quoi de neuf...

...in Kigali? After months of construction finally, the very first Rwandan Coffee Shop opened.



view from the terrace








It looks very much like any other regular Star Bucks, although it lacks that touch of tranquility. Not only is it situated in a big shopping mall that could compete with any mall in Nairobi or Johannesburg but there must be at least a waiter for each table and they are all trying to be busy. After work it is a meeting place for the young and beautiful of Kigali, to see and to be seen. However, it is still exciting and the coffee is good, made in Rwanda, of course!







also on the menu: breezy fruit blur or fruity berry breeze or something like that





Another thing that was much talked about and finally happened was Badminton. I had brought 4 bats from Germany and we set off to Lake Muhazi for a sunday picknick once more to give it a go.

much to everyones excitement and pleasure whether they were playing like Ulrich and me....











...or just watching, like Joy and Liz.

Save Knut

Karl-Marx-Allee, former Stalinallee, East Berlin

When I was back in Berlin for a well deserved holiday in February I heard the first time about Knut, the little polar bear born in the Berlin Zoo. Now back in Kigali, I listened to the Deutsche Welle Radio reporting on some animals right fanatics who suggested he would better be put to sleep than being raised by humans. I say: Save Knut!

Knut

Of course, the two weeks were far too short and busy for real holidays. However, I was there with the stars and it wasn't as cold as I feared it would be after all.
But Berlin and Ouagadougou aren't the only places with film festivals. Add Rwanda to the cinematic map and welcome to Hillywood! On Friday the 3rd Rwandan Film Festival was ceremoniously opened with a 80min long advertisement documentary on Rwanda ("Rwanda Rising"). We all agreed afterwards that it was definitly needed to correct the country's image abroad as for many people genocide is still the first and sometimes only thing that comes to their mind. If that attempt should be left to an ex-mayor of Adlända, Georgia (no offence, Jiyeon!!) though, remains debatable. The festival also features a couple of German movies, courtesy of the German Embassy, but it seemed I was the only one enjoying the "schnoddrigen Berliner Humor" of "Alles auf Zucker" in the crowd. We were sitting outside the major entrance of Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) when people started to murmur. My friend Laura said it must be that Rwanda scored against Marocco (the game was on simultaneously) ...unlikely as it seemed...and indeed, it turned out that they only expressed their dissatisfaction with the movie. I have to say, though, that I could see where they were coming from.
Skimming further through the program it became obvious fairly quickly that it was a little unbalanced and depressive in its choice of films as the majority was dealing with issues of genocide, violence and trauma. Maybe you wouldn't really expect anything else from Rwandan film makers only 12 years after genocide, it took 10 years in Germany to make fun of GDR and socialism (sorry if that seems a little far fetched), but why also showing a whole lot of foreign films with the same issues? Why not allowing for a tiny bit of happiness and easy going even if it was only for the length of a film? We were watching more films tonight, "Darfur Diaries" and another documentary on Holocaust survivors, and it was watching the misery of the refugees and accounts of enormous horrors when I thought, maybe it's just good to know that you are not the only one suffering the unimaginable? This was kind of confirmed later when we saw the motto of this years festival: "sharing stories". Although, as there were only a handful of Rwandans around us I wondered how many people this message was going to reach?

King of the Bongo

tea plantation in Nyungwe forest

One of our New Year Resolutions was to get out of Kigali more often - said and done - we, Joy, Alex and me, set off to Nyungwe National Park last weekend. Someone said to me before I came to Rwanda that in every direction from Kigali one would reach a border in more or less 2 hours and so far this held true. To get to the southwestern part of the country however, its actually quite a bit longer, 5 hours to Cyangugu, at the southern tip of Lake Kivu and the congolese border, and just a little less to our destination: the biggest stretch of rain forest in East Africa famous for its incredible biodiversity and lots of little kings of the bongo. In fact, to see the monkeys you didn't even have to leave the car - unless you wanted to take pictures. The road leads straight through the forest and the little beasts hang out at the roadside, seems they like either cars or their smell. Can't be people as they are not habituated.



Unfortunately nothing in Rwanda comes for free so entry to the park and a 1 hour stroll through the forest cost us about $50 and somehow we didn't feel like going back the next day for another walk and pay again. I would have also prefered to just walk around, smell, see for myself but nope, not even that. Our friendly guide was right there for us, helping to stretch a circle walk of half an hour to an hour by stopping at every plant and tree with their latin names right at hand.



