11 weeks

77 days left. 

The silver lining in homesickness is that you realize how many dear people you have in your life. 

The downside is you start to question if you're really built for this expat lifestyle...

Happy Mother's Day, mamma.

Two sides of the same coin

I got an interesting comment on my last blog post from a dear friend of mine. With her permission I share it to you now, so you can get the other side of the story...

"I lived there for almost 2 months. It's amazing what they, Rwandans, have done after the genocide. It's a shame that the hatred is deep down in their bones. 

My first days there were heavenly. As I started interacting with the locals, I realised they are very suspicious of anyone and that is because Kagame, the president, has thousands of spies and anyone that talks ill of him or the government, is arrested. Democracy there is dead. I don't know if you noticed but the people there are not very lively like here. There is an air of tension.

There is quite a lot I can tell you about my experience there. You got most of it right on your blog but some, no. The Tutsi and Hutus were not classified by the Belgians. The Rwandans had a caste system and they divided themselves as so. The Tutsi were cattle herders while the Hutus were farmers. Hutus could rise up to the status of being known as a Tutsi if they acquired a certain number of cows. When the Belgians arrived, they used this caste system to divide and rule them. They went to the Tutsi telling them they were alike in looks (light skinned, sharp noses) and gave them high positions of power. They then went to the Hutus and told them they were foolish to be "ruled" by a minority group (Hutus make up the majority of Rwandas population). This created tension and it led to the first (though minor) genocide in 1952 (or so). The second one was in the 70s and the 19994 was the culmination of it all.

It is a lovely country and the people need a strong though kind of dictator like Kagame as they are very hard headed and very vengeful. I hope they will be able to maintain peace once he leaves the office."

Land of a million smiles and a thousand hills

This post will include a description of my three days, three nights -trip to Rwanda, some practical tips and a bit of facts for the ones of you out there who were like "What? Where's Rwanda?"

There it is. :)

Couple of basic facts:

Capital: Kigali, with a population of ~1,2 million

Population: ~12 million

Area: ~7% of Finland's area

People living under the poverty limit: ~50 %

Currency: Rwandan franc (1 € = 772 RWF)

Visa: apply for advance on the Rwanda High Commission's website about a week before your trip and pay $30 at the airport. 

Official languages: Kinyarwanda, English, French (neither of the latter ones really in the countryside, though, so be ready for language barriers)

Notable things in history: Genocide against the Tutsi (1994)

Other interesting things about the country:

- littering is illegal and plastic bags are banned

- the country is safe, ever for wazungus (= white people) like me and you are actually able to walk the streets after dark 

- Rwanda has been accepting refugees from DR Congo, and are currently receiving 1,000 refugees a week from Burundi 

- the concept of umuganda is enforced by law, which means every last Saturday of the month everyone works to clean the city or work on the environment (we noticed people working to fill the potholes in the streets in front of their house, something I've never witnessed Kenyans do...)

- Rwanda has had a steady economic growth of an average 7,5 % ever since the civil war ended in 1995 and it's estimated to continue

- Rwanda is one of the few countries to have made huge progress in their efforts to reach their 2020 Millennium Development Goals, for example they have cut down child mortality rates, increased literacy

- Rwanda mainly exports coffee and tea to Finland and imports heavy machinery from Finland.

We arrived late on Labour Day eve to Kigali after a 2h 40 min flight from Nairobi (with a technical landing in Entebbe-Kampala, Uganda).
We stayed at the Discover Rwanda Youth Hostel in Kigali before and after our day trip to Gisenyi - they also have a hostel in Gisenyi, but it was overbooked. EXCELLENT staff, clean rooms and all the essentials you might need, for about 15-35 €/night. I recommend it warmly for all backpackers!

Early Labour Day morning we got on the bus to Gisenyi, which is a small town located on the shore of Lake Kivu and the board of DR Congo in West Rwanda. The bus trip on the quality roads (something you only see in Nairobi, if even there!) took 3,5 hours. We used Virunga Express, which I recommend for a nice travel experience (comfy seats!). Sit on the right side for the best scenery on the way there. :) The tickets were around 5-7 € one-way, if I remember correctly. The bus stops every hour along the way, so you can make a quick run to a toilet if you need to. 

