Hello, Rwanda! The morning was pretty uneventful - my limo took me to the airport in Addis and I flew to Kigali. Security practices in airports here are interesting in their differences from western airports. They say that you can't bring liquids through, but they don't take your water bottles away if you bring a big one through security. You don't have to take your laptops out, but you do have to take your shoes off (at both the security entering the airport and the security where you go to the gates). But, their metal detectors are set to be so sensitive that they are set off by anything. The only metal I had on my person was the zipper on my sweatshirt, my stud earrings, and the underwire in my bra, and I still set off the metal detector. They seemed used to this, so the security guard patted me down and didn't even bother to identify the source of why I had set it off.
Similarly to airports everywhere, prices at the Addis airport are higher than they need to be - the markup here may even be higher. I paid $10 for a souvenir magnet and $5 for a juice that would have cost $1 anywhere else in Addis. Oh well - cost of doing business, I suppose.
Landing in Kigali was surprisingly relaxed, especially compared to other African airports. One thing I haven't mentioned is that every flight I've taken in Africa has involved an ebola screen upon landing. There is a person in a white lab coat waiting when you get off the plane with a gun-like object that they point at your forehead. I'm pretty sure it's meant to take your temperature, but no one has actually explained how the ebola screen works. I definitely appreciate that these countries are trying to keep ebola out of their borders, so I don't mind the screens.
Walking out of the airport in Kigali was not what I had expected. There were taxi drivers lined up waiting for passengers, as they are at every airport, but unlike other places, no one accosted me asking me if I want a ride. I actually had to walk up to the group and ask for a taxi driver! This welcome into the country was just one introduction to the tone of Kigali - it's an incredibly relaxed city. People here are not in a hurry and seem to mind their own business. There are apparently 1 million people living in this city, but I honestly don't know where they are. I have only seen a few pedestrians, and traffic doesn't seem to be bad at all. All in all, it seems like a nice place to live! I'm guessing we are staying in a nice neighborhood
I arrive at the hostel, which my friend Sandra had booked for us. We chose the place because it was well reviewed on the standard travel websites, and it super cheap - less than $20 per night. Even though it's a hostel, I hadn't bothered to ask Sandra what type of room she booked for us - I simply assumed that she would book us a double room. To my surprise, when I check in, the front desk clerk shows me to a shared room for 4 people - with 2 bunk beds - and tells me to take the top bunk. A bunk bed? I know this makes me sound like a spoiled brat, but I haven't slept in a bunk bed in over 10 years! Oh well, this is all part of the adventure, so I settle in and try to not stress about sleeping in a room with 2 strangers.
Sandra arrives about an hour after I do. She flew in from Australia, which took about 30 hours, so I waited until she got here to make any decisions about what to do this afternoon. I wasn't sure if she would want to sleep, stay around the hostel, or go out and explore. When she checks in, we find out that not only are we sleeping in shared rooms, but we're in separate shared rooms! So now I'll be sleeping in a room with 3 strangers - which takes me back to my undergrad days :) She and I make a quick run to a local shop to get some water and snacks, and we hang out around the hostel for a few hours while she showers, naps and otherwise settles in.
Since it's Saturday night, we decide to call a friend of one of our Booth friends who lives here. Her name is Jean, and she works for the Rwandan Ministry of Finance as a macro economist. We agree to meet up with her and some of her friends at a bar called Sundowner, and get a recommendation from the hostel on where we can go to dinner beforehand that would be nearby.
The restaurant we go to for dinner - called Papyrus - ends up being pretty swanky and hip. The menu isn't at all what I expected - there's no Rwandan food to be found. Instead it's filled with your standard Italian fare, including wood fired pizzas. There is a very pretty view of the lights of the sprawling city of Kigali, so we are pleased with the restaurant recommendation. We order some local beers and enjoy salads and some pizza.
