Hello from Kigali!

Welcome to my blog and welcome to Rwanda, a small country in Central East Africa just south of the equator blessed with a fabulous climate, beautiful scenery,  rich, volcanic soil, and friendly people! To many in the West, Rwanda, means one thing, genocide,  and their entire knowledge of the country is based on the movie Hotel Rwanda. Although Rwanda’s recent past is tied to some of the most shocking brutality in the history of the world, from the ashes of a destroyed country with no infrastructure, tiny, land locked, resource-limited Rwanda is blossoming into a progressive and modern country on its own terms, and we are here to witness it! It is aiming to be a technology and financial hub for East Africa, not unlike Singapore or Abu Dhabi.   It is a progressive experiment in a deeply conservative society that much of Africa is watching closely.  

Let me say before I begin our experience in Rwanda that I am not an expert on Africa let alone Rwanda.   Rwanda has a complex culture that would take decades to truly understand, and even then, one is not guaranteed to know the truth. I am a novice here, an iniciante as my  capoeira master, Mestre Joao Grande would say.   I have been to Southern Africa and Phi has been to Tanzania in the past.  Our understanding about this part of the world is limited, and we are coming here with open eyes and open minds.   I am sure I will make errors in my writing and feel free to let me know if you see something that is inaccurate.  I am not writing this with any agenda in mind, other than to share with my family and friends about our experiences here and as way for me to remember them as I move on in years.  Time stops for no one, and if I don’t stope to put it  these memories will fade into a fragmented memory of dreams of Africa. 

  Coming to Rwanda from the USA as first time parents with a toddler was a bit of a shock to us, even being seasoned travelers and having been to Africa before.   The preparation was so stressful because we had little time to get ready (I was only given 6 weeks notice), we were in the middle of a major remodel, and I had to shut my practice down 4 months.  I also did not have a lot of information for Phi and Sierra.  The force is strong with Phi and she took it all really well, and stood by me to live out my dream. I didn’t have enough time to accomplish everything and we left the remodel undone.   Thank you to my contractor who was so accommodating for us! and no thank you to our nanny bailed on us with 3 weeks to go (she know we were leaving and I paid her extra to stay! but she left not because of us, but she gave us 2 days notice because of another job,  thanks Kat).     On top of all that, there is very little on the internet regarding Rwanda and Kigali in particular.  Ys, it’s true, not everything is on the internet, and not everyone is on FB all the time. Come to Rwanda, and very few people are on FB. Kinda nice! Phi and I had so many questions about living in Kigali with a toddler and what to bring. The program itself provided little (no) guidance with the exception of a few phone conversations with some doctors who had been to Kigali.  We can’t bring the whole house, but it was hard to gauge what to bring for Sierra. 

In the end, everything we brought, we are using, everything!  We flew through Amsterdam and spent a few days to break up the flights, which was quite cold for us warm weather classy San Diegans, so more stuff! That last month of December I thought my head was going to explode, and then one day, BOOM!  It did.  I woke up with severe ear pressure.  The ear specialist put me on a short course of high dose prednisone (a steroid).   That stuff is really strong and makes you crazy. It often gives you anxiety and insomnia, so my anxiety went from bad to worse and when we landed in Kigali I was quite stressed wondering if I bit off more than I could chew.  The great fear of the unknown can lead to so much anxiety, a parental mind that wanders into future possibilities that lead serve no real purpose other than to freak me out. Watch out for that prednisone! Thank goodness I have recovered and am ok now!

 We arrived without our long term housing and we stayed at the Hotel Milles Collins, best known as the site of the true “Hotel Rwanda” for 3 nights while we got our bearings.  We found an apartment with the help of a real estate agent named Dickson and moved in the next day.  It had no electricity or gas, but did have water, was new and had a beautiful view with an open modern floor plan! 

Time to get to work!  
So, first step after brining the bags into the room was to get that electricity before the sun goes down. 
In Rwanda, one prepays for electricity.  That is you get a card that looks like a credit card, go to the electricity office and pay for however much electricity you want, when you run out of money, the electricity turns off and you get more.  It’s an interesting psychology, when you have to pre pay the electricity, you are more conscious of it and use less. 
 Electricity check!  
Next, the stove and oven run on gas, so we also had to get propane with a canister from a station.   As you know, natural gas has no smell and and back home we add that wonderful gas smell to alert us to any unauthorized gas release.   Not here!  It’s real natural, no additives, no antibiotics, no hormones, no color added, so . . . if you leave the gas on, you could be in trouble and not know it.  And yes, our child is pretty typical and loves to touch everything, so I am always looking at the stove. We got someone to get us gas same day!  
Gas check!  
Next was food.  Fast food around here is quite limited and not something we wanted to try your first few days.  But we had a hungry kid who, so we had to go get her food.  We went to a the recommended “supermarket” from the internet that had a very limited supply of items.   Our real estate agent drove us there so that we would have something to eat over the weekend.  We lived quite far to walk to food.  We then went to another “supermarket” that at least had some vegetables.  Where were the cheap, plentiful, organic vegetables and fruits I read about on the internet?  I asked Dickson.  He said we went to the wrong place, but we had some food to get us through the next few days.  
Food, check!  

Next was the internet.  Well, we live on a street that has access to broadband internet, but you have to dig it out of the ground and run a trench to your house.  Well, we found the guys to do that, and then got internet after a few days!

I take everything in the States for granted, everything is handed to me.  We live in such an entitled bubble in the USA. Here, we really have to slow down, be patient, and see life for what it really is, where it really is.  Everything here was also handed to me and I still live in a bubble, but that bubble is a little smaller and you can smell the real world through it. All the people we interacted with in those first few days, were so helpful and patient with us, while I felt so unbalanced.  Their patience and kindness suffused into me and replaced my fear and anxiety, brought me balance, calmed my mind, and helped to prepare me for what was yet to come.