That's how excited Joy and me were!










I am scrolling up and down the pictures to find one that could kind of show it all but its quite hard, to you they'd probably look like pictures from any god damn forest. And somehow we have more of the tea plantation where we went the next day anyway. Over night we stayed in a little lodge where they made a little camp fire just for us. That was nice - only the guitar was missing - and so the evening passed with each of us starring into the fire wrapped in our own thoughts.


"wenn die Nase juckt, dann juckt se!" oder "Frau am Abgrund"













Joy and Alex in the tea plantation

Meanwhile in Kigali life has become quite busy as we are running up to our big meeting beginning of Feb. The rain still hasn't stopped even though it was supposed to be the shorter rainy season - I think the long one starts in February... and our roof isnt't waterproof, its still dripping right on Liz' bed and that does not make her happy!! But getting it investigated or even repaired turns out to be a neverending story with which I am not going to bore you. What else can I tell you, yes, I finally made up my mind and bought a moto. On the road again? Not quite as I got the gaz/oil mix wrong and for the moment its nicely parked in front of my house and wouldn't start...but Liz is also going to buy a car...nice!
So maybe more on new road adventures the next time round!

Oh Tannenbaum

Christmas again and finally I have got to know the meaning of x-mas (thanks Dennis, how many of your new elitist friends actually knew it?).
While everyone else has left town already I am still holding out and try to actually work. At least the weather is creating a bit of an "end-of-the-year" mood, its grey, rainy and cool.

could you try to ignore my underwear sticking out and marvel at the falling rose leaves instead, please...





But to show you that we are not left completely without light and warmth in the dark heart of Africa I have a small collection of Kigalis "best of" X-mas decoration for you.

I will go to Butare in the south of Rwanda where I am invited to the family of my colleague Evangéline. Apparantly though, Christmas is not the same big family affair as in Europe, here New Year is much bigger. And thank God they are not much into presents either. Still have to find a decent present for Evas mother, la chef de famille.

here is Eva (left) with one of our cleaners, Marthe, at our office christmas party








Butare is a former capital of Rwanda and used to be the intellectual stronghold with Rwandas National University.It still kind of is but more and more people and schools move to Kigali. But they do have the National Museum which I am hoping to see as well, finally. And then I was planning on heading further South to Bujumbura, capital of Burundi. Its only another 3 hours drive from Butare and supposed to be quite nice and totally different from Kigali.

So let me wish you all Bonne Fête, Meilleurs Voeux, Joyeux Noël or as they say here
Noheri Iyziza N'umwaka mushya Muhire!!

Gorillas in the rain

A new entry on the day of St. Nicolas (Nikolausi) who has taken the trouble to make his way even to the country of the 1000 hills. But this is not what I want to share with you as obviously what you see on the left is not St. Nicolas but the silverback (le vieux la) of group 13 up in the mountains of the Virunga National Park. The silverback is the leading male in any given group and has - surprise surprise - a silver back, please marvel at the silver chest as well. Apparently all male get that some time but not every one has his own group. Like back in the old days they still fight for their women and for power among themselves and the loser has to go.


But otherwise they are really peaceful as you see here with the youngest member of the group. She is about 2 months old and still a bit scared hence hides in mummy's arms. It was amazing how close we got to them, about 2m, and still how normal they proceeded with their daily routine which comprises eating, playing, eating, sleeping, shagging (nope, we didn't get to see it but according to the guards they normally don't mind visitors at all) , eating and so on. They told us that they eat up to 30kg of green stuff, they are 100% vegetarian, and that really takes up most of their time. More or less quite an easy and cheerful way of life, I certainly wouldn't mind.
But then there wasn't just the gorillas but also the jungle and the walk itself was again a little adventure although we resisted the temptation to walk 4 hours (and 3 back) to the furthest, biggest and most popular group. We thought 1h of mud up to your knees and stingy plants was just about fine. But honestly, it was well worth it - apart from our annoying guard - the smell, the sounds and the views...ok ok, it was quite foggy and rainy, but still.

And hey, who am I to complain, at least my shoes remained intact and I had dry feet. Unlike Alexandra who borrowed boots from a friend and lost both soles half way up - I totally could have died on this mountain, suffocating from eating and laughing so hard at the same time as I was walking right behind her and saw her soles go flop, flop, flop. Alex, by the way, I share my office with temporalily as she was relocated from Kinshasa during the election in the DR Congo.