Finally, we walk to Sundowner to go meet up with Jean and her friends. Neither Sandra nor I has any idea what Jean looks like, so when we arrive at the bar (after a 5 minute walk through a strangely quiet neighborhood), we do a lap and look for a group of white people. There is only one table with a group of white people, so we awkwardly stand next to them and look to see if anyone there meets our eyes. They aren't paying any attention to us, so I loudly ask "Do any of you know Jean?" They laugh and tell us that she just left to go to the loo but we are welcome to join. It's a group of about 15 people or so, so we grab some empty seats and introduce ourselves to the strangers at the table.
As it turns out, the people we end up sitting next to are here in Rwanda for a very interesting purpose - they're clowns! Yes, literally clowns. There are 4 of them, and together they comprise the Ireland chapter of Clowns Without Borders. For one month out of the year, they all volunteer their time to travel to developing countries (mostly African) and perform clown shows. The UN arranges for them to go to refugee camps, where they set up for a few days and perform. I ended up sitting next to Jonathan, the head of the troupe, who has been doing this for over 10 years. He had many fascinating stories about the people he's met and the places he's been.
The refugee camps where they go to perform are usually very sad, depressing places. The people there are living in squalid conditions and have no money and no where else to go. The camps are located far away from civilization - usually because the local governments want to minimize any chance that tourists would see these camps and what the conditions are like. Jonathan told me about one camp on the border of Rwanda and and the DRC (Congo). These people are nationless - they were displaced during the Rwandan civil war (or even in the tensions leading up to the civil war) and ended up in the Congo. Now they want to return to Rwanda, but Rwanda has classified them as being Congolese because they lived there for so long, so they're not welcome back in Rwanda. Congo has classified them as Rwandans, so they don't want them either. These people are sitting in this refugee camp, waiting for the UN and other NGOs to lobby for them and get the legal processes started so that they can eventually return home. It's an incredibly sad story, and these people's lives sound awful on every level. Apparently the UN staff at the camp told Jonathan that every day, these people come to them and complain about their lives and their problems, telling their tragic stories to anyone who will listen. For the 3 days that the clowns were there, the staff said that ALL they talked about was the show. The people absolutely LOVE the clowns - most of them have never seen anything like it. The clowns will bring the audience into the show and make it interactive, pulling people up on stage. Jonathan talked a lot about how he loves that he is giving these people a distraction, and even more than that - he's giving them happy stories that they can tell for years afterwards. "Hey - remember that time I was on stage and made everyone laugh with my reaction to the clown's question? I was great up there - it was a lot of fun." How wonderful is it that these clowns are able to bring joy to such a dark corner of the world? Apparently children will often confide in the clowns and tell them about horrible things who have happened to them. When possible, Jonathan told me they will immediately bring in a social worker or some other official to remove the child from the bad situation. On one level, it sounds like a depressing job to see such sadness and pain, but Jonathan had a very positive outlook on it. He is emotionally and morally fulfilled that he can bring a smile to the faces of people who desperately need it.
I also spent some time speaking with Jean. She's been in Kigali for about a year, after having been assigned here after getting her graduate degree in economics in Ireland. She seems to love living here. Kigali is safe and clean and laid back - completely the opposite of what Western stereotypes about African capital cities might indicate. I asked her what has been most surprising about her time here, and she said that she's been surprised about how similar her work has been to when she did similar work in Ireland. Rwanda is considered a development success story within Africa - the money is coming in and actually being used to better the lives of the people who live here. Jean and I talked a lot about the arrogance of the west and how it frustrates African people. She mentioned a time when President Obama was at a conference of world leaders, and he pulled aside a handful of African presidents who he have deemed come from "real democracies" for a special meeting. This is the type of thing that doesn't make the news in the US at all, but in Africa it caused an uproar. From their perspective, who is Obama to judge which African countries are "real" democracies and which aren't? The US isn't even a pure democracy! Similarly, the Koni video is another example of western arrogance. African governments get annoyed by campaigns like this because they presuppose that Africa needs help from the west in order to be successful. The Koni video and others like it assume that African nations can't help themselves - that they need the richer western countries to come in and "save" them. I understand why this would frustrate African people. It's also a little ridiculous that the US in particular preaches so much about the problems in Africa, when in actuality we suffer from many of the same problems ourselves! Yes, we don't have malaria or cholera outbreaks, and our infrastructure is more advanced, but there are people living in Detroit and Chicago and every other major city in the US whose standard of living is just as bad as the poorest in Africa. These are the types of conversations that make me appreciate how much I've traveled. Unlike many Americans, I am under no illusions about our weaknesses - and our strengths - as a country. We are not "the best" in many respects, and often we can learn as much from developing countries as they can learn from us.
