With lots to see in Rwanda and only three weekends here, our time is pretty well mapped out so it was nice to have a free Saturday with nothing planned.
Simon who has not lived thru kids and dogs was able to sleep in while I awoke at my usual default wake up time. It did occur to me that I had never really walked around the neighbourhood so after drinking a coffee, that is what I did. I followed the paved street outside our apartment south until after about 500 m I hit a cobbled street where I turned left and followed it for a while. There were some modest well kept houses along the street all surrounded by a wall of course. In walled compound with the gate open, kids were playing soccer on what on closer inspection was an artificial turf field. After a while the the road petered out to a dirt road which was heading east down into the valley so I retraced my steps and visited the local market before returning home.
Eventually Simon got up and I convinced him to come to the local market to buy some vegetables and fruit which we did failing miserably at haggling. We looked at some meat but the goat's heads on the counter were a little off-putting.
Simon wanted to go to the Genocide Museum and although I have been there before (if you look in the archives, I described my last visit in 2011) I felt I should pay my respects. We walked down the NR towards town, passing the hospital and the Serena Hotel. Simon wanted to do some business with the phone company so I had coffee at the Bourbon cafe after which he joined me and we had lunch.
According to Google Maps, we were now 3.7 km from the Genocide Museum. Weaker people would have called a taxi but we decided to walk. Kigali has a new street numbering system which makes very little sense mainly because there is not a single right angle intersection in the entire city and there are hills and valleys all over the place. To get to the Genocide Museum it was necessary to descend to the bottom of the hill we were at the top of and then climb halfway up the next hill. This we did and arrived at the Genocide Museum. We had to have our bags manually searched. The guard took great interest in my business cards.
I have described the Museum before and not much has changed except that whereas 4 years ago 200000 bodies were buried there, now 260000 have been buried there as bodies continue to be found. I walked around respectfully reading all the plaques (which of course I always do). There is a second story devoted to other genocides. I visited Aushwicz 10 days earlier. I am always amazed at how badly we treat our fellow man. I am wondering how many more rooms they are going to have to add to this museum.
After that we turned down a taxi and walked back which involved a big climb back to downtown Kigali. We stopped at the Nakumat to pick up provisions for our safari on Sunday and to the Serena to wash off the day's sweat.
After beers and dinner in the bar we walked home along the uber busy NR.
I should mention that the night before we had walked 45 minutes home after dark. How many cities developing or developed world could you do this?
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