Our first few days

January 24, 2011

Kigali

My first in Kigali blog post is finally here.  It won’t be perfect, and it will probably have more inane detail than you are all interested in but these first days have been so full and surprising that I’m only able to get down facts without putting all the emotion and impression into it as yet.  I’m sure I’ll fill in details of what I’m seeing and how I’m feeling in later posts.  Here is the update to life here so far.

We arrived last Thursday night and after all the stories we heard (or experienced ourselves in the past) about lost luggage there we were at the Kigali airport watching our 5 checked bags come down the luggage chute.  Kudos to United and Brussels air because when last seen those bags were having a TSA inspection in Hartford CT.  On retrieving the bags I had my first awkward conversation with the woman next to me in French.  My French is rusty but  I’m pretty sure she wished me a good stay in Rwanda. 

We exited the terminal to the welcome of Eugenie and Melanie from the U.S. embassy.   Eugenie is Rwandese and was at the Fulbright predeparture orientation last June in DC sharing a wealth of information and ideas for preparing for the trip.   Melanie and I had communicated by email, she arrived in Rwanda in October and so is relatively new to the post.  Over the past month we had created a plan that on arrival we would first stay at a guest house and  then, once we found something suitable, move to permanent housing within walking distance of Saadya and Nava’s school.  From what I can recall of that evening and my exhausted post-travel state, we all chatted amicably, they gave me an embassy information folder, which I must have left in the van, and then deposited us at the Romalo guest house advising me that on Monday I would be picked up by a driver to start my embassy paperwork.

We surveyed our two rooms at the Romalo, each is quite large with a balcony one room has a single queen bed, the other two twins both have a sometimes working bathroom.  Our Bradt guide describes the guesthouse as in the moderate range.  I would agree that the environs seem “moderate” but the price, or perhaps the Muzungu price, doesn’t seem exactly moderate.  Then again, this city boasts hotels that can cost from $125-$350 per room or per person per night.  The manager Moses settled us in and sat with me to set a “program” of our food needs for our stay.  The next morning he gave me the program - did I really agree to meals that include matoke kidney and liver?  We’ve come to learn that breakfast with African tea is our least favorite meal of the day and as we’ve explored bits of the city we’ve found already a couple of spots where we can get meals a bit better than at Romalo.  Still, we’ve had some nice meals, eaten our first bites of passion fruit, mango and goat meat brochette while staying here.  Nava is particularly fond of the two cranes who live in the compound.

Friday we were walked up to ISK, Saadya and Nava’s school.  It really is only a 5 minute walk up the hill.  First impressions of the school were quite good, we met the head of school, some teachers and saw the classrooms.  While we were visiting Nava’s jet lag plus altitude adjustment got the better of her and we needed to lie her down to get over some dizzy and faint feelings.  After a rest at Romalo we hired a taxi and ventured to the MTN center (sort of a mini-mall building with shops and businesses) to do some money changing and get SIM cards for our phones.  Success at the MTN on all counts and in the German butcherie Nava enjoyed an ice cream while upstairs at Bourbon café we were able to get a real hot cup of coffee.  Our Romalo breakfast includes “African tea” which means we get a thermos of hot milk (is that really milk?) and tea bags with which to make tea.  The coffee was a welcome treat and after ISK and MTN we felt we had a successful start but just enough activity for our tired state.  We returned to Romalo to rest and to find an email inviting us to join Emily and her housemate on an adventure on Saturday morning to discover the African Bagel Company.  Emily and I had been emailing about the possibility that we might move into her rental house as she is departing in 3 weeks time. 

Saturday morning Emily and Chalee arrived to pick us up at Romalo.  We walked with them through the valley near our neighborhood up around to the main road where some friends of theirs spotted us and offered us a ride in their truck.  Emily and Chalee gave us many hints and helpful pieces of information about life in Kigali.  We all ended up at the bagel place where we ate doughnuts, bagels and fruit and wandered through a garage sale happening in the yard.  After this adventure the women brought us to one of Kigali’s markets where they wanted to buy some fabric to have dresses made (the photo shows you the iron used by the tailors with hot coals).  We got to see some of the basket weaving for which Rwanda is famous and naturally, Nava ordered a dress.  After we got a rest at the guest house we went to Emily and Chalee’s house which is just around the corner and it looks perfect so we will move in there on Tuesday.  Armed with plenty of new information and plans for our future move we said good-bye and returned to our guest house to watch a DVD movie we bought at the garage sale.

Sunday we decided to try one of the hotel pools.  We picked the Stippag hotel based on a recommendation of someone Patricia had contact with from the U.S.  You may recall that I said there were some upscale hotels in Kigali, well this is definitely one of them.  There were not many visitors around so we had the pool area basically to ourselves.  Nice, but sometimes it also felt we were putting on a show for the large number of staff just sitting around.  We had good food and really enjoyed the pool but even at an upscale hotel we learned…look out for the plumbing.  When Patricia and Nava went to shower off after the pool the handle came right off and water started spilling everywhere.  In the evening we walked to Sole Luna, an Italian restaurant about 35 minutes walk up from our neighborhood.  Some of the food was quite good but the pizza which came so highly recommended was not our style.  The walk back was a bit scary, the main road has street lights but the rest of the walk down to our guest house was partially lighted by security lights and partially lighted by the crazy drivers.  I suspect we won’t really go out all too much after dark in the future.  Kigali is considered a “safe” city by any standard and the main road is incredibly heavily patrolled by police and army but I still didn’t feel completely at ease on this walk.  Maybe I’ll feel better after a little more time here.

I’m really looking forward to today, Monday.  The children start school, I am going to the embassy to work on my visa and then I hope to get to Kigali Health Institute to start to learn about my teaching responsibilities and meet the faculty.