Backpacking Trip: Tanzania and Rwanda Part 2

We were shocked when we arrived in Kigali, a beautiful, modern, and extremely clean city. When we first got there our main concern was finding a place to stay so that we could get rid of our dirty backpacks and look a little less out of place. We tried talking to people to find out where a cheap place to stay was and everyone, trying to be as helpful as possible, kept leading us to expensive hotels that were way out of our price range. We thought they just misunderstood what we meant by cheap, but after doing some research at an internet cafÈ, we found that the only hostel that exists in the city is one that is run by the Catholic Church. We were really surprised by this considering the fact that every other town and city we had been to had numerous options in terms of cheap hostels and places to stay for backpackers. After discussing with some locals, we learned that the reason why there are no hostels or guesthouses is because not many tourists actually stay in Kigali. Although Rwanda is a rather popular tourist destination, the main reason why people go to the country is to see the endangered grey guerillas that live in the mountains and are expected to be extinct within the next ten years. Trips to see these guerillas can cost over $5,000 a day, so unfortunately it is not something that we checked out, however, it did explain why there were no cheap accommodations since most people just fly into Kigali and then head out for the guerilla lodges and most of them, even if they do stay in the capital, are definitely not staying at $3.50 a night hostels.
After renting out a room for the equivalent of $4 a night, we dropped off our bags and headed out to check out the city. We spoke with some of the men who worked at the hostel to find out where the best museums were. One of the major reasons we wanted to go to Kigali was to learn about and study the effects of genocide, however, we felt a little bit awkward straight up asking Rwandans where the Genocide Memorial Museum was. To our surprise, however, we found that most Rwandans are quite open to talking about what happened during the genocide and often brought the subject up on their own. The best part of our trip, besides going to the extremely powerful genocide museum, was just talking to people. Rwandans are the friendliest people I have ever met and the city was extremely safe. We were able to walk around at night by ourselves with no problems, as the police are an effective and ever-present force at all times.
Wes spoke with many people and about 10 of them discussed with us the 1994 genocide. All of them had fled the country during the time, mostly to the DRC or Tanzania. A general sadness always overtook the people when they spoke on this subject and one young guy even started to cry as he told us about how he had lost both of his parents to the ethnic cleansing. One of the most memorable parts of the trip for me was when we were in the genocide memorial museum and there was a dark room that had outfits taken from victims of the genocide hanging up on string. There were only about 5 different outfits, and one of them included a bloodied and tattered Cornell University shirt. This really struck home and made me quite emotional, thinking about all of the innocent lives that were taken and all of the families that had been destroyed. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to go to Kigali to speak to some of the victims of one of the worst atrocities of mankind first hand, however, none of the people I spoke with acted like victims. Everyone I met was upbeat, outgoing, and generally happy. We kept asking people how things could be so peaceful only 13 years after the genocide that killed millions and people just insisted that they are at peace now. We could not imagine how Hutus and Tutsis could live peaceably with each other after what happened, but that is exactly how life is there now. This trip sincerely sparked my interest in Rwanda and I intend to research possible study abroad programs there for a future semester. I strongly encourage anyone who has the means and interest to visit Kigali once in your life, it is a highly emotional experience, yet it will leave you both perplexed about how a horrible genocide could emerge among such peaceful people and refreshed by the way these people have responded and moved on with their lives.

Backpacking Trip: Tanzania and Rwanda Part 1

A couple of weeks ago my roommate and I took off a few days of classes to travel, the only problem was we couldn’t really decide where we wanted to go, or how we wanted to get there. The one thing we knew for sure, however, was that we somehow wanted to end up in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. A couple of things made our trip difficult—the fact that we’re not allowed to take night buses, the fact that we’re not allowed to take buses period to some areas in Kenya, and the fact that we are poor college students and cannot afford to fly everywhere we want to go. So basically, we packed our backpacks as lightly as possible and headed out on a 6am bus to Arusha, Tanzania hoping that we could catch a bus from there to either Lake Victoria or the Rwandan border. The bus got us in to Arusha around 2, and since we had already been there, we tried to find a bus that left that same day for somewhere else. Once we got off the bus we basically just started asking around and talking to people about where we could get buses to and how we could eventually end up in Rwanda. After discussing for about two hours with several people, we found out that we could take a bus to Mwanza, a city on Lake Victoria, and then commute from there to Rwanda, however, the bus to Mwanza takes all day and we would have to backtrack to Nairobi again to get there. The other option we were told was to take a 5am bus the next morning to a town in Tanzania called Kahama, situated a few hours away from the Rwandan border. Either way we traveled, however, the trip would take at the minimum one day, because we could not drive straight through the country to the border since there is a huge national game reserve in the middle of the country, the Serengeti, which costs a lot of money to drive through and would have involved us going with a tour group and taking time on a safari—something that we have already done before and weren’t interested in doing again. So we chose to spend the night in Arusha, at a $3.50 a night hostel, and departed the next morning for Kahama. The bus to Kahama was pretty painful, as it was largely overcrowded, hot, dusty, and the trip itself was really long. We were the only white people on the bus and were clearly some of the only tourists to ever make this trek. Although the ride was not fun at all, we were at least happy to see the beautiful Tanzanian landscape, as we traversed literally the entire country. We got into Kahama at around 4 and again relied on just talking with people to find our way to Rwanda. The one problem we ran into was the fact that not many people in the town spoke English, as apparently it is not really a tourist attraction. People were very confused by us; however, they were friendly and very helpful. After discussing with the one English speaker we found and after doing the best to negotiate using Kiswahili, we found that we could take a small truck to the border that would only take 3 hours. Since there were no trucks leaving that night, we started to roam around town for another hostel to stay in for the night. We found another equivalent of $3 a night room, dropped off our bags and walked around the town to see what it was like. We went to a little local place where we ate some tasty beef stew and curry and chatted with some people about the town. Kahama is a really small town that is not at all modern, yet the people there are quite interesting and friendly. Although we were only there for about 12 hours, we really enjoyed our stay. The next morning we left at around 5am for the Rwandan border. We packed into a 14-seat van, with about 18 other people, which made for a pretty uncomfortable, however, beautiful ride. The sunrise in the morning was the most beautiful one I have ever seen and the land we drove through was lush and green. After nearly three cramped hours, we ended up at the Rwandan border, along with only two other passengers. I overheard the other two passengers speaking French and decided to ask them if they two were going to Kigali. One of them was a Rwandan citizen returning home to Kigali and the other was a pastor from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who was just passing through the country. Both agreed to help us through customs and to help us get to our final destination. The border patrol station was the smallest I have ever seen. We were the only four people moving through the country and everyone was really lax that was working there. We were surprised by the fact that as United States citizens we did not have to pay any fee or obtain any visa to enter into Rwanda. After getting out stamp, we literally just walked into the country and no one was in sight. We entered through an area called Rusumo Falls, where we crossed a big bridge over a waterfall. When we got to the other side there were a few small buildings, one of which was a Bureau D’Echange where we were able to exchange our money into Rwandan francs. We paid our $3 bus ticket and waited around talking to people for about 30 minutes until the bus departed for the capital. The drive through the Rwandan countryside was one of the most beautiful. Again the land was extremely lush and green, consisting of huge rolling mountains and deep valleys. Rwanda was a Belgian colony, thus in addition to Rwandese and various mother tongues, most Rwandan people speak French (a very small number of people we found there spoke English). The people we were riding with in the small van were all extremely friendly and inquired about who we were and where we came from. Driving the countryside, it was so hard to imagine how a horrible genocide could have occurred just almost ten years ago in such a peaceful and beautiful place.