After a frustrating morning of being told several wrong times for the buses, trying to figure out whether I could cross the border at a different place than my VISA specified without any concrete information, a cell phone conversation with the border guy which comprised of me asking questions and him constantly repeating "You come to Katuna", and finally my cell phone service going out when we lost power, I caught a ride with a friend of the Kampala coach manager and made it to the Katuna border crossing.
After all of the drama, the specified border crossing didn't end up being an issue at all. The major issue was a millimetre long tear in my US $20 bill, which made them refuse to accept it. I converted the last of my Ugandan shillings for another $20 and we headed into Rwanda.
I have encountered some TERRIBLE driving in my 3 months in Africa, but I had about 15 minutes of sheer terror before it occurred to me that unlike Tanzania and Uganda, Rwanda is not a British colony. Rwanda is basically just mountains, so you are constantly whipping around mountain corners. I couldn't understand why, no matter which way we were turning, our driver almost always chose to drive on the wrong side of the street. I don't know if he sensed my terror or perhaps noticed me anxiously leaning to check for cars every time we rounded a corner, but he finally said "Do you drive on the right side of the road in Canada also?"
Right in the centre of Rwanda, it's capital, Kigali, is a very stange and out of place city. The countryside looks just like the rest of East Africa, covered in farms and mud huts, but is even more beautiful as these spread over towering, misty mountains that are covered in lush greenery. Kigali, in contrast, has perfectly paved roads, brick sidewalks, ultra-modern street lights, painted curbs, a giant fountain, and even little reflectors along the side of the streets.
After the genocide, the western world dumped aid money into Rwanda out of guilt for not doing anything sooner. In an effort to keep it coming, I am told that Kagame did things to make it appear that Rwanda was very prosperous. Someone said it is actually illegal for them to have grass roofs (they must use tin)or to not wear shoes.
Whether or not it was the right way to spend the money, it certainly makes certain parts of Kigali feel like you never left home. For my first dinner in Rwanda, I went out with a bunch of guys from my hostel to a new place that had opened. It actually felt like Earl's, I was so weirded out. Everything was made of beautiful dark wood, there were leather couches, there were decorative carvings in the hardwood tables. There was a Heineken party going on there, complete with Heineken pillows and even those obnoxious "Red carpet" backgrounds for photos that they have at all of the douchy parties in Toronto. Something about being in a place like this when I travelled all the way to Africa and there were people in mud huts about 15 minutes away just rubbed me the wrong way. After a pricey dinner, I got out as fast as I could.
I spent my first morning in Kigali at the Gisozi genocide memorial. After feeling like I was reading a fiction when I read Romeo Dallaire's "Shake Hands with the Devil," I thought that when I got here it would somehow hit me that it was real. Gisozi was very interesting and informative, but those big, beautiful, well lit boards with colourful pictures hardly elicit an emotional response.
When I was walking through the garden outside, there were two women sitting on a bench and crying. I felt very strange, like I was somehow invading on their space and their tragedy, so I put down my head and hurried by.
Upstairs was the history for a bunch of different genocides including Nazi Germany, and a third room had pictures of adorable children with details on what they wanted to be when they grew up, what their favourite food was, and how they died: grenade, machete, etc. Its just so hard to imagine that someone could actually do that to those small, innocent children.
After an emotional day, I had a change of pace for St. Patty's Day. They don't really celebrate in Africa, but we got a group together at our hostel, managed to find a mzungu party, and ended up having a really fun night.
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