Day 7

What a great day! This morning, I took the early morning bus to Kigali. The ride took us in 45 minutes to the capital. The busride alone is quite the adventure and in fact very dangerous. Busdrivers drive like crazy and overtake eachother whenever they can, whether there’s a turn or coming traffic. Many accidents happen with these mini-buses, with many dead or severely injured as the buses often dive into the ravines after a collision. Luckily, I made it safely to town. Kigali is quite expensive, but I like the busy atmosphere and all it has to offer.

Evacuation list
The first task on my ‘to do’ list was getting to the Belgian Embassy to get registered. Through an acquaintance, I got in touch with the Belgian consul and he advised me to stop by as soon as I could. Of course, official instances only open up on certain days and despite the opening hours of 8am-1pm, the security guard didn’t even let me in. Slightly annoyed, I rang up and I was invited to come in straight away.

Normally, I should’ve done this Monday to Wednesday, as Thursday and Friday are reserved for visa applications. Explaining that I’m not planning on coming back every week, the secretary called the consul. There and then we finally met in real life and he was happy to accept my request. He’s an extremely friendly and helpful guy and gave me some good advice on local culture and habits. I also found out that ‘acting friendly with the locals’ looks more like a very certain ‘invitation’ to them – if you know what I mean. Men and women have quite a distant relationship. Youth sometimes tend to forget this and act more familiar, but that has a different impact on the locals. Good to know!

I ended my visit by filling out an evacuation form which informs them about my whereabouts. Very important for when tensions rise and people need to leave asap. I secretely admit this sounds super exciting, but let’s stay real and hope this never happens. It does make me think about the neverending ‘white’ protection. Our skin colour will always protect us and it gives me a very double feeling. As if our lives are more important than those of local people. Of course it’s not our war, but should we turn our backs just like that? From a personal prospective it is of course good to know that I have a government (o-irony…) that cares.

Research
After my visit to the Embassy – which also included some hassle with a passport picture, for which I had to run to town and back – I went to the Office Rwandais du Tourisme et des Parcs Nationaux (ORTPN). The trips are very expensive, but probably worthwile and a must for my travel magazine, but I might be able to make some arrangements. The ORTPN falls under the Rwandese Development Board (RDB) and if I can get in touch with the Department of Tourism, I might be able to arrange a discount due to research purposes. I also got the contactdetails of someone there who’s responsable for keeping statistics. It’s a first leap towards a detailed research about the Tourism Industry.

Sunscreen
My visit ended in the Nakumat supermarket, which had absolutely everything! I thought the choice of products was limited to a certain variation, but this store is like an African WalMart. From Belgian cookies, English tea biscuits to cooking pots and DIY stuff, they had it all. I ended up buying a new backpack since I was carrying too much stuff as the day started cold and wet but ended hot and sunny. I even found decent cereal. But the one thing they didn’t have, which I needed the most, was bloody sunscreen!

I have been to every single pharmacy, beauty & cosmetics shop and boutique, it was nowhere to be found. Funny thing, they all said ‘sorry, we ran out of it’, while in fact, they never had it. Most of them had never heard of it and showed me all the bodylotions they had. The only place that did have the tiniest tube ever, was a small African supermarket, for the price of a mere 13 euros. I kindly passed and ended up post-ordering it from my mom, which very kind SN Brussels Airlines crew will fly over for me, together with the goodies we collected for the orphanage. Thank you mom and thank you for flying SN Brussels.

Wedding
Tomorrow will be an even exciting day. Maman Thérèse is working on the preparations for a traditional wedding reception at the Centre St-Charles. It starts at 9am and she asked me if I’d like to take some pictures. The bride is an orphan and has not a single family member left. I secretly hope I get invited and be able to experience this wonderful event. Other news; Maman Thérèse almost begged me to promote her in my magazine, something I wanted to ask her. She will show me how to cook a traditional Rwandese meal an teach me more about local culture. Lots to look forward to!

Muramuke!

Friday 4th March – Kigali 27 degrees