Very first impressions – from the airport to Nyanza

Monday, 19.08.2019

During the Taxi drive from Kigali to Nyanza, we had the chance to see a little bit of the country Rwanda already.

The first time I saw Rwanda it was night. Driving through Kigali during the night is wonderful. We experienced with our own eyes what “the land of the thousand hills” really means, because: Wow!

To our right we looked down and saw thousands upon thousands of twinkling lights, in the valley and up the hill on the other side. Even at 3am in the morning, quite a lot of people were out and about, on moto-taxis and in bars or just by the side of the street. We even saw a group of people with their bicycles who’ve clearly just managed to ride up a street on a veeery steep hill. 

5 minutes after we had a quick stop for our driver to buy some energy drink we stopped again, at a seemingly abandoned gas station. (Abandoned because it was very dark, whereas in germany, even a closed gas station will have some lights on. Also, there seemed to be no one there.)

But our driver stepped out of the car to pop up the hood of his car and suddenly, out of the shadows, came another person. They wore very dark clothes, a coat with the hood up so you couldn’t see their face. I, a very tired, very-not-used-to-these-kind-of-situations – person, felt like it should have creeped me out, but my excitement of finally being in Rwanda still hadn’t worn off so I was mostly curious and just made some dark jokes about us getting murdered. Luckily, none of the kind happened and after we filled up on some gas as well, we drove off again.

This time we actually left the city Kigali. Every now and then we would bypass a bicycle with big and heavy baggage, due to with the person had to actually shove the bike instead of ride it. As our taxi driver told us, these were farm-workers that always started working this early in the day.

After an hour of driving, even the beauty of the through the dark visible landscape couldn’t keep my eyes open. I fell asleep a few times, waking up every time the driver made a sharp turn or accidently left the asphalted road to skid a few seconds on the sandy part beside the road. After he almost hit a wall and then almost ran over a dog, we had the feeling that our driver wasn’t exactly fit to work at night, as he also appeared to be very tired, to the point where we thought he might fall asleep behind the wheel.

Each of us tried to stay awake and alert, but I for instance remember waking up several times, the most rememberable when he drove over a traffic bumb in full speed and I woke up with my head almost hitting the roof of the car (exaggeration of course, but my heart skipped as if we barely escaped death).

At this point we were already in Nyanza and were welcomed a few minutes later by Florians host-parents Godfrey and Diane. At their house, we experienced Rwandan hospitality for the first time. We were offered tea and bred (it was 4:30 in the morning, which for them apparently was almost breakfast time), and got some delicious omelette that Diane specially prepared for us. 

At the house of Godfrey of Diane was also the first time I felt like people here are never in a hurry. Although it was 5am and we were tired they wanted to feed us and let us feel welcomed first. Before I got a bite of that omelette I had been thinking that the only thing I cared for in that moment was sleep; but holy sh*t, I was wrong. I didn’t even notice how hungry I was, because of how badly I wanted to go to sleep.