Notes From the Land of a Thousand Hills

Kristen Shane

I wrote this on my last full day in Rwanda, the end of almost two months of interning with the Rwanda Initiative. That was at the end of June. I am back in Canada now…wishing I was still in Kigali.

As I sit on a wicker chair on the large covered porch at the Rwanda Initiative house and look out over Kigali’s hills, I feel a pang of sadness. I don’t want to leave. There are so many things I love about this country:

-The sun. It’s a month into the dry season, which will last until October. I assumed it just meant the days would be more sunny than rainy. It turns out it means it never rains. That’s perfect for me. I’ve slashed my morning prep time by 10 minutes because I don’t have to worry about what to wear – the weather is always the same.

-Life, slow motion. Things run at a relaxed pace. Maybe it’s because of the constant heat, but people don’t walk as fast. They take their time.

I’ve heard both locals and expatriates speak of “African time,” a euphemism for lateness. Concerts start hours after they were scheduled, restaurant food may take an hour or more to be served.

It can be frustrating, but at the same time it is a nice change of pace from the manic motion of Canadian cities, where people are always rushing from Point A to Point B.

-The closeness of people. The climate is warm and dry so people tend to spend a lot more time with each other outdoors.

I walk by a slum on my way home from work and see residents lined up at a communal water station, filling their jerry cans.

I very often see neighbours gathered outside stores, just sitting and talking. Few people keep a television or computer at home, so they pass the time by keeping each other company.

It’s not just the sense of community here that is stronger; people seem to be more physically close as well.

Step onto a Toronto subway and you will see people spread out, deliberately keeping their distance.

Minibuses here are packed to capacity. Personal space is not an option. Arms, hips and bums squish together.

People aren’t afraid to touch each other. They shake hands every time they meet. Even two men sometimes hold hands. It’s accepted as a sign of friendship without the homosexual overtones Canadians might read into it.

-Non-verbal communication. Rwandans hiss at each other. It shocked me, at first. I thought it was rude.

But I learned hissing is a simple, effective and wordless way to catch someone’s attention, especially if you don’t know their name. The only drawback is that if you hear someone hiss in a crowded street, it’s hard to know who they mean to contact.

I’m also convinced that Rwandans have perfected the art of a wordless conversation. While Canadians might occasionally say “Mmhmm,” instead of “Yes,” Rwandans have a multitude of mouth sounds to mean “Yes,” “No,” “I understand,” “Pardon,” and other simple messages. I have overheard people on their phones have whole conversations without saying much more than four words – the rest are grunts and sounds. Some might say it seems ‘primitive,’ but I think it’s smart. Who needs words when you can communicate with the universal language of sound?

-The landscape. I was left awestruck two weeks ago as I rode a minibus back to Kigali after a daytrip to a village. The bus was driving through a swampy valley as the sun set over the hills in the distance. The sky was streaked with gold, pink and orange, as mist settled in the valley. It was breathtaking.

I marvel at the amazing use of land here. The undulating earth is no match for people-power. Even the steepest hills are terraced for cultivation. As I hiked up an ancient volcano a few weeks ago, I noticed rows of Irish potatoes planted along the way. Every hill is a unique patchwork of varied terraced crops – a sight to behold.

Perhaps one day, I will come back to see this land again.

Kristen Shane

Tonight, after work, I decided to visit my roommate at her job so that she could take me to a shop where she had a dress made recently. I had bought a few metres of green and blue patterned fabric that I wanted made into a dress of my own.

The problem was that the shop’s tailors only speak Kinyarwanda and Swahili – not English or French, the only two of Rwanda’s three official languages that I can use to communicate with people.

So we made the best of it with a bit of French from them, a bit of Kinyarwanda from me, and a whole lot of creative sign language. At one point, I wanted to know when the shop closes. I asked in French and English, with no luck. So I grabbed the door and mimed shutting it. The fog of misunderstanding suddenly cleared.

“Dix-neuf heures!” (seven o’clock) the woman measuring me exclaimed, smiling.

There we go.

This is how I get by everyday, living in a society where I can’t communicate well with almost 90 per cent of the population, who speak only Kinyarwanda.

From colleagues at work to motorcycle taxi drivers, many people have wanted to teach me Kinyarwanda. I have been an enthusiastic learner but I haven’t made it a priority to memorize what they teach me. So I’m left recognizing the occasional word in a conversation.

I’ve gotten used to feeling confused and learning to understand body language. But it’s so frustrating when I hear people mention the muzungu, Kinyarwanda for ‘foreigner’. They are obviously talking about me, but I can’t tell if they are complimenting or making fun of me. I’m resigned to smile and look every inch the ignorant outsider I am.

