Next up... Kigali, Rwanda!

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I took an overnight bus from Kampala to Kigali and luckily I sat next to a super kind Rwandan guy who told me he would show me the way once we arrived in Kigali.

The next morning I got off the bus and he took me to the ATM and then to get a transit card because in Kigali you need a prepaid card to use in the busses… Am I really still in Africa?!?!

After buying the card we proceeded to find the stop for my bus to Kimironko and what I saw next left me speechless! People were queueing for the bus! wait…. what?!?!… a queue?!? Yeap! People were formed one after the other waiting for the bus to come!

Once the bus got there each person took a turn tapping the card and getting into the bus. The last person who got a seat in the bus closed the door and the bus left! It was so beautiful to see after all the chaos in the other East Africa countries! In Kenya you get harassed and pushed around to get in a matatu because the guys waiting for customers get a little commission for filling up a bus!

Waiting in line

After about 3 full busses I got on one to Kimirongo. On the way I noticed that there was no guy in charge of telling the driver when to stop so instead the person needing to get off knocked on the window to let the driver know that he needs to stop. After a 20 minute ride I made it to the bus station and then took a boda boda to my host’s house. I was also very impressed to see that boda bodas in Rwanda have, per law, to give a helmet to the passenger and can only carry one person. I’m loving Rwanda already.

I got to my host’s house, Christine and Prosper, and was impressed to see that I got a private room. It was early and I was so tired that I laid down and went to sleep. Once I woke up I went downstairs and joined the family and three other guests for breakfast. Christine and Prosper were the kindest hosts, they opened their doors for me and invited me to be part of their family.

During breakfast I said I was going to the Genocide museum and one of the guys, Uche (who had been there for 2 weeks and leaving the following day), said he would join me so we got ready and left.

In the bus to the memorial!

View of Kigali town

I knew that in the 90’s there was a genocide in Rwanda but didn’t know many details so I was excited to get educated on the history of Rwanda and see how it affected the country.

“Genocide is usually the act of a government and its collaborators to destroy a part of the population under its control.”

So what I learned is that the genocide in Rwanda started by the members of the ethnic majority, the Hutus, killing the minority, the Tutsis. Killers were determined to ensure that a new generation of Tutsis would never emerge. The killers carried machetes and people killed their neighbors and even family members. The killings happened literally everywhere: on the streets, in schools, and even in churches where people would throw grenades killing everybody inside it.

Reading about it was so sad, children and family members were made to watch how their parents or children were tortured! The genocide lasted “only” four months and the Hutus managed to kill over a million people! Not only that, but many people were mutilated, raped, cut with machetes, and were left pretty injured on the streets.

I don’t know if the memories I have from war in El Salvador are real or made up but people were left dead on the street but the amount of dead people in the streets of Rwanda was just surreal. Corpses were everywhere, some were being eaten by dogs, and apparently the stench of death in the country was unbearable!

In the middle of all the sadness of the genocide I read about one secondary school where rebels went into a classroom and asked the kids to separate into Hutus and Tutsis but children refused saying there were all Rwandans and rebels threw grenades. So sad!

The UN got involved but not even their 5,000 troop could stop the genocide. Refugee camps were open in Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire (now DRC) and more than 2 million Rwandans fled the country!

As we walked through the museum Uche said that it was in part fault of the Muslims! I was like “WTF?” I hate hate hate when people generalize, when we want to blame an ethnicity or a religion for something just because of our presumption or our narrow minded view and ignorance! What did muslims have to do with this genocide? Maybe there were a couple of Muslims that were Hutus and got involved but that doesn’t mean that the whole Muslim religion is responsible for it! I hate ignorance and when people talk without knowing much! It made me so mad! Plus, that’s the kind of mentality that creates division in this world, is that kind of mentality that feeds hatred between people that belong to different groups… how come people haven’t evolved to love one another and accepting of our differences? How come black people who have had a hard life fighting against prejudice from white people do the same to other ethnicities or religions? Haven’t we learned from the past? Are we ever going to learn from the past?
At that moment we were standing in front of the picture of the prime minister at the time and I said: “Was he a Muslim?… No! He was a Rwandan who thought he was better than other people and decided to kill everybody!”
And just by the way, 94% of attacks in the US have been by non-Muslims (1980-2005 statistic), and in Europe less than 2% of attacks have been by Muslims in the past 5 years but somehow we still think that Islam is the evil!

