East Africa Day 4 - Kigali

Today was our final day in Rwanda. We have absolutely loved Rwanda and we’re excited to enjoy one more day here. 

Today we had a city tour lined up through a local tour company. We were scheduled to start the tour at 9:30am, but we were a running late. Jet lag got me a bit and I didn’t sleep well. My restlessness kept Alison up to as well. We both woke up tired and got off to a slow start. By the time our guide arrived we were still eating breakfast and we also needed to check our bags and check out of the hotel. Our guide was very patient. In the end we were only delayed about 20 minutes. 

Once we got everything sorted we were on our way. We booked our city tour through a company called Go Kigali. We booked a private tour (this is always our preference when traveling, but especially during Covid). Our tour guide was named Eric, so that was easy to remember. He was an excellent guide. We became good friends over the course of the day. 

We started off in the city center. They have fairly recently converted the city center to be limited to pedestrians only. We strolled through the area. There were quite a few new buildings and lots of new construction. Kigali is a happening place. After the city center went to see a nearby mural painted by the  Belgian artist ROA. It was a beautiful black and white mural of a topi to promote conservation. It was quite impressive. 

Then we drove to another part of town. Here we saw some additional murals. These ones were painted by local artists. Murals are a growing art form in Rwanda. These murals were also great. While viewing these murals we also saw a different side of Kigali. It was a poorer and less developed area than the other places we visited. We met some young school boys (they were fascinated by us) and other locals. That was one thing we really loved about this tour. The tour gave us more of a local view of Kigali. Rather than visiting the main tourist sites, this tour took us to hidden gems around the city. 

Alison was quite impressed by the way Rwandan mothers carried their baby on their back. This mother is pulling double duty with a bowl of bananas on her head. 

Next we went to the Kimisagara market. This market is similar to the one we visited yesterday. However, it is not quite as big and caters much more to locals. It was much better to visit the market with a guide. As we walked through the food stalls Eric explained the different types of food people in Rwanda eat and really gave us a feel for what the average Rwandan person would buy at the market. He was also friends with all of vendors so people didn’t try to pressure us to follow them to their booths. Eric also told us about his personal experiences, such as when he learned to cook green bananas when he was a child. As we continued through the market we came to an area that sold clothes and shoes. In this area they were auctioning off second hand clothes that had been received from America and Europe. It was quite hectic and fast paced. Even through the market seemed really crowded Eric explained it used to be even more crowded before Covid. Now they have capacity restriction. We saw this in practice when we left the market. There was a large group of people waiting to enter. 

The next stop on our tour was a milk bar. Cows, along with the milk they produce, are incredibly important to Rwandan heritage. They often signify both prosperity and wealth, and appear in many of the country's rites and rituals. The milk bar is a manifestation of the importance of milk. Here locals come to get fresh or fermented milk. Along with cookies (that weren’t like American cookies they were more like small scones and they weren’t sweet). We tried both kinds of milk - fresh and fermented. Now normally drinking fresh milk in a developing nation would be a bad idea. However, this milk is boiled and served steaming hot so it was okay. The fermented milk was also okay because of the fermentation. We didn’t like this as well as the fresh milk - it tasted like very sour yogurt. The milk bar was a very interesting social ritual. We sat around a table and drank milk. Eric explained that in Rwandan culture it is important to sit while you drink milk and that if a child stands and drinks milk they will be scolded. 

After the milk bar we drove up to Mount Kigali. This is one of the tallest points in Kigali and provides great views of the city. Eric told us that when the RPF took Mount Kigali in July 1994 it was a great victory for the Rwandan people and signaled an end to the civil war as this was a very strategic location. As a result Rwanda celebrates Liberation day on July 4. 

It was time for lunch. We went to a local restaurant named Tamu Tamu. Eric said the name meant something like delicious, delicious. It was located in the Muslim quarter of Kigali. Most of Rwanda is Christian (Catholic, Protestant and 7th day Adventist) with only a little over 4% being Muslim. Since this is the Muslim quarter there were a few Mosques located in the area around the restaurant. The food was all local. Eric ordered for us and we shared the meal family style. We had a beef dish, a dish made of dried and then rehydrated fish, rice, spinach, cassava root with a tasty sauce made of peanuts and cassava leaves, roasted green bananas (they tasted like potatoes - not at all sweet), and beans (Eric told us Rwandan people eat beans every day). It was delicious (except for the spinach and the fish - those we could have done without.) 