Not knowing Kinyarwanda means giving up control. I depend on my Rwandan friends to order food or taxis for me.

Kinyarwanda is the language of everyday life in Rwanda. It’s what you hear in the streets and in homes.

But step into a classroom and you’ll hear English or French, the languages of academia used by the upper class. Since these are the only two I can use to talk to people, I am effectively cut off from a good part of Rwandan society – the poor, the rural, the marginalized.

I am keenly aware of how my lack of language skills informs my journalism. I’ve failed the time-honoured reporter’s creed of ‘giving voice to the voiceless.’ How can I reflect their views in my stories if I don’t have the words to ask them their opinions and concerns?

My impressions of Rwanda are filtered through conversations I have with the country’s elite: the English and French speakers who have been to school and have often lived outside Rwanda.

But even when I speak to these people, the essence of their meaning is sometimes lost in translation. They don’t use the same expressions or level of description as people whose mother tongue is English or French. It’s also more difficult for me to pick out compelling quotes from my interviews because their grammar and sentence structure can be awkward.

But I shouldn’t complain. It’s my fault I haven’t learned to speak their native tongue and need them to speak their second or third language for me to understand them.

While I know two and a quarter languages (English, French and a bit of Kinyarwanda), many Rwandans speak at least three. One man I met last week said he knew 14!

We Western English-speakers are privileged to only need to know one language that people in the rest of the world are generally eager to learn, instead of us having to study theirs.

In Rwanda, many people speak more than two languages because they have lived part of their lives outside the country. Some Tutsi families, for instance, fled the country for neighbouring East African nations during ethnic purges in 1959 and have since returned home speaking Swahili, English, Lingala, Luganda, Kirundi or French.

These language differences divide the population. For example, a colleague of mine grew up speaking English and Swahili in Kenya. In high school, he moved to Rwanda, his father’s homeland, without knowing Kinyarwanda. He has since learned some of it, but is still discriminated against by locals.

Ultimately, my communication observations have led me to conclude that language is political: it carries with it meaning and acts as a window into local culture. Until I master Kinyarwanda, I will always be on the outside looking in.

Kristen Shane

When I told friends and family that I was headed to Rwanda for two months to intern at a local magazine, one of the first questions some of them asked was: “Isn’t it dangerous?”

It’s a reasonable reaction from someone who might only know about the tiny Central/East African country because of the genocide that destroyed it in 1994.

On April 6 of that year, Rwanda’s Hutu president was killed when his plane was shot down as it approached Kigali International Airport (the perpetrators’ identities are still unknown). He was on his way back from signing a power-sharing deal with the Tutsi minority that would effectively end a four-year civil war.

The crash triggered a pre-planned 100-day massacre. From April to July 1994, Hutu extremists and their followers killed between 800,000 and 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutus. Friends turned on friends. Neighbours on neighbours. Priests on parishioners. Husbands on wives.
 
“But that was 15 years ago,” I told my worried loved ones.
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Rwanda has since largely been rebuilt. Armed conflict is over. I feel safe travelling to any part of the country.

But cross the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo and it’s a different story. Many genocide perpetrators fled to the country’s east. For some years after the genocide, they attacked western Rwandan towns from their Congolese bases. They still terrorize the local population in Congo.

In Rwanda, the killing and fighting may be over, but the scars remain. I can’t go a day without being reminded of what happened here.

On my way to work, I pass the country’s gated parliament buildings, high upon a steep hill. The buildings’ walls are pockmarked with bullet holes.

On the winding drive to Butare, the third largest Rwandan city (95,000 people in 2006), genocide perpetrators work the fields. Each is dressed in the same orange uniform (a collared shirt and long shorts) showing they’ve been convicted. Those in pink await their trials.

On radio and in newspapers, it’s big news when genocide leaders are convicted in Western countries where they’ve fled. Last month, a Quebec court found Désiré Munyaneza guilty on seven charges related to the genocide. The story splashed across the front page of Rwanda’s only English-language daily, The New Times.

The reminders are not always so direct. They manifest themselves in the silences during conversations with friends and the burning questions I can’t bring myself to ask survivors I interview.

Even when I was interviewing a young artist about the colours he uses in his abstract paintings – a topic far removed from the genocide – he said he doesn’t use purple because it is the colour of mourning. Indeed, plum-coloured ribbons adorn gates of memorials and cemeteries where victims have been buried, sometimes in mass graves.
 
There’s no question the genocide has shaped today’s Rwanda, but I’ve stayed away from mentioning it in my blogs until now because there is more to the country than just genocide.

