Rwanda

…IS AWESOME (-: Well maybe because I came from Uganda and everything is relative. Also, I only visited the capital, Kigale, but even so, I thought Rwanda was wonderful. I had a great time. We had a bit of a rocky start after an adventurous night at a dance club in Mbarara that lasted until we left for the bus to Kigale at 6:00am. Then after a few tortuous hours on a bus and spent at the border, we arrived in Kigale about 1pm. Side note: there was an obvious visual difference at the border between Rwanda and Uganda: like in Uganda the immigration office was on this awkward hill, there were a bunch of dirty shops with garbage all around the ground, and all vehicles trying to find space on the side of a typical road-full of potholes, bumpy, narrow, partly dirt, and covered in garbage; while the Rwandan side had a well organized and convenient immigration office on a spacious, level, and cleaned paved area that served as a space for a few well maintained shops, toilets, and immigration office as well as designated areas for trucks, buses, and cars to park in while dealing with border control. There is about a 50 yard walk between borders that the people have named ‘no man’s land’ that have tons of men trying to be walking forex bureaus. Again, Uganda had these obnoxious men but Rwanda regulated them. These differences were just a preview of the disparities between the two neighboring countries. The cleanliness factor was huge for me because I can’t stand how much Ugandans litter and in Rwanda plastic bags are illegal, they even check bags and vehicles at the border. Even the taxi/bus park in Kigale was cleaner, more organized, less crowded and the men, although aggressive, not nearly as much as in the Kampala taxi and bus parks. After dropping our luggage at our hotel we went right to the genocide museum that is not far from the downtown area. I know that it was built in the past decade so it’s more modern and was well funded by foreign and Rwandan governments, but it was really nice-as in similar to museums in America. There was a well maintained and beautiful garden with a veranda for the café that sells snacks and drinks. After the museum we went to a mall in the center of the city that has a great and huge grocery store and an amazing coffee shop (I don’t like coffee but everyone else really liked it, but the ambiance was similar to coffee houses in America and it even had wireless internet connection that was free as long as you are a customer-free internet is unheard of in Uganda, let alone wireless internet). Then we went to the hotel to quickly shower then headed to the New Cactus Restaurant and had amazing pizzas and lasagnas. Then the cheesecake I bought at the grocery store was brought out with candles and we sung happy birthday to one of our volunteers (actually we originally decided to go to Rwanda because of the PCV’s 50^th birthday). The next day was a little lighter because we were tired and it was raining. So we went to the coffee shop a while, walked around the city and went to eat at a few different restaurants. While walking around the city we visited the Millennium Colline Hotel (I think that was the name…) which is not only very nice but apparently was the hotel that the movie Hotel Rwanda was based upon. For dinner we went to a tandoori Indian restaurant-delicious. Early the next morning we grudgingly got on a bus to Uganda at 6:00am. It’s amazing what a less corrupt, strict, and organized government can do for an East African country…apparently a lot.