Roaming across Rwanda

Unless I want to visit another park, it's time to move on from Uganda. Some of you might be wondering what, if any, security measures are taking place in view of the bombings in Kampala during the World Cup. The only thing that affects the traveler is the constant "wanding" every time you enter a hotel, a restaurant, or even a bus. Gotta coin tucked down your backpack? Odds are you're going to have to take it out for examination--that kind of thing.

OK, off I go on a 9-hour bus ride through bumps and dust to Rwanda. I like this country! And not just because of the welcoming free visa for US passport holders. It's beautiful: mountainous with terraced, cultivated hillsides much like Peru or Nepal. People are exceptionally friendly and helpful. And in one of the best government decisions--ever--plastic bags are banned. I had heard about this back in Uganda and ditched one bag I use for my laundry down into the depths of my backpack. Sure enough, at the border officials rooted around a tote bag and confiscated a plastic bag my water bottle was in. The result is a virtually litter-free country (Somalilanders please come here and take notes!) Another policy is that they're very fussy about people with cameras. Pictures of buildings, government stuff, and whatever is banned and your camera will be confiscated. So, no pictures for this blog post!

Fumes and dust are minimal with fewer cars than Uganda. And since this is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, huge, long lines of people simply walk along the sides of the road and up and down the hills, carrying unbelievable loads of stuff on their heads and large water containers in each hand. And everyone appears industrious with little idle slacking.

I visit the Genocide Memorial in Kigali, which commemorates the slaughter in 1994 of one million people in only a hundred days. Despite the finger pointing of why this happened, you gotta wonder about when it comes down to a person standing there with a machete in his/her hand ready to whack a baby into pieces with whom does the ultimate responsibility lie? The Memorial is tasteful, but there are memorials in Rwanda that require a really strong stomach.
I've asked a few people where they were during those hundred days: my driver told me he and his mother and two sisters hid in a bus for two months; the rest of his family didn't make it. Another grew up an orphan. Everyone now says the country looks forward and has abolished tribalism. I hope they make it.