19 December 2016 2 of 4
Hello from beautiful Rwanda in East Africa
Rwanda is the land of a thousand hills (plus a fair few more in my opinion – the only flat spaces we saw in our 5 day road trip were used for soccer fields!). The country is the cleanest I’ve ever visited – there’s no roadside rubbish anywhere, no cigarette butts, no empty Macca’s packaging and absolutely no plastic bags as they are banned from the country. On the last Saturday of every month, everyone gets out and cleans all public spaces – even the President. It makes for a very green and pretty landscape.
The people of Rwanda are super friendly and relaxed. They walk a lot. And are very good at carrying anything on their heads. The main exports are tea and coffee, with a significant part of the population working the land. Goat seems to be the main meat and has quickly become our meat of choice.
You may remember there was a genocide in Rwanda in 1994 with the Hutu extremists killing up to 1.3 million Tutsi. According to the Genocide Memorial in Kigali, the Hutu and Tutsi people lived since the stone age in relative peace with many not considering there was a difference. But then colonial rule from early 20th century enforced identity cards which stipulated each person’s background – you were a Tutsi if you had more than 10 cows, and a Hutu if you had less than 10 cows. Tensions rose over time with the Genocide starting in April 1994, led by members of the government, and continued for just over 3 months. The memorials we have visited have been very confronting and makes me disappointed to be human – the violence inflicted during the genocide was horrific and unthinkable in my head. After the genocide those that had been arrested for participating had to face justice. Interestingly, the Rwandan’s used a Gacaca Court (www.gacaca.rw/about) – a community court where those involved come together to talk about what happened and to agree on the way forward. This meant that survivors were able to ask whether their loved ones had been killed and where their body was which helped communities move on. Definitely a helpful way to get through such a catastrophic event.
On a lighter note, we stayed in the jungle a few nights and saw us some chimpanzees and monkeys, and a whole lot of other critters. We can’t afford to see the gorillas (approx $1000 USD for a day trip), so went the smaller relatives. They were definitely cute.
On Saturday night we were staying at Kibuye on Lake Kivu. After a hard few days in the jungle, we took ourselves to the “beach bar” by the lake for sunset drinks. We made a few friends and found ourselves quite a number of hours later on a nightclub dance floor being instructed on how to dance African style – I’m really not sure my hips will ever be the same again.
We head to Uganda on Monday for some more adventures.