Similarly to airports everywhere, prices at the Addis airport are higher than they need to be - the markup here may even be higher. I paid $10 for a souvenir magnet and $5 for a juice that would have cost $1 anywhere else in Addis. Oh well - cost of doing business, I suppose.
Landing in Kigali was surprisingly relaxed, especially compared to other African airports. One thing I haven't mentioned is that every flight I've taken in Africa has involved an ebola screen upon landing. There is a person in a white lab coat waiting when you get off the plane with a gun-like object that they point at your forehead. I'm pretty sure it's meant to take your temperature, but no one has actually explained how the ebola screen works. I definitely appreciate that these countries are trying to keep ebola out of their borders, so I don't mind the screens.
Walking out of the airport in Kigali was not what I had expected. There were taxi drivers lined up waiting for passengers, as they are at every airport, but unlike other places, no one accosted me asking me if I want a ride. I actually had to walk up to the group and ask for a taxi driver! This welcome into the country was just one introduction to the tone of Kigali - it's an incredibly relaxed city. People here are not in a hurry and seem to mind their own business. There are apparently 1 million people living in this city, but I honestly don't know where they are. I have only seen a few pedestrians, and traffic doesn't seem to be bad at all. All in all, it seems like a nice place to live! I'm guessing we are staying in a nice neighborhood
I arrive at the hostel, which my friend Sandra had booked for us. We chose the place because it was well reviewed on the standard travel websites, and it super cheap - less than $20 per night. Even though it's a hostel, I hadn't bothered to ask Sandra what type of room she booked for us - I simply assumed that she would book us a double room. To my surprise, when I check in, the front desk clerk shows me to a shared room for 4 people - with 2 bunk beds - and tells me to take the top bunk. A bunk bed? I know this makes me sound like a spoiled brat, but I haven't slept in a bunk bed in over 10 years! Oh well, this is all part of the adventure, so I settle in and try to not stress about sleeping in a room with 2 strangers.
Sandra arrives about an hour after I do. She flew in from Australia, which took about 30 hours, so I waited until she got here to make any decisions about what to do this afternoon. I wasn't sure if she would want to sleep, stay around the hostel, or go out and explore. When she checks in, we find out that not only are we sleeping in shared rooms, but we're in separate shared rooms! So now I'll be sleeping in a room with 3 strangers - which takes me back to my undergrad days :) She and I make a quick run to a local shop to get some water and snacks, and we hang out around the hostel for a few hours while she showers, naps and otherwise settles in.
Since it's Saturday night, we decide to call a friend of one of our Booth friends who lives here. Her name is Jean, and she works for the Rwandan Ministry of Finance as a macro economist. We agree to meet up with her and some of her friends at a bar called Sundowner, and get a recommendation from the hostel on where we can go to dinner beforehand that would be nearby.
The restaurant we go to for dinner - called Papyrus - ends up being pretty swanky and hip. The menu isn't at all what I expected - there's no Rwandan food to be found. Instead it's filled with your standard Italian fare, including wood fired pizzas. There is a very pretty view of the lights of the sprawling city of Kigali, so we are pleased with the restaurant recommendation. We order some local beers and enjoy salads and some pizza.
Finally, we walk to Sundowner to go meet up with Jean and her friends. Neither Sandra nor I has any idea what Jean looks like, so when we arrive at the bar (after a 5 minute walk through a strangely quiet neighborhood), we do a lap and look for a group of white people. There is only one table with a group of white people, so we awkwardly stand next to them and look to see if anyone there meets our eyes. They aren't paying any attention to us, so I loudly ask "Do any of you know Jean?" They laugh and tell us that she just left to go to the loo but we are welcome to join. It's a group of about 15 people or so, so we grab some empty seats and introduce ourselves to the strangers at the table.