I just realised going through the pictures that many are, hmm, how do you say 'flu' in english, I mean, not THE flu but when they are not sharp? And we have tons of the old guy. But thats ok, he was quite impressive showing us also every now and then who was the boss by standing up and running towards us to scare us away or just beating his chest.


All in all we spent about an hour with them and if it didn't cost so much I would love to go and see them again. Maybe not with 8 people again and having to shoot 1000s of pictures but really just to observe a bit more in peace.
To say goodbye the silverback sat there quite majestically as if he wanted to indicate that the audience was over...and so it was.













To finish, pictures from Lake Muhazi, about an hour eastwards from Kigali, an ideal place for lazy sundays and parties the saturday night before. Even the president has a house here!







And one from Laura, who I just bought my first original piece of art from. Its called "lick"- see and judge for yourselves!

















And hey, the last one I just found, its from a party at Laura's that was supposed to be a Halloween party aka Congo theme aka whatever you felt like. (Katrin, Liz, Andrea, Laura)

Busy in Benin

Being busy is quite a lame excuse but all the more true for not having entered anything for such a long time. But travelling is and I hope the pictures will compensate for having waited.

I was in Benin for 2 weeks together with 2 rwandese colleagues to explore experiences with the community based health insurances there. Though I was not entirely happy to travel at that point since I had just started to settle in Rwanda really, I think I made the best of it and here are some impressions.

"etoile rouge" in Cotonou

Benin was an ally of the Soviet Union in the Cold War and you didn’t need your history class memories to realize it. Here is one of the most obvious signs of that heritage, the red star round about, although you can’t really see the star itself as it forms the base of the monument. But I think the rest of it is impressive enough and somehow made me feel at home :)

Other than that Cotonou is not a thrilling town, but very busy and reminded me a lot of Ouagadougou - in relation to Kigali that is. But one of its advantages is of course the sea, if you don’t count the humidity that comes with it. We had to go a bit out of town though to see a prettier part of it, see the difference?

beach near the harbour and our hotel




Hertilan, one of my colleagues, who saw the sea for the first time in his life

Travelling with Africans in another African country was definitely quite an experience and although my amazement was manifold here just a few notions on that. Of course “we” – as in white or western people – like to afford more expensive places every now and then - cos we can – whereas they - my colleagues in this particular case – quite understandably save their precious per diems for something else. On the other hand, if “we” decide to mingle with locals and reality often only the really shabby places would do, heralding the prospects of real Africa. And here our ways part, although I haven’t quite understood where they draw their line between dirty and acceptable, they tend to avoid the dark and dirty to look for “proper” places – but still cheap! I almost collapsed hearing one of my colleagues wondering aloud that there could be a place like Cotonou where women cook their food at the roadside on open fires in the year A.C. 2006 (O-Ton!). Then they asked me (and that must have been about the only personal question ever addressed to me in these two weeks) how I liked Benin in comparison to Rwanda and here I was thinking, well, we have been around all this time pumping loads of money into this continent to “develop” it but, you know, actually we quite prefer the chaos (or liveliness, as one could say) and dirt (aka not so proper) cause its just so unlike our own orderly and saturated society. But hey, of course I chose the more diplomatic answer.

after an "exhausting" meeting with my other colleague Alice

The whole trip was nicely and almost evenly divided into work and free time - is it too hard to spot the sarcasm here? - we spent 5 days travelling, had 3 days of weekend, one holiday and hey, 6 days of working! - and we enjoyed all aspects of it.

With the mutualistes, members of the insurance systems, in Bori, near Parakou...







...and in the fishing (tourist, more like)
village of Ganvie, little Venice of Benin

Dance on the volcano

On the route from Kigali to Gisenyi
- Unterwegs von Kigali nach Gisenyi -

I had quite an exciting week with lots of travelling and actually right now I would just love to loll on the sofa and be lazy but I thought I could just as well use our new wireless connection at home and provide you with stories on my latest adventure.
It took me to Goma in the Democratic Republic Congo. Goma is the twin city of Gisenyi on the Rwandan side on the northern tip of lake Kivu and probably - if at all - mostly known for its volcano eruption in 2002. There are loads of volcanos in the area but Nyiragongo (3800 m) is the only one still active, so whats more obvious than climbing it and spending a night at the top? Specially since the timing was incredible as on Friday about 4 hours before we left I finally released my remaing personal belongs out of Rwandan customs. Properly equipped this should be a piece of cake!

