Goodbye Rwanda, with regrets

We bid farewell to Rwanda today, boarding a flight for Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. It was hard to leave Rwanda, a place that felt a bit more western -- and therefore, more comfortable -- than some of the other places we've been to, and which was home to some of the friendliest people we've met thus far. Our last 24 hours were especially great. We spent an entire afternoon at the beach at Lake Kivu (well, 3.5 hours -- or about 3 hours longer than I've ever stayed in one place at a beach before) before boarding a bus back to Kigali. We found ourselves on an air-conditioned coach with as many people as seats, and were soon engrossed in a long conversation with a couple of Rwandans around us.

They talked about their own personal histories with regard to the genocide. One had lived in exile in the Congo for nearly 40 years as the persecution of the Tutsis mounted. It culminated in that awful month of April 1994; his family returned soon after, and discovered all of their relatives had been killed, save for three orphans. His family now raises those orphans, and every April they make a pilgrimage to the graves of their parents. We have barely scratched the surface on the hurt and grief that still haunt this country, but the glimpses we have caught are heart-rending. The genocide remains a topic of daily front-page headlines in the local newspapers, but shares space in the dailies with stories about a country that is pursuing a new future. Political leaders are meeting with American businessmen to plan a rail link to the rest of Africa, and the government is pressing hard on a Vision 2020 campaign that will, if they can turn their lofty goals into reality, see Rwanda pull ahead of its neighbours technologically and economically.

The bus trip was fascinating, and we finally felt as if we were connecting with this country that we had spent nearly a week travelling through. One person we were chatting with even bought us a couple of bottles of Rwandan-made passion juice at a rest stop, as a gesture of hospitality. We were floored.

So it was with huge regret that we boarded the flight to Kilimanjaro today. Seeing Africa's highest mountain from the airplane window did little to lift our spirits; neither did emerging from the airport to discover that it was going to cost us US$50 to get from the airport to Arusha, the town where we intend to spend a few days. We managed to get a cab for US$30, and a relatively cheap hotel -- although it's next to a mosque that promises to blare hours of off-key singing into the early morning hours tomorrow. Worse, we arrived in a torrential downpour. Tanzania wasn't looking so good.

Still, I've since started feeling a bit better. We took a short stroll, and found ourselves left largely without being harassed, which is about as good as it gets in Africa. Arusha is the kind of African city that's dangerous enough at night that you have to take cabs everywhere you go, which sucks, but we're hoping for a better day tomorrow of attending the Rwandan genocide tribunal -- which is still ongoing here -- and planning a safari to the Ngorongoro Crater. Let's just hope the sun comes out.