The country side is absolutely beautiful! The photos I took didn't really show how lovely this country is. The small villages we passed showed a calm and modest way of life. We saw people working in the tea plantations and sugarcane fields, carrying vegetables on their heads, women dressed colorfully (not your urban style, that you see in Nairobi), kids smiling and waving... I just sat and listened to music while watching the scenery and I couldn't imagine that this is were the atrocities of the genocide actually took place, not so long ago...

The travel advisory warns travelers about going to Gisenyi, since the town is right on the border to DR Congo, and things there can escalate fast. Well, we had a very lovely and safe experience, so don't trust travel advisories blindly.

Gisenyi. Look! No trash in the streets!

We had a very chill day in Gisenyi. After arriving (on schedule, I might add), we managed to find a hostel with available rooms. The staff at the Shadow hostel weren't as professional as in Kigali, and they didn't really speak English or French. Luckily we happened to meet the manager who spoke French, so Oona, being Swiss and fluent in French, managed to get us everything we needed (read: working wifi). Afterwards we headed off to a restaurant recommended to us, the White Rock. Since Rwandan food is pretty similar to Kenyan (rice & beans), we went for an Italian lunch. 

Lake Kivu is a great source for methane gas in Rwanda.  

The Avenue of Cooperation, parallel to the beach.

I wish we had had the time and money to go over to the Congo-side. The visa is apparently $105 for Finns...
TIP: Hikers should go trekking on the Congo-trail (31 km) or hiking on the volcanoes! From what I understand, Gisenyi is not that far from Volcanoes National Park, which is popular for Gorilla trekking, which is supposed to be the animal experience of a lifetime. However, the gorilla pass is as much as $750 + the price for the safari including guide, trips etc. ($150-300). Way out of our budget but if it fits in yours, do NOT miss out on that!  

Sunset in Gisenyi.

Red sunset over Congo.

Early next morning it was time to hop on the Virunga Express again. This picture is taken from the bus on our way out from Gisenyi.

 I really enjoyed going to Gisenyi even if it doesn't sound like much (a day-trip with 7 hours on the bus, Italian food, seeing the border to DR Congo and walking on the beach). Since it was Labour Day, everything would have been closed in Kigali anyway, and after 3 months in Nairobi, it felt good to see some nature - even if it was from the bus.

 My aptitude for daydreaming was induced by the beautiful scenery on our way back to Kigali, made even dreamier with fog, soft rain and low-hanging clouds. It's rainy season in Rwanda, so it had rained heavily during the night and it rained a bit all morning. The clouds were hugging the hills we were driving around and over on winding streets. At some point a cover of the Lynyrd Skynyrd-song, Free bird, came on and I genuinely felt happy.

When we arrived back to Kigali around 11 am, we checked in at Discover Rwanda Youth Hostel and drove around the city with motobikes, the cheapest and fastest way to get around the city. We had a list of restaurants from a friend of mine, but it took some time finding them. Eventually the first place we found was the Papyrus, which we wanted to go to the least, as it was Italian again, but the food was good! 

TIP: Other restaurants to visit: Sole Luna, Serena Hotel, New Cactus, Khana Khazana (Indian), Republica, Heaven (I heard it's amazing, but expensive, ~100€/2 pers.), Bourbon Cafe (good coffee, check cakes for freshness), New Cactus. For more restaurants, check out EatOut.

A must-see site in Kigali is definitely the Main Memorial Genocide Museum. Brace yourself, though, since it is very touching. I didn't want to pay extra for photographing, so I don't have pictures to show. 

In case you're not quite sure on what happened in Rwanda, I'll explain it in a very simplified way: 

Belgians colonized Rwanda, declared some people as Tutsi and others Hutu (based on looks, facial features, how many cows they had, etc.) and favored the minority Tutsi. The people of Rwanda had been living in peace up until that point. Rwanda gained independence in 1962. Hutu's aggression towards Tutsi ultimately lead to a brutal genocide, where the goal was to eliminate Tutsis completely. When the international community heard of what was happening in 1994, the UN gave orders to stand back.

TIP: Movies you can watch about Rwanda: Hotel Rwanda, Sometimes in April and Shooting Dogs. 

