The Official Kigali City Tour

I returned to Kigali to continue working through the end of September. The work is challenging as usual, but I feel different because there is a light at the end of the tunnel and I know the last couple months will fly-by.

August through October is the busiest time of the year here in our office as we closeout this year's budget and plan for next year's programs. We typically have a surge of temporary staff to help during the "season".

A couple of our visiting team members invited me to join them for the"official" Kigali city tour, which costs $20 and leaves twice a day from the Office of Tourism and National Parks. Not surprisingly when we showed up for the Saturday 8AM tour (after having called to arrange it) there was no tour driver available. I say not surprising, because one thing you learn quickly in Rwanda is to be patient and not expect that service or products will arrive on-time or in the way you would like! That sounds harsh, but truthfully is a good lesson to learn and I have come to appreciate it. So, instead we took the tour on Sunday afternoon. The three of us traveled around Kigali for four hours in this bus with one other tourist from Canada.

Our driver, Tim, was pretty good at reciting stories and facts about Kigali sites.
First we stopped at the Genocide Memorial of Belgian Soldiers at Camp Kigali. This is the location of the massacre of 10 Belgian UN Blue Berets which happened on the first day of the genocide. Under the command of Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, they were deployed to guard the house of moderate Prime Minister Agatha Uwilingimana when soldiers invaded the home and transported them to this location where they were killed.

The building is a disturbing reminder of the weapons and violence.

Next we traveled to the Kigali Memorial Centre(Gisozi), which is a very well-done museum about Rwanda's past, present, and future related to the genocide in 1994. The exhibit includes 2,500 personal interviews, 25,000 personal profiles of missing victims recorded, and over 2,000 photographs of victims.

There is a really beautiful view of Kigali behind the Memorial Centre.
And there are four acres of pretty gardens to explore.
This is also the burial site for over 250,000 victims of the genocide.
From there , we drove around many of the neighborhoods in Kigali.

Including near my favorite grocery store called Simba- it's big!

And around the Roundabout Nyarugenge; the one with the fountain in downtown Kigali.

We drove past the popular roundabout near Kimihurura where nearly every married couple in Kigali takes a wedding photo near the fountain.

We also went to Nyamirambo, which is a lively, low to mid-income part of town where there is a small cinema and a large mosque.

Here are other views of Nyamirambo from the balcony of the cinema.

We rode through Nyarutarama, which is the newest part of Kigali with very large, new homes. And we stopped at Caplaki, a small village of artists stalls where handicrafts are sold.

There are many, many places to get your hair done but rather than "Salon", they are called Saloons.

In the heart of downtown Kigali, one of the mini-marts is named Obama mini market.

Also downtown, there are lots of opportunities to buy pre-wrapped boxes (empty!) for all of your gift-giving needs.