Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
into the city only ten days before, but that felt like a lifetime ago. Though we found a place
to stay, the only room we could find was a dormitory at a youth hostel, Discover Rwanda,
in the heart of town. As we carried our packs into the bare room, to be faced with rows of
naked bunks, the look on Boston's face was implacable. I got the feeling he would have
preferred the cow sheds and swamped riverbank that had been our bed for the past week.
Still, I was grateful for a few home comforts. Ten days walking the riverbank had taught
me some stiff lessons about my body, and a hot shower, cold beer and a decent meal were
the restoratives I needed.
In the morning, I set out to explore the city. I'd promised myself two days of rest here,
while my body recuperated. I was going to need it. Much of the time I'd have to spend
provisioning for the journey ahead - new boots were a must, and I intended to find some-
body who could stitch new pockets to my rucksack as well - but Kigali has a unique part
to play in the history of the Nile, and I wanted to explore that while I was here.
Kigali is the boom-town of Rwanda. Twenty years ago, this was the centre of the geno-
cide, but today it shines like a beacon in the heart of central Africa. On the day I had first
arrived, I'd been intrigued to find it clean, orderly and fresh. Its broad avenues were green
and leafy, and gated mansions adorned the hilltops amidst lush trees and vegetation. A city
of a million people in a country of only twelve million, life in Kigali is the polar opposite
of the village life that dominates much of the nation, and it feels metropolitan in a way
no other part of Rwanda could match. In two days here, I was to eat Chinese, Italian and
Indian meals, and there were moments when, as the glistening sheen of glass-plated banks
and shiny Land Cruisers rolled by, it would be easy to forget that this was the scene of one
of the world's greatest tragedies.
It was a stark contrast to the image I first had of Rwanda, one cultivated by movies,
books and news bulletins. Just the name of this country invokes images of darkness, ma-
chetes and death; it has become so synonymous with the genocide of 1994 that it was dif-
ficult to balance my preconception with this gleaming, up-and-coming capital city. But it
was on my first day in Kigali, before we had set out for the source of the Nile, that I got
my first inkling of the way this country has forcibly pulled itself up from that dark episode,
the nadir of its history. There was an element of truth in Boston's observation that Amani
towed a kind of party line; moving on from the genocide, I was to discover, required a kind
of collective decision, an effort to make amends and work together - and this could only
be achieved by a form of coercion.
On the day I flew into Kigali and first met Boston, the city was unusually quiet. The
hustle I had expected from this capital city was non-existent. Cars didn't cram the roads,
horns didn't blare at intersections; the shops were all shuttered up and the people in
the streets barely whispered a word. I strode through the strangeness with Boston and
whispered, 'Is it a national holiday?'
