Days 247 - 249 / 12 - 14

Date: 15 - 17 December 2022
Sleeping location: (day 1 and 2) Zion Inn, Kigali, Rwanda (day 3) EER Guesthouse, Butare, Rwanda
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 0 / 15492 / 655
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 0 / 130900 / 12900
Murdered Tutsis: 491,000 - 800,000
Day in three words: An unrestful rest

The demented bird knocking on the door woke me up early, which did at least allow me to get a jump on the day so thanks bird. I packed up some of my stuff into “weekend break” mode, stashed Maggie in some kind of boardroom a the hotel, had two very nice coffees at a place recommended by my cousin Jonny (hi Jonny) who lived here for a few months during his medical training, then got my first moto to the bus station to go to Kigali. I was immediately summoned by a man asking if I was going to Kigali and herded to where I bought a ticket for a bus leaving in an unknown length of time. I could probably have hunted around for one leaving sooner but decided to stop being so bloody European about things and go with the flow, so I went and got some brunch. A sign on the wall said "if God says yes, who can say no?" which was quite apt. 

The bus left about an hour later and was standardly packed to the rafters, including a guy in the seat-not-actually-a-seat next to me. It turned out he spoke good English and was studying at the same hospital than Jonny did, and asked a lot of questions about the UK (especially its weather and agricultural practices). His name was Kiiza, which is the name you always give to the child born after twins - it means blessing because twins are seen as unlucky unless you have another one after. Coming into Kigali he pointed out, in a very matter-of-fact way, a swamp where so many people were killed and dumped during the genocide that the river turned red. 

I got another moto from the bus station to the hotel, which set the trend for Kigali motos as the guy went 3km in the wrong direction on a 4km journey. I took several over the two days and they generally didn't seem to actually know where they're going, meaning I had to direct them using phone maps which is tricky when you're hanging on to the back of a moped. I was staying at the same hotel as Dan and Colm so we said hi and had a couple of beers on the nice terrace, then took a moto down to where Henry was staying and the four of us had a few beers then went elsewhere for some food. I learnt some useful stuff from Henry, who has done much of what I will now do but in reverse. 

The second day I went to the genocide memorial, which I will cover in a separate bit at the end of the post to avoid a screeching tonal handbrake turn. After this I took a walk around the centre and suburbs to buy a new Bluetooth keyboard* and get a feel for the place. Kigali seems pretty modern with new tarmac boulevards, modern buildings and quite expensive restaurants. There are very fancy houses next to ruined buildings ripe for development or ruined buildings currently being developed. There is clearly money here, but whose? I was shocked to learn that according to GDP per capita Rwanda is poorer than Sudan; it doesn’t feel like it. Kigali is also very leafy and spread out, and so hilly that the geography is quite befuddling - something may be close as the crow flies but perhaps three times as far to actually get to it because the roads have to jag left and right to get up and down. It would be a great place to own a jetpack (where wouldn't). I saw a driving school consisting of a dirt field with various cones and poles and a series of battered old hatchbacks to practice in; this doesn't really replicate my experience of African traffic. I ended my walk with a beer in a strange and confusing hotel where I may have accidentally crashed a graduation ceremony but nobody seemed to mind. In the lift was a sign saying "In case of emergence" followed by a phone number, which begs the question: emergence of what?

Dan and Colm had left Kigali by this point but Henry was still around so I went for dinner and drinks with him and his hostel roommate Max, a Danish guy with an impressive beard who was travelling by public transport through Africa. Max had made lady friends throughout his travels using the magic of Tinder, and for some reason (OK, the beer, plus it’s kind of funny) I agreed to carry a present for one of these friends to Malawi, ie about 2000km. We went to pick it up from their hostel, which was both busy and playing surprisingly decent electronic music so I stuck around and chatted with Henry** until about 2.30am, “requiring” the consumption of several more beers. It’s nice to talk with someone who “gets” this journey, and he’s a good egg. So strange that I met three new friends at the same time on the same spot just outside Kibuye in Rwanda. 

What with all these beers I had a fair hangover the next day, so with this, the upsetting nature of the genocide memorial, and all my walking around, I hadn’t really rested on my rest days. I got the bus back to Butare, which was standardly uncomfortable but unexpectedly quick both in terms of it departing straight away and taking an hour less than the one into Kigali. Maggie was still there and we were lovingly reunited, before I left her in the room to go out and watch the Croatia Morocco game in a “fancy” place that Jonny had recommended, where I had a big feed followed by an early night. Burundi calls the next day; I suspect things are about to get a bit more difficult.

*I didn’t properly test out the old one and, whilst it still technically worked, I had to use shortcuts for /?’ and ”, I had to hit 8 really hard, and the space bar really enjoyed double typing itself and putting a full stop after every word. The new one has a bewildering array of functions, with some keys used for up to five things. Still, it’s nice to know I can type in Arabic if I want to.

**Max became waylaid by another one of his Tinder friends and there was a very confusing series of interactions going on in the vicinity during much of my chat with Henry

————————————————————————————

So, the genocide memorial. I was initially skeptical as there was a cafe and gift shop; imagine someone saying "Oh I love your scarf" and being able to reply "Thanks, I got it at the Kigali genocide memorial so it always reminds me of the senseless brutality of man". 

However, once into the exhibition it became clear that this was no powder-puff take on things. The section on the historical context was jaw dropping enough, but the section on the genocide itself was utterly shattering. After this you had the thousands of pictures of the murdered, which I couldn’t even handle looking at, the skulls and the clothes and the possessions, and worst of all the room with the giant pictures of children and captions like: “Name - Jean-Emmanuel; Favourite sport - Cycling; Favourite food - eggs and chips; Personality - outgoing and intelligent; Cause of death - hacked to death with machetes.” Over and over again. I broke down a couple of times inside the exhibition and then afterwards I had to go and find somewhere quiet outside to just sit with head in hands.

It wasn’t just sadness that I felt, and still feel, it’s anger too. The distinctions between Hutus and Tutsis weren't even racial, they were socioeconomic and arbitrarily designated by the Belgian colonial powers in the 1930s. Anyone with ten cows or more was Tutsi. Just balance those two things for a second: "race" was imposed on a population based on the number of cows they held, and then 60 years later hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in cold blood, based on historical levels of cow ownership. It's so fucking stupid and pointless. Every human, no matter how different or weird they seem, is still a human. If we forget that, or worse, choose to forget that, terrible things can happen. 

Two quotes from the memorial: 

"If you knew me and you really knew yourself, you would not have killed me"

"An estimated 250,000 people are buried here"