Forget Spaghetti Westerns. With all the Hair and Nail Saloons in this country, Rwanda is the perfect place to stage a Western. Hollywood, are you out there? Oh, and this little photo gallery is only the beginning. I snapped these five images within a 1 km radius in the Kigali suburb of Remara. There will be many more photos like this to come.
a satellite image of my Kigali neighborhood
I've started jogging. It's a way for me to learn my neighborhood, to kill time while waiting for the paperwork we need to film, and to blow off steam about some of the roadblocks we've hit.
Above is a satellite photo of my neighborhood in Kigali. I've circled the house where I live. The image doesn't accurately convey the steep incline that I must ascend to get to the large circle on the right side of the satellite image near the Rwandan Revenue Building. The loop is a favorite workout spot for the Chinese business people who live in the neighborhood. We pass large groups of them walking the loop every evening. I say hi in mandarin, ni hao ma-- the only word I know. My cameraman, who is much more proficient in the language usually asks them if they've seen our dog, Beaubie, who has inevitably run off since we don't have a leash for him.
Beaubie, the dog who came with my house
Yesterday, we were jogging the loop and Beaubie was running around in the middle of the road. He's already been hit by a car once, so you'd think that he'd be more cautious around moving vehicles. But no. He ran towards a Jeep that was driving too fast. Luckily, the driver slammed on the breaks and avoided making impact with the poor mutt. But when Beaubie fell over he re-injured his leg. He hobbled home, whimpering in pain. I felt horrible. I was doubtful that we would be able to find a vet. But today we tracked one down. He gave us antibiotics and medication to reduce the swelling and pain. Already, Beaubie seems much happier. I'm going shopping for a leash, though it may be a few days before Beaubie is ready to run again.
Continue on to see another picture of Beaubie before the injury.
With Ibrihim our taxi driver in Butare
It's hard to believe that I've only been here for 48 hours. I guess jetlag continues to disorient me, but I've also managed to pack in a lot. On Saturday morning my cameraman and I got up at 5 am and took the Volcano bus down to Butare -- a college town about two hours south of Kigali. The town is the largest in Rwanda after Kigali. The ride there was utterly breathtaking and the early morning light, incredible. Like most drives in Rwanda, the road south winds up and down through the lush green hills and despite my fatigue I couldn't help but keep my eyes open taking in the beauty.
Evidence that this is the most densely populated country in Africa is not seen in high rises or traffic congestion. Rather, it becomes clear looking out the window and seeing the people themselves; for the entire duration of the trip through the rural countryside not a minute goes by when we weren't passing people walking along the road -- some carrying bananas and pineapples in baskets on their heads, other just socializing with friends. At first glance it's easy to miss all the housing necessary to accommodate Rwanda's large population. Looking out my window into the valleys and up the hills it seems there are merely leafy banana trees and green. But looking harder the camouflaged tile-roofed homes emerge. Once I spot them I realize they're ubiquitous -- dotting the valleys, lining the road, stacked up terraced hillsides.
The main street of Butare is dusty and lined with storefronts -- there are a few restaurants, an internet cafe, gas station. The town is much smaller than bustling Kigali and feels a little like the set of an old western. We arrived by 8:30 am and had time for a leisurely breakfast at Hotel Ibis before meeting with the head of the journalism school. I ate the omelet special -- tomatoes, cheese, meat and rice suspended in egg. I think next time I'll ask for sans riz.
We had a good meeting with the journalism school director and then walked to the house where the Rwanda Initiative teachers live while teaching at the journalism school. We had lunch with them, explaining a bit about our project. Together we headed to Radio Salus -- the university radio station, now ranked 3rd in the entire country, thanks in large part to Aldo Havugimana.
During our last trip to Rwanda in 2004, we had met and interviewed Aldo who was then a journalism student at the University. He hoped to become a radio journalist. Four years later he is the director of Radio Salus and has successfully boosted the station's ratings by creating a range of diverse programming which includes news, short radio documentaries, talk shows, music shows, often featuring question and answers. The station has come a long way since we were last here when it was just starting up.
It started to rain lightly as we made our way to catch the last bus back to Kigali.
The view from my home in Kigali
Over the past two days I've crossed seven time zones and have slept very little. Maybe that's why it feel like the days between now and when I left New York are running together like a long poorly constructed run-on sentence like the one I'm writing now.
My flight arrived at the Kigali airport at 8 PM, right on time. It was a quick drive from the airport to what will be my new home for the next six weeks. In Rwanda there are few street lamps, so at night, even at the airport, the stars pop out of the sky. It was great to see so many stars, but the lack of man-made lighting made it hard to take in the buildings and distant hills I knew were out there, but only came through to my strained eyes as silhouettes. I will have to wait until morning to really see.
To get to my house we drove a few miles on a paved road to my neighborhood in Kimihurura -- a neighborhood on a hill that has about 8 rows of terraced red dirt streets stacked up the hillside. We're in the middle of the hill and from my front porch I look directly at the lights dotting the next hill over -- where downtown Kigali is situated.
The luggage containing our camera lens is still missing so I make another Skype call to "FlightCare" to find out if my bag was found in Delhi, but there was no news. Time to adjust to GMT +2 and get some sleep.