Sitting out on our house’s terrace as the day gets going. The house is on the side of a hill, like almost everything in Kigali, looking over a valley to another hill a half mile away. To my left is the roofs of more large houses with fences and gates (some with razor wire atop the fences), which seem to house people from the diplomatic missions to the embassies up atop the hill.
To my right is a jumbled patchwork of tin roofs, some rusted, some shiny new, others with rocks holding them down, that stretches away as far as I can see, and down to the green fields at the bottom of the valley. There are several yellow-billed kites soaring up and down the valley, sometimes sheering over to take a look at me on the balcony.
The valley floor is bright green, and the last few days there have been people working in the field, carrying water, weeding, or doing other chores, while behind them motorbikes, cars and trucks pass by on a busy road that winds along the far side of the valley. I can’t tell what they are farming there; I haven’t been down to check it out yet. Across the valley, spreading out from atop the hill, is a neighborhood of beige condo or apartment blocks, looking like a new development, studded by palm trees. Far away to my right, at the bottom of the valley, is a golf course, which to me is somewhat incongruous, but I guess makes sense. Kigali is a city of about 1 million, and packed with people.
The guys working on the house across the street are hard at work, mixing and hauling cement, laughing and joking and calling out to people walking by. I can hear the moto taxis driving up and down, looking for a ride. These are motorbikes, almost always painted red, with a guy driving wearing a red vest and with a helmet carried in one hand, wearing another. These are the primary means of transport – 50 cents or so will get you a lift almost anywhere in the city, just jump on the back, put the spare helmet on and you’re off. I’m banned from using them by the terms of the grant – too dangerous.
Strangely, it doesn’t seem that they are actually that dangerous. Of all the places I’ve been around the world, the drivers here in the city are remarkably polite. They slow down or even stop for people in the crosswalk, and they tap on the horn or wave others through. There are almost no traffic signals around, but everyone just makes it work. I may have a different take the longer I’m here.
Written By
We left Kigali in the early afternoon on Tuesday, after spending the morning working on our field collection methods – Samsung tablets with a GIS data collector installed, with custom surveys built and distributed to the five student researchers. I went out to take care of some housekeeping – got cash from the ATM, a few groceries and then to get a few documents printed. Work on the street...
This question comes up fairly regularly. Rwanda? Why Rwanda? There are a number of reasons for that, the first one being that I'm a masters degree candidate at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and this opportunity came to me through RIT. We have RIT/ NSF-...
It's Sunday, a bit of a day off after a week of meetings and introductions, exploration and adjustment. We finished up our meetings with the UNHCR on Thursday, and then the US Embassy on Friday. After that meeting, we went out to a Rwandan buffet, which was tasty a...
After months of Zoom meetings, reading and uncertainty, the day finally came. I finished a few home projects, then hugged the kids - with some tears - and drove toward Boston with Bean. It was a sunny, warm day, and we stopped once in New Hampshire. Then, suddenly,...
