Rwanda

After 4 flights, including a 12 hour layover in London, spent entirely browsing the wonderful Borough Market, Lizzy and I arrived in Kigali at 1pm on Friday! Wow, it seems like that was ages ago already! The land of a thousand hills is no exaggeration here - in fact, I think it may be an understatement. I have yet to see a flat stretch of land here, and that is including in Eastern Rwanda which is considered the "flat part." Kate greeted us at the airport, where she had arrived along with a driver from PIH (Partners in Health), which was great as it afforded as a chauffeur for the rest of the day. After spending a few hours in Kigali - drinking coffee and running errands, we headed out to Rwinkwavu, the town in Eastern Rwanda where Kate has been working for the past 6 months.

After the shock of the 85 degree and humid heat during our layover in Dar Es Salaam (at 7am) and the relative relief of the 70/75 degree weather in Kigali, one of the first things that impressed me upon landing here was the familiarity of the smells and sounds that are long forgotten. Of course, they have quickly become unnoticable again, normal instead of different, still the beauty of the rolling hills covered in leafy green banana trees and dotted by houses and terraces continutes to bring smiles to my face and keep my eyes glued out the window on every car ride we have taken.

Rwanda is a beautiful country, and it is hard to imagine that anything as evil and destructive as the 1994 genocide could ever have occured here. In Kigali itself, there are obvious references to it - the stadium where thousands of Rwandan's took refuge, the neighborhood where Romeo Dellaire, the Canadian head of UN peacekeeping forces lived, and the parliament building, that while most rebuild, has one side that was left intact covered with small and large bullet holes, evidence of not just a gun fight, but a massive and lengthy war. Additionally, each village in Rwanda is required to have a genocide memorial. In Rwinkwavu it is a large white stone with a simple statement of rememberance on it. Perhaps I will go into more later on what I have heard and read about the genocide, but I do not wish to give it more than a paragraph here, because I find it sad that this country is known by the rest of the world only for the crimes that were committed here, and not for the many wonderful things it has to offer.

Tomorrow, we will head to the northern town of Burero, where PIH has another hospital site that Kate has done some work at. The point of this visit though will be to spend the day hiking in the hills around Burero and then join friends for drinks at a lakeside (lake unknown, but apparently beautiful) resort bar and restaurant. On Monday, we will be famously hiking with the Gorillas in the Virunga Mountains, where Dian Fossey studied some of the same gorilla troups of decades before she was assassinated, presumably by poachers.

Hopefully, I will figure out how to post some pictures soon, but until then, think green and hilly.