At the museum they first had a section describing the events leading up to the genocide, with video interviews on the few survivors of it. It was heart-breaking to hear stories of people (some my age) losing every member of the family ("There were 60 of us, and now I'm the only one left"), seeing their loved ones killed right before them, being betrayed by a Hutu-neighbor... 

Then there was a video viewing room, where the same people told their warmest memories of the loved ones they lost. There was this guy, maybe a bit younger than I am, who recalled a memory of the last meal his mom made him, before she was killed. He was trying to hold back tears and said that passion fruits now have another meaning to him...

After that, when your emotions are already running high, you walk into a section with bones...

But the section that made me cry was the kids' room (If you have difficulties reading about brutalities towards children, just skip this paragraph). 

There were last pictures of children as young as 18 months, and a small plaque with facts about them: their name, age, favorite thing to do (play with sister), description of their character (smiley, playfull, daddy's girls), their last words ("Where can I run to, mom?").... and the way they were killed (smashed into a wall, slashed with a machete).... I've never cried at a museum before. Now I have.

What is incredible to me is that this is all something that happened a little over 20 years ago, and every family in Rwanda was touched by this in one way or the other. It absolutely amazes me that they have managed to find a way to live in peace and rebuild their country together. It truly shows the capability of the human mind to overcome difficulty. Incredible. 

We walked in silence through the memorial site outside of the museum, where 250,000 people are said to be buried. Rwanda has an official week of mourning April 7th, but as the atrocities went on for the whole month, people had brought flowers to the memorial site pretty recently, as some of them were still fresh. Many of them had a note saying: "Never again".

After the Museum we took a trip to the Milles Collines, the actual hotel where the events portrayed in the movie Hotel Rwanda took place, but to our disappointment there is nothing historical about it, as it's a luxury Kempinski hotel nowadays.

The rest of the evening was quite low-key - we had a bite to eat at a Mexican place and enjoyed a couple of local beers at the hostel. 

All in all, a very good but extremely emotional Saturday.

On Sunday we wanted to see a bit of art and we actually ended up seeing up to four different art galleries. They're not that big, so it takes about 10-30 min. to see everything. Local artists mix urban and Western styles with local ones, and it's an okay variety.

 If you're looking to buy something, it would be nice to do it at these places, since they support the local community in various ways.

The galleries we saw were Niyo Arts Gallery, Imeka Art Gallery, Ivuka Arts Studio and Jego Arts. 

We walked from studio to studio and got to see the real way people were living, behind the paved main streets. The rain had stopped before we arrived to Kigali, and it was 27 degrees and sunny.

I haven't been to many African countries but Rwanda definitely tops the list for me. I was wondering about the level of services (people get medically evacuated to Nairobi for the smallest things) and the nightlife (for which Kampala in Uganda and Nairobi in Kenya are famous) but we talked to this one expat-tattoo artist who vouched for them both. I could really see myself staying in Kigali some time in the future. Better get back home and study some French! :)

TIP: The way to the Kigali International Airport only takes 10-15 minutes from the hostel and as the airport is quite small, 1,5 hours gives you plenty of time for security checks etc. Compare that to Nairobi, where it takes 2,5 hours to get to the airport from Westlands, Nairobi due to heavy traffic, and 1 h for the security checks and so forth... 
Coming back to Nairobi it took an hour to get out the airport because of the health checks (in case you have Ebola...), passport/visa checks and getting the luggage. Phew. 

Tunaenda Rwanda!

While all of Finland is popping champagne and celebrating this Spring event by putting their white Matriculation hats on and storming the streets in the cold, I will be spending my Labour Day -eve on board the RwandAir, sipping my sparkling in the air on my way to Kigali, Rwanda!

My partner in crime this time is Oona and we will spend three nights and three days in this "land of a million smiles and a thousand hills".

On Labour Day, a national holiday also in Rwanda, we will head west to the border town of Gisenyi on the shore of Lake Kivu. 

On Saturday the plan is to return to the capital Kigali and visit a couple of genocide museums and - to balance the scales a bit - a couple of contemporary art galleries. 