Rwanda is bursting with young people, many of whom were only children or not even born when the genocide occurred. Forty-three per cent of Rwandans were under 15 years old in 2005 (in Canada, it was 18 per cent) and the life expectancy of the population hovers in the mid 40s.

The young people I’ve spoken to realize the importance of remembrance and commemoration, but refuse to let the genocide define who they are and how they want the international community to view their country.

Last week, while interviewing a 26-year-old member of a thriving group of young painters who sell much of their work to foreigners, he told me: “We’re trying to…export the rich culture which is here, the hospitality and everything that is good in Rwanda. We don’t want people to get to know us because of the genocide.”

His words reflect the views of my co-workers, a group of guys in their 20s who started a youth-for-youth magazine four years ago. Part of their goal was to show the world Rwanda’s cultural scene and emerging entertainment industry.

These Rwandan youth hope that 10 years from now, when some Canadian tells their family they are headed for Rwanda, their loved ones will respond by recognizing the country’s talented artists, rappers, singers, DJs and dancers – and not just its genocide.

Kristen Shane

Muzungu. It’s probably the first word I learned in Kinyarwanda, Rwanda’s local language. Now four weeks into my internship, it’s still sometimes the only word I can pick out from the conversations of Rwandans passing me on the street.

My ears pique when I hear it in the hushed chatter of adults and the shouts of children running up to shake my hand as if I’m a movie star. I immediately jerk my head toward the person who said it and sometimes find them laughing, staring or smiling.

Why has this become my label? At first I thought it was because I’m white. Often, the call of muzungu is followed by a curious hand extended to touch my skin. There are few white people in Rwanda, but there’s a higher than normal concentration of us here in the capital city where many Western diplomats and aid workers have offices. Everyday, I see a handful of whites during my travels as a magazine reporter. We are easy to pick out in a crowd and we tend to swarm in the city’s upscale malls, hip cafés and coffee shops or expensive restaurants with English menus.

Is it racist for people to stare and laugh at me because of my skin colour? No one would dare do that in a public place in Canada to a non-white person, right?

I don’t think it’s racist. To me, racism is negative discrimination because of the colour of one’s skin. I am definitely treated differently, but it’s almost always done out of curiosity, excitement, shock or admiration – not malice.

I must admit, sometimes I like the attention, especially when I can make a group of children cheer and laugh with delight just by waving at them.

I also don’t think the term is racist because I’ve learned it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with my being white. In fact, it could be more of a general term for foreigner.

An intern and teacher here with the Rwanda Initiative are both black Jamaican-Canadians. Sometimes they mix into Rwandan society without difficulty. But when they travel with a group of visible foreigners or are overheard speaking English, they are subject to the muzungu label, just like me.

Even a black Rwandan woman I spoke to the other day told me she had been called a muzungu. The 20-year-old grew up in Japan and speaks perfect English.

She told me that a woman driving a vehicle or wearing pants instead of a skirt in some parts of rural Rwanda might get called a muzungu. It’s a simple recognition of difference, she said.

I think the meaning of the word also has to do with money and class. When a person calls me muzungu the next word out of their mouth is usually money or the Kinyarwanda word for it, amafaranga. Children raise their cupped palms to me with sad eyes. Because I’m white, people expect me to be rich.

Indeed, I experienced one incident I would call racism last week. My coworkers and I took a taxi to a local pub to watch the sunset. When we arrived, the driver tried to charge us 2,000 Rwandan francs (about $4) more than expected. A colleague negotiated with him for several minutes. He succeeded in lowering the price by $2. Afterward, my coworkers told me the driver overcharged us because I am white. Apparently, to him, my skin colour means I can pay for overpriced taxi rides.

So what is a muzungu? I still don’t know for sure. But I’ve concluded that its definition isn’t that important.

A Canadian I met here told me that whenever someone calls her muzungu, she replies in Kinyarwanda: “My name is not muzungu.” Maybe I’ll follow her lead.

I don’t care what people call me, as long as they see me as person, and more than just a label.

Kristen Shane

Motos – Use at your own risk. The advantage of these motorcycle taxis is their accessibility. From what I’ve found, in less than two minutes you can flag one down on any main road in the city. The (mostly young male) drivers constantly ride the streets with their green and yellow, or blue vests.

The key is to negotiate the price before you hitch a ride, or you might be in for an expensive surprise at your destination. Six hundred Rwandan francs (slightly more than $1 US) from our house to the city centre (mumugi), about a 10 minute’s drive, is standard.

