe flight, but still never again with them if I can help it. Eventually I made it onto the plane and, still buzzing with the most intense anxiety I can recall ever having experienced at that time, I set off for my next destination and what would quickly become my new favorite country.

But first, a layover in Addis Ababa.