Southern Rwanda and the Kings Village - The day after we arrived in Rwanda we traveled south through the countryside to see the way the people live. It’s very lush and green and mountainous, and the people live in small villages and farm the land around them by hand. We saw so many happy faces - kids going to school in uniforms - folks riding bikes up and down the mountains - people hauling water. After a few hours we went to a national history museum and visited the ancient king’s village - which included reproductions of the King’s hut and his first “palace”
The hillsides were covered with terraced farmland - most of the people seemed to work in the fields.
Rwanda is very green
Many houses were newly constructed and nice
But most were older and typical 3rd world
Walking, bicycling and motorcycles seemed to be the main modes of transportation - this lady looks like she is going somewhere special.
We arrived in southern Rwanda to where the traditional King’s village was. This is a reproduction of the King’s hut. The king lived like this until the 1930’s when he visited Belgium and saw modern homes, then when he returned, he had one built next to this site. The last king was removed from power in the 1950’s - when we returned from Rwanda I looked him up - he was living in a nursing home in Washington DC.
They dressed Alex and Audrey up as the King and Queen - Don’t they look like they are having a great time?
Inside the King’s hut was very spacious with many finely woven mats. They also liked their spears - apparently the higher your authority, the nicer your spear was.
These are the royal cattle.
When the king built his first indoor palace when returning from Belgium - apparently the prized possession was a bathtub.
We went to the national museum, which was nice, but not really what all of us wanted to do - A couple of interesting things: Here is a collection of african spears, some of which were quite elaborate. One of the really interesting exhibits to me was the method of making steel for the spear tips. They made it in small clay ovens - it was a very specialized skill.
Alex, Laure and Nick at dinner in southern Rwanda
