Rwanda

View from Rwanda Memorial Centre

"Motos" with helmets and uniforms


"The land of a thousand hills"

Kaia after her hole-accident

CHRISC training

Visit in "Hotel Rwanda"


I and Kaia took Starways bus to Rwanda night to Thursday. The reason was to renew our visas, meet our friend Magne and visit CHRISC Rwanda. The first meeting with “the land of a thousand hills” was cool. The guards checked our luggage and removed all plastic bags, which are illegal in Rwanda. The second thing we noticed was that the bus that had been driving at the left side on the road for hours suddenly shifted to right side. After 9 hours we arrived Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. The city was clean, green, and not overloaded of cars and people, like Kampala. The boda-bodas, here called moto, had uniforms, everyone had to use a helmet and you could only sit one at a time on each bike. All in all we had 4 fun days:

- We went to Rwanda Memorial Centre
- We had croissants and coffee at Mille Collins, or “Hotel Rwanda”.
- Kaia fell into an over-a-meter-deep hole. Extremely funny, except from her twisted ankle. She will be a legend in this street because many people were watching and this was very unexpected from a muzungu.
- We played pool with professionals
- We went for fabric shopping
- We saw the good work CHRISC does in Kigali
- We got lost on “motos” in the night because the drivers didn’t know English
- We had a good and funny dinner with National Coordinator in CHRISC Rwanda, Paul, his wife Kate and their little girl Neril
- We slept a lot in good beds, free from the Kampala-sounds of dogs barking, cocks crowing, cars hooking, music and people.
- We had coffee every day at bourbon coffee
- We shopped designer dresses to use the rest of the Rwandan money

After a successful trip we went back with our beloved bus "Kampala Coach". In the evening we had to stop because the front window of the bus crushed. Africans are creative, so the driver just bought a helmet from a boda boda driver so he could continue to Kampala without window.