Rwanda 2020

And because the other post was pretty much photo-less, here are some of my everyday life in Kigali and our trip to Uganda, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.   Baguette in Kigali    Mamba Smoothie in Kigali    Very quiet border. We had to sanitize our shoes, got the temperature taken and had about 5 different people look at our passports. In the back were sheep and goats grazing. Mom making friends in Ruhinja   Diverse monkeys to be seen from the car   Stunning landscape at every road turn. On the right of the photo are women washing their clothing.

It happened again - I got trapped in a very long church service. But this time unplanned.  I was invited to have dinner at my friend Alice's family house last Sunday. We had planned it the month before, when I'd had to cancel due to a headache. Unluckily, I had another mild headache that day (even after a spa treatment and hanging out at the pool), but I figured I couldn't cancel again and thus took off to the North of town. It took some time to locate Alice when I arrived, because street names are more of an offer than a necessity. Also, the road she lives on is not paved, and may possibly not even have a name/ number, I didn't check. She lives with her mother, her sisters and her younger brother and her dad. But I soon gathered that Sunday is a day to meet others as well, because the living room was soon busy with others as well. The living room is also the entrance in Rwandan architecture. It is very common that the guests will only see that room, as the bed room...

Muraho! (Hello!) Last Friday was another fine day to travel across winding roads to the North. This time however, not to leave the country, but to visit our (Laura's and mine) friend Beth. Eternally thankful for anti-puking pastiles (not the ones Fred and George came up with), because this country is really so mountanous. Consequentually, the roads go up and down. Luckily, the speed limit is 60km/h (Conservative German politicians, look at that!). There were many many road fatalities in Rwanda and thus the government decided to do something about it. Next to the speed limit, they are also educating the population on other measures of road safety, as I read, for example by going to church meetings, to reach a wide number of people (next to usual media outlets of course). Another law: Helmets are mandatory on motorbikes (boda-bodas in Swahili).    Me, my helmet and I. I am getting more adventurous with taking photos on the boda-boda for sure. In the long distance buses,...

Today was a very important holiday in Rwanda: The celebration of old and current heroes. In the morning, the community gathers to tell stories about those heroes. There are three different kinds: Inema, Inienza, and the last one I already forgot again. Damn it! Laura (classmate), Alice (my friend from the guesthouse) and I went to a local community meeting up the road. People sat and listened to a number of men telling stories about different heroes. Everything was in Kinyarwanda, but this is what I got about the colonizing story: The colonizers or Wazungu (many white people/ foreigners) came to the African continent and drew lines arbitrarily, creating nations where there had been tribes before. They named them Kenia, Uganda, Zambia, ... and went on to rule them directly or indirectly.  The story showed one thing very clearly and nicely: Rwandans are very aware of the many negative things that colonization brought with it and questions the ridiculous way of distri...

JUST REALIZED THAT SOME OF THIS INFO IS NOW ON THIS BLOG TWICE, EXCUSE MY INCREDIBLY BAD MEMORY. BUT MUCH MORE INFO HERE! We made it! After having our forehead temperature checked, we were allowed back into the country. Ebola-free. Wir haben es tatsächlich geschafft! Nach Messung der Stirntemperatur an der ugandisch-ruandischen Grenze wurden wir zurück ins Land gelassen. Die Fahrt verlangte mir um einiges mehr an Magenentspannungsübungen ab, aber Dank der Anti-Spei-Tabletten war es kein größeres Problem. Our day at Lake Bunyonyi was spent very pleasantly, with a walk, a boat ride, nice views and cold beers. Unfortunately, just when we were about to take the trip back to our hotel, a storm of crazy magnitude unfolded in front of our eyes. We sought refuge in the Hotel we had been at half the day already, drank strong ginger tea, found some cards to play and finally had dinner, cause the storm would not cease. Next to the obvious issue of getting completely soaked, we were even more...

Also celebrating Martin's birthday today. He's a Ugandan friend of Beth's.  Walked around the lake for a while with beautiful views. When the road got too muddy, it rained a lot yesterday, we took a boat to reach the way up one of the viewpoints. Finally some cute animals!  After less than 8 hours on the lake, I already feel as relaxed after a two week holiday. It's really quiet and there are no other tourists around. Just ordered some curry and already on my first Nile Premium for the day. Prost!