As it turns out, the people we end up sitting next to are here in Rwanda for a very interesting purpose - they're clowns! Yes, literally clowns. There are 4 of them, and together they comprise the Ireland chapter of Clowns Without Borders. For one month out of the year, they all volunteer their time to travel to developing countries (mostly African) and perform clown shows. The UN arranges for them to go to refugee camps, where they set up for a few days and perform. I ended up sitting next to Jonathan, the head of the troupe, who has been doing this for over 10 years. He had many fascinating stories about the people he's met and the places he's been.
The refugee camps where they go to perform are usually very sad, depressing places. The people there are living in squalid conditions and have no money and no where else to go. The camps are located far away from civilization - usually because the local governments want to minimize any chance that tourists would see these camps and what the conditions are like. Jonathan told me about one camp on the border of Rwanda and and the DRC (Congo). These people are nationless - they were displaced during the Rwandan civil war (or even in the tensions leading up to the civil war) and ended up in the Congo. Now they want to return to Rwanda, but Rwanda has classified them as being Congolese because they lived there for so long, so they're not welcome back in Rwanda. Congo has classified them as Rwandans, so they don't want them either. These people are sitting in this refugee camp, waiting for the UN and other NGOs to lobby for them and get the legal processes started so that they can eventually return home. It's an incredibly sad story, and these people's lives sound awful on every level. Apparently the UN staff at the camp told Jonathan that every day, these people come to them and complain about their lives and their problems, telling their tragic stories to anyone who will listen. For the 3 days that the clowns were there, the staff said that ALL they talked about was the show. The people absolutely LOVE the clowns - most of them have never seen anything like it. The clowns will bring the audience into the show and make it interactive, pulling people up on stage. Jonathan talked a lot about how he loves that he is giving these people a distraction, and even more than that - he's giving them happy stories that they can tell for years afterwards. "Hey - remember that time I was on stage and made everyone laugh with my reaction to the clown's question? I was great up there - it was a lot of fun." How wonderful is it that these clowns are able to bring joy to such a dark corner of the world? Apparently children will often confide in the clowns and tell them about horrible things who have happened to them. When possible, Jonathan told me they will immediately bring in a social worker or some other official to remove the child from the bad situation. On one level, it sounds like a depressing job to see such sadness and pain, but Jonathan had a very positive outlook on it. He is emotionally and morally fulfilled that he can bring a smile to the faces of people who desperately need it.
I also spent some time speaking with Jean. She's been in Kigali for about a year, after having been assigned here after getting her graduate degree in economics in Ireland. She seems to love living here. Kigali is safe and clean and laid back - completely the opposite of what Western stereotypes about African capital cities might indicate. I asked her what has been most surprising about her time here, and she said that she's been surprised about how similar her work has been to when she did similar work in Ireland. Rwanda is considered a development success story within Africa - the money is coming in and actually being used to better the lives of the people who live here. Jean and I talked a lot about the arrogance of the west and how it frustrates African people. She mentioned a time when President Obama was at a conference of world leaders, and he pulled aside a handful of African presidents who he have deemed come from "real democracies" for a special meeting. This is the type of thing that doesn't make the news in the US at all, but in Africa it caused an uproar. From their perspective, who is Obama to judge which African countries are "real" democracies and which aren't? The US isn't even a pure democracy! Similarly, the Koni video is another example of western arrogance. African governments get annoyed by campaigns like this because they presuppose that Africa needs help from the west in order to be successful. The Koni video and others like it assume that African nations can't help themselves - that they need the richer western countries to come in and "save" them. I understand why this would frustrate African people. It's also a little ridiculous that the US in particular preaches so much about the problems in Africa, when in actuality we suffer from many of the same problems ourselves! Yes, we don't have malaria or cholera outbreaks, and our infrastructure is more advanced, but there are people living in Detroit and Chicago and every other major city in the US whose standard of living is just as bad as the poorest in Africa. These are the types of conversations that make me appreciate how much I've traveled. Unlike many Americans, I am under no illusions about our weaknesses - and our strengths - as a country. We are not "the best" in many respects, and often we can learn as much from developing countries as they can learn from us.
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