Wednesday, 2 May 2012

First impressions of Kigali

The second day of our stay in Kigali, we went for a walk to the city centre. And we repeated the walk almost every other day. There are a couple of things you can notice right away. The centre of Kigali (or chigali, as it is pronounced in Kinyarwanda) is a busy, vibrant capital with new concrete and glass buildings sprouting on every corner. Kigali is very safe. In fact it is known to be the safest capital of Africa. This is partly due to the regime in power. At every street corner there is a policeman in dark blue uniform, or a soldier in a dark green, carrying a machine gun. Not at one point did we feel unsafe walking through the capital, being mid-day or late in the evening. The Rwandans are very proud of the safety of their capital. More than once happened that someone would approach us on the street to ask us how we are doing and to stress how Kigali is very safe. It is really true. You feel more safe walking in the night through Kigali then through some parts of Zagreb. You also notice how very clean Kigali is. Rwanda was one of the first countries in the world to completely ban import and manufacture of plastic shopping bags. It did so all the way back in January 2006. Before the ban the streets of Kigali and hillsides of thousands beautiful Rwandan hills were littered with plastic waste. Not many Rwandans smoke cigarettes. In one week that we have been here, we have maybe twice seen a person smoking in the street. It is not forbidden, but it is frowned upon. The easiest way to buy cigaretts is from strees sellers, since none of the markets or shops have them, but even street-sellers will warn you that cigarettes are not healthy. For our first free Saturday we decided to visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre in Gisozi sector. We ventured on foot from Nyamirambo to the Memorial Centre and back, which in the end showed up to be a 12 kilometre walk. Visit to the Centre was difficult. Ofcourse, we read about the history of the civil war and genocidal violence in Rwanda, but connecting the known information with skeletal remains of the victims on display, their preserved belongings, a baby shoe, a woman's blouse, a rosemary, photographs of victims donated by surviving family members... is somewhat different. Over 250,000 victims of the genocide are now buried at the site. Especially touching was the Children's Memorial featuring fourteen photographs of children killed during the genocide. Beneath their portrait is a plaque which contains details about them and how they died (hacked by machete, smashed against the wall, shot in the head...). A group of genocide survivors from the Eastern Province was visiting the museum. They all wore a symbol in a distinguished purple color – a scarf, bandana, ribbon, bracelet... Dark purple is the color of genocide remembrance in Rwanda. I really had the need to talk to them, but I didn't dare.


Marko

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