Kigali!

We've been in Rwanda for a few days and I'm already in love. The second we stepped off the plane, we were surrounded by rolling green hills in a city larger than I had envisioned. We are living at Solace Ministries guest house, a Christian organization a little bit on the outskirts of the city. Kigali is incredibly clean with incredibly friendly people. The first day a few of us decided to walk into the city. Not knowing really how far or how long it would take, we ended up walking for two hours, getting slightly lost, talking in English and broken French to locals eager to help us out. It was so fun to walk and move around after so many hours traveling! Every time we would get to the top of a hill (this truly is the land of a thousand hills!) the entire city would be visible to look down upon. Downtown we had dinner and went grocery shopping...good thing I learned the conversion rates because a box of cereal was about 16 US dollars!

That night we went to the Hotel des Millie Collines, the hotel that Hotel Rwanda is based on, hoping to drink a traditional banana beer but they didn't serve it. We've come to learn that banana beer is kinda the equivalent to American PJ or moonshine...its alcohol content is not regulated and is generally drunk by the lower class. We finally found a place that served it last night, and needless to say the hype was overrated. Think apple cider thats not sweet. Pretty gross to tell the truth!

It was incredibly eerie to sit and drink where so many people were housed during the genocide. While there is controversy over the "goodness" of the hotel owner's actions (Kagame does NOT regard him as a national hero) it was still incredibly humbling to be surrounding by so much history. I have a feeling that this will be a common occurence around Rwanda in the coming weeks.