Commemoration Visit April 2012

Well, it has been too long since my last entry. I intended to have at least one, of not two posts up while I was in Kigali. However, we traveled quite a bit and met so many people, the time just wasn’t there. In addition to that, I arrived in Rwanda at the end of the 1994 Genocide Commemoration Week, which was a difficult time, but also possibly the best time to be in the country. To say the unity of most of the population is impressive is a massive understatement and I simply do not have the words to describe the way that Rwandans have come together in the last 18 years. My experience is limited to about five weeks in the country, but aside from the memorial sites in nearly every town, there really are very limited signs that nearly 1 million people were killed. From my experiences reading accounts of other genocides around the world, Rwanda’s progress is remarkable to say the least.

Aside from the Commemoration week, and really month long remembrances, Kigali was just as busy and fun as it was in January. Of course the main objective of my visit was to spend time with Laura, but there were many opportunities to experience things that I had shied away from on my first visit to Rwanda. In the southern part of the country we went to the National Museum in Butare, saw the King’s palace in Nyanza, and saw the Genocide Memorial in Murambi (some of these details are in the latest Rooster Rouser, my apologies if you are following both blogs). In the northern part of the country we visited the family of Laura’s Kinyarwanda teacher in the village of Mutara. Finally, near Kigali we met with a good friend’s family and saw their farmland and livestock met their friends and enjoyed some excellent food together, also met with other friends and tried sorghum beer. There are so many details I hope to fit into this entry that it may get a bit long, but stick with me. Trust me you will enjoy the read.

Let me begin with the fun and work myself up to the more difficult topics. Laura pretty much had the first couple of days in Rwanda planned out for me before I got there. I found out that the plan was to get on a bus for about four hours and head north to Mutara. This was a village near where Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda meet. There Laura introduced me to friends she had met over the last few months, and really most of the village. I would describe the northern part of Rwanda as the Wisconsin of the country, meaning the people are amazingly proud of their cows and milk. We visited three houses there and were offered milk at two of them. I was informed that it is very rude to refuse, so I had the freshest milk I have ever tasted, not that I really liked it, but the gesture was understood. I guess American food processes have ruined my taste for fresh, warm milk. But everyone in the village was so nice and welcoming, we were invited to come back any time, and I could tell they really meant it, part of me felt rather bad that I know it will be quite some time before I will be back in that neck of the woods. Upon preparing to leave the town we were offered a ride to the bus stop by a friend, he was so excited to show us some of the scenery and the borders with the other countries that we nearly missed the bus back to Kigali.

Towards the end of my visit we got to meet with a friend’s family on their farm outside of Kigali. Emmanuel is a very good friend who has visited us in Lincoln and Sioux City, and met Laura and my family, so it was exciting to meet his siblings. They have a nice plot of land overlooking the Nyabarongo River where they have hogs, cows and a good amount of crop space where they grow onions, potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms, and beans. The area is beautiful, but flooding a bit near the river which was a good thing for my own safety. I was talking about going down to the shore when Emmanuel casually mentioned that there are crocodiles in the river, and rarely hippos, as well, good information to have near a river anywhere in Africa, I guess.

Complicating the visit a bit, as mentioned in Laura’s blog, there was a discovery of a mass grave in the area earlier in the week. This was a strange experience and I will try my best to explain the happenings we witnessed while there. Apparently a genocide perpetrator had revealed the location of a mass grave and the neighborhood was having a meeting to decide how to proceed with the recovery of the bodies. I came to find out that this is a not unusual meeting, and Laura had even been with a group earlier in April when they exhumed a mass grave for proper burial. So the night we were there Emmanuel’s sister, who is one of the community leaders, was taking part in planning for exhumation and related issues. The meeting was sort of a weird combination of a funeral and a family reunion. There was laughing and stories being told, and some people you could tell were a bit sadder, being quiet in the background. Really, just quite the thing to see, and just difficult to grasp the intricacies of what was happening. All in all, it was a very unique experience and one I am glad I could share, even if as an outsider.

Then there was Murambi.