After lunch we went to the Question Coffee Cafe. This is a really popular spot in Rwanda. They are run by an organization that supports 30,000 Rwandan women who are part of the coffee production process. They sell more than just coffee, too. They also have hot chocolate and sodas. We all got a drink and talked to Eric more about his life in Rwanda. 

Our tour guide, Eric

In Rwanda this basket is a tradition symbol and is seen on top of many buildings

Our final stop of the tour was the Kigali Genocide Memorial. This is an important stop on any trip to Kigali. The memorial has an outdoor segment and an indoor museum. We had time to see both. We got audio guides to take us through the memorial. It was warily quiet. Maybe it was because we were there late in the day or maybe it was because of Covid, but we were one of only a few people visiting the memorial. This gave us liberty to take our time to try and process the information that was presented. The main exhibit on the genocide ended on a positive note by highlighting the way justice was served through the court system and how reconciliation has occurred. One of the last statements reads: “Rwanda has begun laying the foundations of a peaceful future, expanding access to education and healthcare for all, promoting women’s empowerment and cooperatives, and boosting economic growth through initiatives such as trade integration with East African Community, Economic Development for Poverty Reduction Strategy, and Vision 2020, aiming at empowering and developing Rwandans’ living conditions.” We saw the fruits of these efforts first hand. Rwanda is a nation the rise. Out of a terrible tragedy came a remarkable nation. 

The exhibits walked through the events leading up to the genocide, the atrocities committed during the genocide, and the aftermath and long term consequences. It was brutal. The images and stories were heartbreaking. Then the exhibit shifted to bring awareness to other genocides - Armenia, Namibia, The Holocaust, Cambodia, and The Balkans. 

The final exhibit is the Children’s room. This room tears your heart out. Inside the room are pictures of children who were murdered during the genocide. Under each picture is the name and age of the child. Then there is a list of information for the child, much like the list you might see about a child when they go back to school or have a birthday. This list included things like: favorite sport, favorite food, favorite color, what the enjoyed doing, their dream for when the grow up. Then at the bottom of the list was cause of death. Here there were things like: tortured to death, killed by a machete in her mother’s arms, smashed against a wall, etc. It is so awful. The exhibit ended with some stories of children who survived the genocide, but in most cases their families did not. The last wall contained a simple message: “I did not make myself an orphan.” Heart breaking. 

We headed outside and wandered through the many gardens. As we walked we came to the mass graves. Approximately 250,000 of the victims of the genocide are buried here. Near the graves is a wall of names. This wall is still a work in process. More than 20 years later they are still collecting the names and stories of the people who were murdered. 

As we left the memorial we asked our guide Eric if he was alive during the genocide. He told us he was 4 years old (he is the same age as us). He was also a Tutsi. He did say people no longer use the Tusti/Hutu designation. Now they are all Rwandan. Alison asked what he remembered about the genocide. He told us he remembered his mother taking him and his brother out of his house. They were heading to meet his aunt and uncle in a nearby church. On the way his mother listened to a man who warned them not to go to the church, otherwise they would have died. Instead they crossed a river into Burundi. He told us he remembered seeing so many dead bodies in the river and on the road. He also said his mother dressed him and his brother in dresses because at that point the soldiers were targeting men and boys more. He said he was very lucky the soldiers never checked them. He lived with his family in Burundi for 4 months before coming back to Rwanda. At that point their house was looted and destroyed so they had to start over.  It is such a crazy story. I cannot imagine the trauma that experience must have left him with. 

Eric added one last stop to the itinerary. We visited the Ubumwe grande hotel. They have a sky bar at the top with amazing views. We all got drinks and talked more about our trip. I tried a local sparkling lemonade that was quite refreshing. 

Then Eric and our driver dropped us off at dinner and we said farewell. Eric is by far one of our favorite guides. We would highly recommend him to anyone who visits Rwanda. We ate dinner at Le Poivre Noire. It was recommended by our driver Emmanuel. It was quite good. The location was also great. We sat and watched the twinkling lights of Kigali around us as we ate. When we finished we messaged Emmanuel and he picked us up and took us to the hotel. We picked up our bags and filled out some paperwork we will need to get into Tanzania. Emmanuel drove us to the airport and we bid farewell to Kigali. Our flight to Tanzania is terrible. It is surprisingly hard to fly between East African countries. Our flight doesn’t even leave until 2am. We had a few hours to kill at the airport (there is a curfew in Rwanda at 10pm so we couldn’t have stayed out much later if we wanted to). We spent the time calling family and catching up on photos and recording our experiences thus far.