On Sunday we're probably going out for brunch somewhere and visiting the market before heading to the airport in the evening. 

Reeeeeeally looking forward to this!

Have a wonderful Labour Day all of you!

Finnish election night in Nairobi

It was election day in Finland on Sunday. I was happy to be invited to follow the results' show at the home of a Finnish couple, working in Nairobi for the Finn Church Aid. 

 On the agenda was SAUNA, (which felt absolutely fantastic!), good food and of course, guessing the results of the elections. 

Here were my guesses - and with the tight race for second place, I did pretty well! 

The group of us consisted of Finns from all walks of life - some had stayed in Africa for 20 years, some for "just" a few. 

Being that there were a lot of people working for NGO's, development co-operation organizations and for the embassy, you can imagine how they reacted when we heard the results. With True Finns winning, there might be drastic changes to these people's lives... 

About Zanzibar

 I was lucky enough to travel away from the hustle and bustle of Nairobi and spend Easter at Zanzibar with my friend Grace! 

Small details of the trip:

Nairobi - Zanzibar City with Precision Air, 1h 50 min.

Two nights and one day in the lovely capital Zanzibar city, exploring the lovely old town of Stonetown by foot. 

Three days and four nights in the north coast town of Nungwi, which was basically a little shack town next to a row of budget or luxurious resorts on the white, sandy beaches (the contrast between the little village and our Doubletree by Hilton-resort was a bit painful...). 

Zanzibar City - Nairobi with Kenya Airways, 50 min. 

Flights were 330 €, and we got a good deal on the hotels since it was low-season.

 

The top 5 things about this trip: 

- Zanzibar is LOVELY. It is so beautiful, small, not as busy as Nairobi and a lot more quiet. It is also the most romantic place I've been to (mind you, I haven't traveled that much) - I wish L could have been there with me.

- Despite the rainy season having started, it only rained for a while on our first day in Nungwi. Other than that the weather was perfect: 25-30 degrees Celsius and sunny. :) 

- Compared to Nairobi, Zanzibar is very safe. We were actually able to walk in the streets after dark and, for example, enjoy some tasty street food at the market in Stonetown. It wasn't until I was walking on the beach barefoot, looking at the starry sky, that I realized how much I had missed the freedom of walking outside after dark.

- After awhile I got over my white man's guilt of staying at a quality hotel next to the village, where people clearly lived in poverty. I actually managed to relax on the beaches and get a proper tan! 

- I went snorkeling and I saw coral reefs for the first time in my life! It was a lot more scarier that I thought it would be, and when Grace decided to go diving at Nungwi, I opted out (also for budgetary reasons). 

When I was researching the destination, I came across a wonderful blog and we pretty much did everything that was mentioned there! Okay, we didn't go on a Spice Tour, since I had heard they're not that informative or interesting. Then again we met a couple of people who had been on a tour and loved it, so I don't know. 

But anyway, here are some pictures! :) 

House of Wonders. The first building in Zanzibar to have electricity, running water and an elevator. 

On our way to Prison Island.

At the tortoise sanctuary. 

Almost like Monopoly-money!

Stonetown is famous for the wonderfully odd and beautiful doors.

Our guide at Slave market. Here's what the blog I was talking about says about the Zanzibari slave trade: "Zanzibar has a more sinister claim to fame: the archipelago was a main slave-trading port in East Africa. For a deeper understanding of this dark chapter in its history, don’t miss the location of the world’s last open slave market, a deeply significant site where the Anglican Cathedral now stands as a symbolic triumph over inhumanity. Started by the Portuguese, the slave trade in Zanzibar reached its zenith with the Omani sultanate until it was outlawed by the British in 1873, thanks to the anti-slavery campaign led by the famous Scottish explorer, David Livingstone, who stayed in Zanzibar before his final expedition. Slaves from the African interior were transported here, where they were whipped and sold, then shipped off to the Middle East and as far as North America."

This is the most moving memorial I've ever been to. If I remember it correctly, it was made by a Swede. The chains are supposedly original.

At the Darajani market.

Street food market!

At Nungwi. Low tide.

Village of Nungwi.

Yes, I'm THAT cheesy.

Grace got us upgraded - free breakfast!

Last sunrise