I rarely am at a loss for words, especially when writing, but this section is the one that has held me up for two, maybe three weeks, in getting a blog update done. There may, in fact, not be an appropriate way to describe the memorial there. A couple days into my trip we decided to go to the southern part of the country to see the National Museum, the Kings Palace and the Murambi Genocide Memorial. The museum and the palace were informative and worth the trip…but again I say, then there was Murambi. So let me start with the history of the site as it was explained to me. The area is on a well visible hilltop and was a technical school that was under construction in 1994. There are several classroom buildings that people fleeing the early genocide violence were led to for safety, as many as 40,000 (some websites say 50,000) were staying there when the Genocidaires arrived. It had been a trap. With that many people on a relatively small hilltop, killing was depressingly easy. The bodies were dumped into mass graves and covered with lime which sort of preserved/mummified many of the bodies. A small fraction of those 40,000-50,000 are on display in the classroom buildings, laid in neat, but crowded rows on wood slat tables and benches. There are many websites out there with the terrible images, search them if you wish, but if you are planning on visiting the site, they will not completely prepare you for what you will see.

The best advice I have for preparing for a visit to the Murambi site would be don’t go alone, Laura and I went with a group of three others, all had different reactions, some were prepared, some didn’t really know what they were in for. The main museum prepares you (as best as possible) for what you will see in the classrooms, after a self-guided tour in the museum we waited for a guide to take us outside to the classrooms and the mass grave sites. First you will be walked by the relatively newly constructed concrete tombs for the victims that have been laid to rest. You may bring a flower to place on the graves, and after a moment of silence the guide will lead you back to the classrooms. There you will see maybe about 50 to 100 bodies in each of the rooms, I believe the guide said there are 24 rooms of bodies. At the first room the first thing you will notice is the smell. The smell is something you will truly never forget. Then you see the bodies. It takes a moment for your eyes to focus from the bright equatorial sunlight into the dark brick classroom. I found it strange how easy it was to see, but on some other level, terribly disturbing. Laura had prepared me well for what would be seen, as she had been there in a couple of years ago, still being led through room after room, some containing bodies, some containing bones, and some containing personal effects of victims you just see the magnitude of what happened a mere 18 years ago. I think there are only about 1000 bodies on display, maybe a few more if you count the bones that are in display cases and it seems like so many, but even counting all the deaths there it only accounts for 4-5% of the genocide deaths.

Then the tour concludes with the stinky French cherry on top. The tour guide concludes the tour by showing where the exhumed mass graves were, and explaining how useless the international community was in Rwanda. Apparently there were French soldiers in the area, who could have lessened the damage done at Murambi, instead they waited for things to calm down and moved in afterwords for the cleanup, which consisted of cleaning up classrooms to use for barracks, and, finishing off the mass graves by building volleyball courts on top of them.

Despite the atrocity there, it has been turned into a strangely serene and eerily peaceful memorial, and I would hope that anyone interested in Rwandan history or genocide studies makes the trip. Life as usual goes on around the memorial, there is a busy town nearby and it is not far from Butare where the National University and Museum are. It is also only a few hours from Kigali and worth the drive.

I think that will be all for this post. Sorry for the length, but there was a lot stuck in my brain that needed to be put on paper. Hope you enjoyed!

Rwanda January 2012 Intro and Food

 My Trip

So upon my return from Rwanda, I am finding out that there is so much more to the trip that I forget to share when I am asked, that I am just going to put it in writing. My intent is to include all the little details that anyone that has any interest in travel should know, but at the same time to keep your interest and not be a travel guide. I want to simply share what I saw and enjoyed while in Kigali and around the rest of the country. I will divide this into sections, some of which run together, some that are only loosely related, and maybe some offhand commentary. I want to tell you all about the food, the people, the city and the rest of the country, and how I compare it to life in the US. I fear this may turn into a much longer project than I intended, but stick with me, or just read the headings that look interesting to you. Enjoy!

Where did I go?

For those that weren’t sure where I went, or why: I went to Kigali, Rwanda which is the capital of Rwanda a very small country in the central to western part of Africa (http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/google_map_rwanda.htm). I went to Rwanda to visit the most awesome partner I could have, Laura Roost (http://lauraroost.blogspot.com/) you can see her thoughts and some of her work in Rwanda on her blog. We went all over the country to parks and villages and resort towns and enjoyed all of it, but mostly enjoying the time together. She has been there since October and will remain until July, while studying on Fulbright scholarship. I stayed in Kimironko which is a relatively small part of the city with its own outdoor market about three blocks from the house.

What did I see?

I saw so much more than I expected. I was expecting a big city, lots of people and all the things that go along with a metropolitan area. I did see that, but I also saw the small towns-like areas that make up the city of Kigali. Most of the areas have their own markets, stores, restaurants and bars. There are really not many “chain stores” so this makes each area of town even more unique. If there is a restaurant you find downtown, that is going to be the only location like it in the whole country (there will be more about restaurants in the What did I eat Section).

