Journal #50 - Rwanda

Muraho from Rwanda! 

We arrived at Kigali in the middle of the night and almost did not get off the plane. We had our first experience with air travel that “makes stops”. It flew to our destination, then it turned around and took off again for the next airport - without making the other passengers deplane and reboard. Not realizing this, we stayed seated when we landed in Kigali, since most the people around us also did so. We thought we were following social cues. It is a good thing we were awake though and noticed passengers deplaning several rows ahead of us. Having finally caught on, we had to frantically crawl out of our seats, pull down our bags, and we were the last passengers to exit the plane.  

Once we got our feet on the ground, we were thrilled with what we saw. We had arrived at a city that is intermingled with the jungle. Driving down the streets we passed patches of wild trees and brush every other block. The buildings were new and modern, but the landscape was untamed and these halves rested side-by-side in harmony. I have never looked out from a balcony and seen so much green as I overlooked a city skyline, and it was refreshing.

Where we spent most of the trip was nestled on a hillside (in the Land of 1,000 Hills that’s not hard to do), but it meant that we could look out over Kigali's downtown. Since we visited during the rainy season, this vantage point gave us a glorious view of the trees and the city as the thunderstorms rolled in - and they came often. Almost every afternoon the sky would darken, and the water would begin to pour down in the fattest droplets. They would rattle against our aluminum roof and the lightning would spark, lighting up the room while we were in the middle of our work meetings.  

One feature of our time in Kigali, that might have been specific to our particular neighborhood, was power outages. This meant that several afternoons into the evening (while we were logged on to work) all of the lights and internet would abruptly go out. We found ourselves working off of batteries and hotspots in the pitch black, with strobing heat lightning for ambiance. This was a pretty thrilling setup for working, as long as no one expects you to turn your camera on.

Because we were able to visit Rwanda for an extended period of time, we had the luxury of signing up for a gym membership. This place was within walking distance of our accommodations and had the added benefit of the back wall having floor-to-ceiling windows. This meant that if the rainstorms rolled in while we were there, we could watch the clouds swirl and the water blow around over the treetops. The whole city felt very in tune with nature and its surroundings with its design. 

The only part of our visit that was not joyful was our time spent at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. We had both learned about this dark spot in Rwanda’s history prior to arriving, but walking around the memorial and through the museum put things in a brutally fresh perspective. The space was designed to help you understand the history around how tensions rose to that level along with the timeline during the events. It was most impactful for us to watch the recordings of the survivors retelling their experiences, how they still feel about trust, and what the aftermath looked like for them. To many this memorial has served as an honorable burial ground and a beautiful place to come and commune with their lost loved ones, so it was touching to see a place where they have found so much peace and healing.  

I will add that this memorial did give me a rather large shock, maybe the biggest I have ever gotten in a museum in the form of their Kids Room. Typically when I walk into a space like this, I assume that it is designed for the subject matter to be discussed at a child level and these are commonly more interactive spaces, but that was not the case. This room was indeed a kids' room because it was dedicated to the children who were killed in 1994. The whole chamber was filled with portraits of named children alongside their birthdays, their favorite sweets, their death days, and the method of their murder.  It served its purpose in driving home the atrocities and terrible losses that occurred and left us both rattled.

We were grateful to be visiting the Republic of Rwanda and to have built our own perceptions of this wonderful nation firsthand. It is a beautiful country and we truly enjoyed our time here. Unfortunately, we must now move on to our next stop - thankfully, it is an exciting one. The ensuing country is home to almost half of the world's population of mountain gorillas. Any guesses where we are off to next?