I was positively surprised by public transport or rather by my stomach coping with it but I was in good company of my flatmate Andrea, her friend Sara and Bruno - a friend of a friend... well, you know. We arrived safely, spent a night in Gisenyi where Joseph and Mailan joined us. The next morning I first set eye on lake Kivu of which I had already heard so much and which earns Rwanda the name of the African Switzerland ( does this work in English - Ruandische Schweiz?).

...for those of you who don't believe it...

Das Hotel Kivu Sun mit Blick auf den See

At the border we met up with Maneza and Mareile who completed our group and we crossed it without any hassle. Rwandan order can be a real bliss but even on the congolese side it was real smooth. First it continued that way after the border with nice villas and wide roads but the real change came downtown Goma and with it the realisation how clean and organised Kigali is. The whole atmosphere was more rough, street kids roaming around and generally a bit more of the chaos one expects from this continent. The only picture I took was from this boy with his fabulous wooden bike. In Rwanda they are not allowed and if you had seen any of them speeding down the hill you would understand why. But here they seemed to be quite popular.

After sorting out water, food and our permits we started just before midday, praying it would not rain although our taximan was indicating otherwise. After hooking up with three other people we were quite a large congregation, 11 bazungus with 6 porters and 2 armed guards. If we could believe their judgement it would take us about 5 hours to reach the crater and as we were all in good spirit so we did. The first bit lead us trough thick jungle like forest, birds were chatting away happily and it was easy to walk.



We warmed up with our congolese escort quickly and even got the guards to smile during our first break. Every now and then the clouds gave way to impressive views to the top.




But the sun faded soon and the vegetation changed. We were now walking on lava which was quite difficult - like on Brightons pebble just uphill.

Turning around and looking at the opening plateau with the Rwandan hills on the horizon I had to pinch myself a number of times. What was lying before me was part of the mysterous Congo, the heart of darkness. But in fact it didn't feel like it all, I was just on yet another hike.


It was about half way into our trip that our taxi driver's forecast became reality and it started to rain. Hastily we prepared for the rather hopeless undertaking to keep our stuff dry. It was only a matter of time that everything would be wet. Unpleasant memories of hours walking, putting up tents in the rain and having to get into wet clothes in the morning came up. But for the moment the only thing that counted was moving on and automatically putting one foot in front of the other.
And if you think a volcano in the Congo was the last place on earth where you could use your Hindi then think again. Lulled in my thoughts I suddenly heard noise erupting in front of me. A hord of Indian Blue Helmets from the Congos MONUC mission returned from their expedition to the top in full military gear (although it crossed my mind briefly that this could have also been some kind of punishment). As they set eye on us they got their cameras out immediately and went absolutely crazy: ek foto, ek foto. I stood there thunderstruck already feeling two pairs of arms flung around me - nevermind the rain or the luggage we were carrying - the scene was so absurd. Finally their boss had enough and shouted at them properly and so they let go of us.

Not long after that we arrived at some huts where the porters usually spend the night. The summit only another 30 minutes away. Sheltered from wind and rain but not from the cold we gathered round to make a little fire. Slowly slowly the sky cleared up and finally it stopped raining. We went out, inhaled the fresh air and the most fantastic view. We saw the lake, most of the other volcanos and the valley underneath.

Here is the proof, I was up there. Behind me is Karisimbi, the

highest volcano (4500 m) in the area.
- kurz vor dem Gipfel mit Ruandas hoechstem Vulkan im Hintergrund -

By now temperatures had dropped significantly and everybody was wet to the bones. Afraid that it could rain again we went on to the summit, the path now requiring real climbing skills. Finally arriving at the crater was fantastic, the wind blew hard in my face and I looked about 600 m down into a bubbling red lava lake.

© Bruno Versailles (thats his real name, no joke)

As you can see thick white smoke came up and sulfur stung our eyes. We set up the tents on the windier side of the summit and came back just to sit and look at the lava as you would sit on the beach, listening to the soothing sound of waves. If it just hadn't been so cold and windy.