Aside from the basic cityscape, I saw progress. Large buildings are going up all over Kigali. They are building a new convention center, numerous hotels, and other business buildings; most of them being built by Chinese companies. If you think ‘Made in China’ is a problem in the US, you could not mentally conceive what is going on in Rwanda. The country is not just building downtown, either, residential areas near the city and in rural areas are building bigger, more Western style houses, and infrastructure is being improved everywhere. Electrical poles are being put up in very rural areas and roads are being paved and improved as well. Looking at hillside villages I saw hundreds of new roofs and new construction everywhere.

Aside from new construction, I also saw less modern things. In the countryside there are terraced fields all the way up steep hillsides everything from bananas and sorghum to corn and rice, to tea and coffee are grown in Rwanda. There were goats grazing along the roads, chickens roaming about and small cattle ranches. Away from the cities subsistence agriculture is still the main way of life.

What did I eat?

I think this is my favorite subject to talk about, because going into the trip I doubted that there was going to be anything very memorable about the cuisine, thankfully I was very wrong. The traditional food was some of the best food I’ve had anywhere. In describing the meals it is hard to convince anyone that rice, beans, potatoes, and a simple salad would be a great dinner, but the ingredients are so fresh and well prepared they are amazing together. Our typical lunch was a choice of neighborhood buffets where you get one plate and a drink for less than $5, sometimes as low as $2, depending on the place. There was always some sort of beans, usually some rice, vegetables, salads with mayonnaise as dressing, fried potatoes (chips/fries, whatever you want to call them) maybe some beef, chicken, or fish, and fresh fruit. And that was just the traditional food. Many of the places also had awesome spaghetti (still trying to figure that one out) randomly there would be a creamy mushroom soup which was very tasty too. Aside from the restaurants there was food prepared in our home, by the housekeeper Yolande, her food was also fantastic. She made great vegetables and always kept the fridge stocked.

There were quite a few good places for supper too. Some of the best pizza I have had, as well as good lasagna and pasta at Solé Luna and New Cactus. There was also the very good Chinese restaurant called Tangren, we went there for a birthday party for one of the housemates, everything was family style and we shared many things from spring rolls to fried pork balls (the latter was my contribution to the order). Laura and I also had a bit of an adventure when trying to find the Sake Japanese place, our taxi dropped us off and drove away before we knew where we were (not at the restaurant), that led to about a half hour of walking to a main road to get another ride. Once there, the food again was great and amazing quick service.

My overall favorite place and one of a very few non-buffets we ate at twice was the New Fiesta German Butchery and Quick Service Restaurant. They have and excellent German, American, French, and Rwandan selections on the menu. On different visits I had one of the best cheeseburgers I have ever tasted, then excellent beef stroganoff. Laura had a really excellent ham and chicken pasta, and brochette and chips that were just as good as anywhere else in the country.

All of the above places were in Kigali, but on our adventure away from the city to the Paradis Malahide Hotel near the town of Gisenyi we got a bit of a different taste of Rwanda. There was a great ‘drive in’ sort of place with potatoes, brochette (meat on a stick) and meatballs. Some of the best road food I have ever had! Once to the hotel the restaurant there made amazing omelets for breakfast, and a full menu of meat and fish for supper, all were quite good. I will probably have more on the Lake Kivu/Gisenyi area in another section.

Then there were the drinks. I miss the Coke already, and any of the other sodas as well, they taste so much better with the real sugar instead of corn syrup. It’s hard to find the good Coke in the states anywhere but Mexican grocery stores. The beer there was also pretty good, there are a few local beers from Rwanda and Uganda (Primus is Laura’s favorite, Mutzig was mine), also tried a couple of Tanzanian beers (Kilimanjaro, and Safari). For reasons that I cannot figure out the main import beer is Heineken priced about twice as much as the local ones.

A side note about the beverage companies’ influence in the region many of the bars and restaurants have taken up the beer brands on an offer for a free paint job. All over the country there are Primus bars painted in blue, Tusker bars painted yellow and black and Mutzig bars painted red. And of course there are the ubiquitous Coke snack shops in the familiar red and white.

Then finally there are the places that I would not recommend. Most of the larger higher priced hotels simply have overpriced menus as well. We stopped by for light lunches at the Kigali Serena and the Kivu Serena and were not greatly impressed by either one. The food was average and much higher priced than anywhere else, pretty much how most hotel restaurants are in the states tend to be. The Sportsview Hotel near Amahro Stadium also had overpriced food, though it was better than either Serena location. The Sportsview has a lunch buffet that was very busy and had a good selection of food, but was at least twice as expensive as most of the other lunch places just a few blocks away.