New country who dis?

Every trip report starts with a chaotically jet lagged post, as I do my best to collect some thoughts before passing out. So, enjoy as this post continues that tradition.

I’m currently in Kigali, at a lovely hilltop hotel called 5 Swiss. I got here around 2pm after a bit of a travel marathon. Kat and I left Minneapolis around 3pm on Wednesday, arriving in Amsterdam around 6am Thursday. We managed to get into the KLM lounge right as it opened, so we scored the best spot (on the little terraces) and camped out for the morning.

We left Amsterdam for Nairobi around noon, and landed around 10pm. Turns out Northern Europe is a long ways from East Africa. The flight was fine, but the second leg is always a big of a slog. By the time we’d cleared customs and gotten an Uber, we made it to a hotel around 11pm.

This morning, we got up and had a lovely breakfast, and I said my goodbyes. Kat is helping to host a workshop in Nairobi, before heading north to Lodwar for project planning and community building. It’s going to be 100 degrees and dusty – spare a thought for her. Meanwhile, I went back to the airport and caught a short flight to Kigali in Rwanda.

Why Rwanda you might ask? The short answer is that Kat vetoed my initial plans as “too fun” (IE, she’d have been mad if I went to the Ethiopian lava lake without her). I was split between Rwanda and Uganda – Uganda has a more developed rock climbing scene, while Rwanda has a new cycling network and obviously a lot of history to explore. Plus some friends had recently been in Uganda, so I thought I’d try somewhere new.

I was 13 during the Rwandan genocide, so I wasn’t paying much attention. In my defense, neither was the Clinton administration. During undergrad though, I read “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families” by Philip Gourevitch. It was published only a few years after the genocide, and though we’ve now got a more nuanced (and France-critical) understanding of the history, the stories of the book stuck with me. I’ll be interested in visiting some of the genocide memorials, but also interested in learning more about the current state of the country.

Kigali is often described as “sleepy” – at under two million inhabitants, it’s a far cry from megalopolises like Lagos. It’s very green and hilly, with endless twisting streets, so it feels very intimate. So far, I’ve just explored a bit on foot near the hotel, getting some groceries and a snack, visiting the market, etc. Tomorrow I’ll be joining a bike tour to see more. There’s some really cool stuff happening in the electrified transport space that I’m eager to learn more about as well.

For now, I’ve got to stay awake long enough for a 7pm Zoom call, then some dinner. Let’s go!