Day 23 - 27

Ok already! I haven’t been updating my blog the last couple of days, but with super slow internet and other things on my mind I neglected it a bit. Sorry about that.

Here comes the sun
After a couple of rainy days, we had marvellous weather on Sunday again. The city was pretty much abandoned, apart from a couple lonesome tourists and people coming back from church. I took advantage of the sun and set out on a hike, which with a little luck, might even bring me to an Indian restaurant since I had been craving for that delicious food for a while already.

Luck was all on my side because just opposite the exquisite hotel Les Mille Collines, I found an Indian place. Chicken tikka masala, garlic naan, steamed rice, dal and paneer were waiting for me. I had to let go of the last two as it was way too much for me to have all by myself, but the rest was delicious. I was more than satisfied and got a call from Mr.K.

Bwana = ‘man’
Probably one of those questions you all secretly wanted to ask but never dared to or did and got the uncensored story already; Are there any goodlooking men and are you hooked up yet? Well, ok if you must know....yes of course there are many goodlooking men around here and no I’m not hooked up. Or at least, from my side, it’s nothing serious. The funny thing is, I met Mr.K on the airplane. When we left Brussels, I already noticed him around, thinking he was very smart and handsome. Didn’t pay any further attention to him when I was sitting next to other very interesting company on the first leg of the flight.

During the last leg, Ehtiopia to Rwanda, I happened to be seated just in front of this goodlooking mystery man. The man next to me had his wife sitting next to him and – of course - I was more than willing to offer her my seat. Well, and that’s how the story began, we exchanged emailaddresses, left the plane after landing and we’d might meet up some time in Kigali. Which we eventually did, a couple of times already. Anyway, to skip all other – probably much less interesting - details, it’s good to know someone around here and have a friend to go see places and people from time to time.

Muzungu skin
Mr. K is a Burundi born, Belgian/Rwandese salesman, buying all kinds of cosmetics in Belgium to sell overhere to local shopkeepers. It’s funny to see how many Belgian products are circulating on the market and many have Dutch productnames written on them. Not sure whether they all understand what it’s for, but they don’t really care either. Something that shocked me on the other hand, was the popularity of skin-whitening products. It’s probably all very chemical and damaging, but black women use it with the idea to get fair white skin. I wonder what effects the use of this garbage has on their health. He travels quite a bit every month to get his stuff shipped to Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. Good business so it seems.

One of his friends, another Belgian/Rwandese independent salesman, bought a truck in Belgium and shipped it by boat to Rwanda. Hilarious to see a very Belgian name and address of a town - next to my own hometown - written on the side of the truck. After we visited his stockroom to collect a couple of products for a shop in town, we bumped into some of his friends and were invited at their place.

I found it quite interesting to see how people here live. I’ve seen the poorest people in rural Gitarama and now I met a middle class family in Gikongoro, a district in Kigali. Most of the Burundi-born Rwandese people speak Swahili with a mix of French and so it wasn’t too hard to understand that even here men talk about the economy and current politics, women talk about their marriage, clothes and children. We also visited some of his Belgian/Rwandan relatives who live in an even better suburb of Kigali. They were clearly influenced by the Belgian lifestyle as they introduced many familiar elements in their home. The language at home is French and the children all attend classes at the Ecole Belge. I never met anyone more integrated than them I think, despite them living in Rwanda now.

Airport
Apart from hanging out with charming men, I did make new arrangements for my stay here as well, in case you’re wondering. Wednesday turned out to be one of the most stressful days I had overhere. I had already spent the largest part of Tuesday at the airport in order to collect the banana boxes I was expecting from Belgium. But the flight was seriously delayed and eventually I left to come back again on Wednesday morning. The busride to the airport took forever as the busboys try to get the place filled up as much as possible. They sometimes even ‘steal’ customers from competitive buscompanies and often wait until they’re full. After almost 1,5 hours and two busses, I made it just in time to see Jacques from SN, who was supposed to attend a meeting 10 minutes later. We rushed off to the arrivals where I collected 7 perfect boxes and got picked up by Mr.K. Step one of mission orphanage finally completed!

The research permit is still far from being issued. I handed everything in on Friday, only to find out from the officer on Tuesday I had to pay the fees first. By the time I got there on Wednesday, he told me to pay the fees in the downtown office (where I live!!!) and come back with the receipt. Then they might look into it again. Oh my! Since I’m leaving for about 10 days, and it takes another 7 days to approve the file, I will only get it by the time I’m leaving. At this point, I’m wondering whether I will benefit from this anyway. I only want to get a discount to go and see the gorillas, that’s all.

Hotel Les Mille Collines
After a hectic Wednesday afternoon, Lydie and I made ourselves comfortable on the terrace of hotel Les Mille Collines. This used to be in hands of the former Belgian airline SABENA and served as an exclusive hotel for diplomats whenever they visited the former Belgian colony. Just like Congo, Rwanda and Burundi share the same Belgian colonial history. The hotel was mentioned in the film ‘Hotel Rwanda’, which tells the story of the hotelmanager – a hutu – who was trying to protect his tutsi wife and 1000 others by hiding them in the hotel during the massacres of the genocide in 1994. The real hotel does look a bit different. I thought it was located somewhere in the countryside, but in fact the hotel is situated right in the middle of the city of Kigali. It’s not the most beautiful hotel I’ve ever seen, but it’s very fancy and it is nostalgic for Belgians. Since Rwanda is called ‘Land of a Thousand Hills’, the name of the hotel is quite obvious.

After some shopping and a cup of delicious Rwanda tea, Lydie and I went to Les Soeurs, where power was cut. We all got little candle lights and used that to find our way around to showers, toilets and rooms. My friend, Mr.K, who had called earlier that day saying he had missed his flight, was also staying in the guesthouse. Oh my, full house! Lydie and I are heading out to Nyundo very early in the morning, so we better get a good night’s rest!


Sunday 20th – Wednesday 23rd March, Kigali 27 degrees