Our home base for the trip would be the Serena Hotel in Kigali, the capital city in Rwanda. Rwanda is a tiny landlocked country in Eastern Africa. It is surrounded by much larger countries: Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Tanzania, and huge lake Victoria. We didn’t know what to expect - we knew Rwanda was the home of a terrible genocide in 1994 where almost 1 million people were killed in a terrible 6 weeks of violence.
What we found was nothing like my preconceived notions. The country is mountainous and lush - with farms and fertile valleys everywhere. Kigali is a crowded city, rapidly modernizing with high rise buildings and luxury homes. The people are friendly and it is one of the safest places on earth - you can walk around in the middle of the city, with no danger. The genocide was real, and affected everyone in the country - it wasn’t african tribesmen fighting one another, as I imagined - it started in the middle of the city, and was neighbor against neihbor. The country has recovered from it, and is thriving, but the memory is still close.
We started our trip from O’hare airport in Chicago - under the dinosaur in the United Terminal
Through the “magic tunnel” which would take us to real magic places this time.
We flew from Chicago to Brussels, Belgium, where we switched planes and boarded our plane bound for Africa - after a short stop in Entebbe, Uganda, we arrived in Kigali, Rwanda. Just two days after we passed through the airport in Brussels, the airport was bombed - which closed the airport and caused us problems on the return - more on that later.
We arrived in Kigali - a rapidly modernizing city - with high rises and luxury hotels surrounded by green hills and mountains. English is the official language of the country, but many speak French or even Swahili.
Our driver picked us up in a landcruiser which would be our mode of transportation for the next few days. The drivers were knowledgable, helpful and great people.
Kigali Serena was our home base. It was located right in downtown Kigali - next to a new Marriott which was under construction.
The accommodations were not what we expected in Africa - this was on par with the best luxury hotels in the United States.
Literally across the street from the Serena is where the genocide started just 22 years before.
The bullet holes are left on the walls as a reminder.
On the other end of our hotel and over a block or two was this hotel - which the is the infamous “Hotel Rwanda” depicted in the movie.
Across town is the Genocide memorial. There 250,000 Rwandan Tutsis are buried in mass graves - yes a quarter million! These are the people who died in the city - another estimated 3/4 million died across the country. The museum told the history of what led to the violence - it was terrible propaganda from the government fueled by longstanding rivalrys between groups. Everyone needs to remember what sparked it.
Somewhat gruesome, they have thousands of skulls in display cases, and you can see that nearly all of these people died very violently from blows to the head by machete. They said if you had money, you could pay to have your family shot with bullets, rather than receive machete blows - can you believe that?
