Rwanda Recap Day 7

We were staying the night in Butare at the Ibis Hotel. The actually had a very nice restaurant, though the service was pretty slow. But the whole idea here is not to be in a hurry. We actually had rented a large suite so Liz and I took the bedroom and Heather had the living room.

Again, we had an omelet, toast and coffee for breakfast and we decided to explore Butare for a couple hours and then find a taxi to take us back to Kigali in the early afternoon. We started off by walking down to a big Catholic cathedral. It's the largest such example in the entire country.

For the first time since we had been in Rwanda we saw a bus full of tourists leaving the church. There was also a university near by and the entire area had the feel of a college town...except dirt roads instead of nice paved squares and landscaping people using machetes instead of weed-wackers. As far as I know this particular church did not have a genocide massacre story though many in the country do. Butare, as a town, is historically known as an intellectual center and for the most part it escaped a lot of the war until the very end. It still felt that way while we were walking around with lots of students and teachers going this way and that. Much different than the hustle and bustle of Kigali or the very poor and agricultural feel of most of the country.

While walking back towards downtown we spotted the Hotel Gracia where Heather informed us that we had to stop. Gracia is her mom's name.

It was getting close to checkout time at the hotel so we headed back. There was a cool little music and video store nearby so Heather and I took the opportunity to buy some East African pop music. We had 2 artists that Mugenzi at World Vision had recommended and the girl at the store played us a bunch of songs and then burned the ones we liked. It was probably a copyright violation, but maybe that's just the way they sell music in Rwanda.

After getting our stuff together at the front desk of the Ibis we headed across the street to an arts and crafts co-operative that only sells items that have been produced by victims of AIDS. Here's a sample of our purchases.


I found a taxi driver through the hotel who would take us to Kigali. In the meantime we sat down for lunch at the Ibis. I ordered what I thought would be a hamburger but ended up getting a plate full of seasoned tartar. Liz and Heather both jumped when they saw it and in a unified voice said, "DON'T EAT THAT!" I don't like steak tartar here in the states so I definitely was not going to eat it in East Africa. I politely asked the waiter to take it back and fry it in the pan. It cam back to me tasting like a wonderful meat loaf.

We got in the car were quiet for most of the 2 1/2 hour ride back to Kigali. We were dropped off at the Kigali Serena Hotel (It used to be the Inter-Continental) and Heather began to arrange for her room. Liz and I made some phone calls around town to find a nice, but less expensive place for ourselves. We opted for the Hotel Gorillas which worked out great, was very comfortable, and saved us $200 / night. Good gorillas...

We showered up and headed back to the Serena to meet most of the other people who were going to be arriving from the States. It was all hugs and excitement as most of them had just gotten off a 12 hour flight. We ate dinner at the Serena and caught up with old friends while making some new ones. Tomorrow morning we have orientation back here at the Serena. It was kind of nice being able to get to Rwanda almost a week ahead of everyone else. I felt like we definitely had already been oriented.