© thanks to Bruno again

The night was freezing and no one slept much. The wind kept penetrating the side of the tent and so we cuddled up in there, unfortunately that was less romantic than it might sound. Luckily it didn't rain!

We got up early, unfortunately the crater was full of smoke and we didn't see the lava again. We went downhill in about half the time it took us to come up and we all agreed that it had been worthwile. Back in Kigali I was absolutely shattered, might have suffered a sunstroke or something and still am in need for sleep.

finally first pictures

so that's 'chez anja'...


















...andrea and liz...



















...and chez cordula...
a fabulous girls crew in the Kiyovu
quarter of Kigali
























and after seeing the dining and sitting
room - check out the fire place on
the left, perfect for cosy African nights -












plus the kitchen, I think by now
you are all ready to buy
the place, no?
- Schoener Wohnen in Ruanda ;)

first impressions

I have actually promised some more pictures but I have yet to master modern data transfer.
So I will just begin with an update on my first two weeks in Rwanda.
I have arrived well after a lovely weekend spent with Nick in London and what seemed like an endless journey since I couldn't sleep on the plane... sparing you the details of unnerving Heathrow airport procedures.
I was picked up in Kigali and brought straight to my current domicil which is part of a GTZ compound and hence full of GTZ colleagues including my boss. Its difficult to express my first expressions of this country, or Kigali more like, as it was a strange mixture of the unknown and familiarity. And Iam still yet to suffer something like a real culture shock and I am not quite sure why that is. It could be due to the fact that I live in a really nice house, lovely garden on the slope of one of the numerous hills here ( could well be 1000 as the land's nickname goes) with good connection to the outer world by internet and our skilled housemaid. What else could you wish for? Well...maybe a means of transport. This is still a bit of a problem as walking is a real pain in the neck for me, it's constant up and down, and we are talking real hills, like the ones in Brighton but everywhere!! The local solution are moto-taxis, just reintroduced by the council with better security rules - if that's what you call a crappy helmet for the passenger. I have - not yet quite successfully - overcome my personal trauma concerning motos and use them at least to get to work and back since its only a few minutes drive. But I do have to say that Iam not quite trusting them entirely and hence sit on it a bit tense. For the future I will have to consider bying either a moto - if I decide to trust myself more than the taxi men - or a car, we shall see.
Workwise its been quite hectic on the one hand as we had a big 2 weeks consultancy mission to evaluate the results and processes of our Health Programme. On the other hand for me it was mainly following people around, listening and asking questions. I went on 2 trips to Ruhengeri in the North ( where the vulcanos and Gorillas are) and Butare in the south of the country in the course of which I witnessed some vaginal fistula surgery (the doctors among you, like my boss, would have loved it, I almost fainted), visited several other hospital and health centre facilities as well as district governments. Once my travel sickness pills kicked in I also enjoyed the fantastic views over the hills which are at present not as lush and green as normal as we are at the end of the dry season but when you are used to the Savanna landscape of Burkina Faso its still quite beautiful.
As for the Rwandans its really hard to say, I have heard a lot about them before and I don't want to mix hearsay with my still limited experiences. Its all very different from West Africa thats for sure. On a superficial level they are nice and open and I have encountered some real strong and self-confident characters. My colleagues are nice and my first attempts of speaking kinyarwanda were highly appreciated and giggled upon. But then again, I don't dare to ask Evangéline, the girl I share the office with, where she got that nasty scar across her cheek from. It may well me something else but Genocide is still quite present, at least for me as a stranger. First time I walked into the famous Hotel Mille Collines I tried to translate the pictures of the movie (Hotel Ruanda) and all I read into this present, when Iam out on the streets I imagine them full with blood and dead bodies and when I see the people walking along I ask myself are these the same who murdered their family and neighbours? Returning from our first trip we passed a big village assembly that turned out to be a Gacaca, the traditional courts. So in a way its all very real but for an outsider like me still unfathomable.
This weekend will hopefully be a first real break from constant input and absorption allowing for some reflection. Tonight Iam going out with some friends of Nicky, who I studied with at Sussex, and who has set up a NGO here in Kigali that runs a Youth Centre. Its good by the way to have some friends outside the GTZ world!
So for now its Muramuke to you all and have a good weekend!

first contact

So, my first entry on this blog. Rwanda's finest for all those of you who want to visit me. This is Remera lake. Soon more on this page.