This genocide destroyed a country and left many children orphans. From a national trauma survey 80% of children lost a family member, 70% of children witnessed someone being killed or injured, and 90% of children believed they would die! How sad is that? Many children continued to suffer from PTSD and needed post trauma support.

The genocide destroyed the nation but what happened after was beautiful! Rwanda learned from it and the government brought the people together and made an effort to establish the truth about what happened during the genocide. People were interviewed and stories were gathered. They established the Gacaca courts and aim to promote truth, peace, justice, healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Therefore laying a foundation of peace and reconciliation in Rwanda.

“The future of any society depends on its ability to understand and reconcile with its past. Throughout Rwanda, youth are engaged in peace education programs and unity clubs.”

The history is heart breaking, but how they overcame it was pretty nice. The idea of peace education is such a beautiful concept and the best part is that it worked and still working.

Garden where more than 250,000 victims of genocide are buried!

From the genocide museum we walked back to the bus station and went to town. To be honest Kigali town is zero interesting! There is nothing, absolutely nothing but still walked around it just to make sure there was nothing around. We went to check our the hotel “Mille Collines”, famous from the genocide where some people were kept safe, but as I look at it from the outside decided to turn around and keep walking.

Super clean and organized bus station

That night we returned at home where we had a home cooked meal.

Group selfie

The next morning I set out to the local market to get some food with Prosper.

First we went to the get some vegetables in Nyabugogo market.

Green eggplants

Prosper carrying all the stuff we got!

From the lady below we got for 3,100 francs ($3.60) 2 cabbages, a bucket of carrots, a bucket f haricot vert, 4 aubergines and some onions.

We then moved to the fruit market. I was very impressed by the organization and the cleanliness of the place!

Tree Tomatoes!

Market selfie with Prosper

From the fruit Prosper said he would go and buy food for the dogs so I followed. Little did I know that dogs in Rwanda eat the left over meat. As we got into the meat section I started to get sick to my stomach by the smell and I couldn't handle it so I told Prosper I would leave and headed to run some errands and then stopped by the beautiful convention center!

This guy is loading money into bus cards!

The Radisson and the dome of the convention center!

From the convention center I walked to a couple of Art galleries.

The first one: Inema Arts Center.

A super cool modern gallery displaying the work of Rwandan artists. I really enjoyed walking around looking at all the pieces.

They had a special exhibition from a guy who makes art out of computer parts... pretty cool! And I was very impressed to see the really high price tag in all of his pieces!

The paintings on the right and at the back were some of my favorite! I asked one of the guys working there about it and they turned out to be from his brother, the one who had the idea of opening the gallery!

To be honest I was little unimpressed by the few pieces made from women. I even asked if they had female artist and they said that the room with a lot of small paintings had some female artist, to which I responded: "The one from young artist were you guys go and teach them art?" It is nice that they teach art to kids, but I think they should more of a women presence in the big exhibitions!

Then I went to the shop and found a very beautiful necklace and said "Let me guess... these necklaces are made by women!" and they were! Of course the women do all the sewing!!!

From Inema arts I went down the street to check out yet another art gallery, Ivuka Arts.

This art gallery was very different than Inema, it felt less sophisticated and has a more local feeling to it.

Here are the guys working hard:

From the art galleries I walked back to the Convention center since I wanted to see it all lit up! So beautiful!!!

I ended my time in Kigali by having an amazing dinner (and breakfast the next day) with my hosts and playing with their adorable baby!!!

Last breakfast!

Playing with her El Salvador flag!

About Post Author

Andrea

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!