Des Milles Collines Kigali

I have a bike now, a mountain bike. Photos 1 and 2 In the evening, just after work, I often run up the mountain to the Hotel des Mille Collines, where I stop for a drink at the swimming pool. When it's becoming dark, at 18 o'clock I run down the whole mountain, very very fast and with a helmet on my head. I look very stupid with this helmet, but people have asked me if I like Rwandan Hospitals... I'm one of the only ones riding a bike here in Kigali. In Hotel Mille Collines, the hotel manager...

I awoke to a clear sky and beautiful sunrise over Kigali from our terrace. I headed downstairs for some morning shots and checked out the peacocks in the gardens, the early morning Rwandans (it was 6.15am) already on the tennis courts, or in the pool...and then...I saw it. THE GYM. I ran back upstairs and put the running gear I had brought with me. 2 hours later, after a 6km run, some weights and fending off the temptation to go crazy in front of the full wall mirrors in the work-out room (I ...

I didn't do much today. I just relaxed by the pool at the Hotel Des Milles Collines aka Hotel Rwanda. You can't help but think about all the horrible things that happened in this hotel just 15 years ago. I have approached the part of my African tour that I was not looking forward to the most. I now have to figure out the best way to get to Malawi directly from Rwanda. Reading the guide books, they give you the impression it could take you up to a week to do this trek. It's even noted that it ...

This morning Dr. Swartz, Mr. Mundeli, Flavia, and Rahab left at 3:30 am for the drive up to the Virunga volcanoes to see the gorillas. Dr. Kirkpatrick and I left a little after 9:00 to visit the genocide memorials at Nyamata and Ntarama. Those villages used to be a challenge to visit because the roads were so bad. It often took 2 hours to travel the 30 kms (about 20 miles) out to Nyamata, and it was a tiring trip because of the washboard patches of road and the potholes. Three months ago, a n...

Saturday, we were up early. The fourth Saturday of each month is a civic work day throughout the country. Every Rwandan is required to report for duty to work on civic improvement projects like filling potholes, cutting grass along the roads, shoveling out the gutters along the roads and such activities. Not a bad idea in principle, except that it happens on the Sabbath. Though our church members have derogation from working on the Sabbath for religious reasons in their own villages, a van lo...

Friday was a very full and very sobering day. At my request Mr. Mundeli had contacted a taxi driver named Samuel that I've used before and arranged for him to take us out to Nyamata and Ntarama, two genocide memorial sites about 30 km outside of Kigali. Samuel was prompt at 9:30, and we loaded into his old Carola to start out. His Toyota like most of the vehicle in Rwanda had the steering wheel on the right, even though they also drive on the right. The reason for this is that most of the veh...

Yesterday was my second day at SERUKA. I spent most of the day reading reports in English and in French about the work of SERUKA. It seems that I may be working on a good governance and reconciliation project that SERUKA is overseeing in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee and USAID. I will be meeting with Desire and Francois today to finalize my internship plans for the next two months. After work I left with Desire, Bridgit, and two other people from the office (me being b...

Today I was on my own. I was supposed to meet Désiré at 10am today, but after waiting until 12pm I left on my own. I left the guesthouse and headed up to the Rwandan Office of Tourism and Parks, which is located behind Hotel Mille Collines. When I got there a guard approached me. He spoke little French and no English, and I spoke no Swahili (he asked me if I did). He has been the first person with whom I have been completely unable to communicate. Either way, he pointed to a sign on the windo...

First I apologize for not having pictures up yet. I've been trying to get them uploaded here at the office, since I don't really want to deal with taking my camera out at the internet cafe. However, here at the office internet is frustratingly intermittent, so I don't have a lot of time to make these updates. Well, "research" has been going pretty well I must say. I've been able to speak to the several orgs that I mentioned earlier and have plans to be out on the field for at least two days n...

It was a mistake to have read Immaculée Ilibaziga's book, 'Left to Tell' while in Rwanda. This is story about her survival of the Rwandan genocide in 1994- when the death of Rwanda's Hutu president sparked a 3 month slaughter of nearly one million ethnic Tutsi's. And the world refused to acknowledge that a genocide was taking place. Most of Immaculée's family were brutally hacked to death by machete-wielding killers. The worst thing about it is that the killers were people she knew, neighbour...