It’s four times what you pay to bus the same distance, but you’re shelling out the extra cash for speedy service. These guys can really move. It can be a bit scary because safety gear is minimal. When you hop on, the driver hands you a helmet. Put it on, tighten the chin strap (if it is adjustable), grasp the handle on the bike’s back and off you go.

Make sure the driver knows where he’s going (and you do too!) before you hop on. A couple weeks ago, I asked a moto driver to go to an Indian restaurant, Ice and Spice. He seemed sure of himself, so I jumped on the seat. Two minutes later, he yelled above the motor’s din: “Serena Hotel?”

Ummm, no. “Ice – and – Spice,” I replied, trying to enunciate.

For the next 10 minutes, we drove aimlessly around downtown neighbourhoods stopping strangers on the side of the road to ask if they knew where this mirage of a restaurant was.

I felt embarrassed and considered just telling the driver to drop me off where we started.

Eventually, though, we puttered up to another spot I recognized, and, frustrated, I told him to stop. I handed him 200 francs, 100 less than I had negotiated. I explained to him in English (I have yet to progress past greetings in Kinyarwanda) that I wasn’t giving him the full fare because he didn’t take me where I wanted to go.

After wandering around for a few minutes, I laughed a little bit inside when I found the restaurant myself, a couple streets over.

Walking – Be prepared to sweat. If you want a wicked pair of calves by the time you leave Kigali, this is the way to go. They don’t call Rwanda the Land of a Thousand Hills for nothing.

But wear a sturdy pair of shoes. The side streets are often unpaved and can be treacherous: full of water-run ruts (some a foot deep), potholes and uneven terrain. I’ve slipped and almost wiped out on loose gravel more times than I can count.

Watch for deep gutters at the edge of the sidewalks along some main roads. Often, there are no curbs to stop you from falling a few feet into one.

A headlamp or flashlight is a must for night treks. There are no streetlights on most roads and it gets dark early (i.e. 6:30 p.m. every night). On one dark trip home from work, I jammed my toe on a large jagged rock and it started to bleed. Fun.

Bus – The cheapest option by far, unless you want to walk. I’ve been told there are both private and public buses in Kigali. But I haven’t been able to tell the difference.

The trip starts at the bus stop, which is usually a long covered metal bench. I’ve never seen a bus schedule or route map, but buses run quite frequently to at least six different Kigali neighbourhoods. I’ve never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a bus on weekdays during business hours. Buses usually run until about 9 p.m.

A few, headed mostly to the hip neighbourhood of Nyamirambo, are pimped out to the driver’s liking. I’ve seen T-Pain, Lil Wayne and T.I. buses; Obama and United States buses; Arsenal and Barcelona FC buses. They’re brightly painted and some even have black lights inside. Sometimes they pump reggae, rap or hip-hop music. But according to my coworkers who’ve lived in Kenya, Nairobi’s matatus are much cooler. Some have big screen TVs and expensive sound systems. A party on wheels.

Kigali buses are mini-buses that can hold about 20 passengers. When they pull up, an attendant steps off to yell out the destination to passersby and people waiting at the bus stop. The last stop is also usually written on the back of the bus.

Securing a seat is easy, except in downtown Kigali at rush hour. Then, it’s a free-for-all to see who will land a spot.

The city centre is the main bus depot. Buses going to different destinations gather at different points along one road (there are signs so you don’t get completely lost).

At busy times, when people see a bus pull in to pick up passengers, they crowd around the door and push to get a spot inside. All Canadian politeness goes out the window as I weasel myself into the throng. Bodies jam together, hands grasp the doorframe. I’ve even seen people climb in through windows to get a seat.

I’ve been told the best strategy to grab a place is by trying to get in the passenger side door, which can be on the right or left of the driver, depending on the car’s make. Two or three people can usually fit in beside the driver.

On entering through the sliding back door on smaller buses, I duck my head to avoid hitting it on the metal frame while I move to the nearest available seat. If it’s not a busy time of day, I sometimes have to wait until the driver is satisfied that his bus is full enough to leave.

Personal space is not an option. Elbows, upper arms and hips rub together. Four people to one bench seat is standard. Each row has a flip-down seat and the person sitting on it must move if someone at the back of the bus has to get off.

The process of getting off involves a series of signals. The attendant sometimes calls out the stops. If I want to get off, I catch his eye (it’s usually a man) and hand him the 150 Rwandan francs, or about 30 cents US, for a typical ride. If I’m too far from him, I knock on the metal frame and say “Ndasigara” (“I get off” in Kinyarwanda).

Taxi – The most expensive route. It makes sense if you’re going somewhere out of the way with a lot of people who can share the tab. But this isn’t my first choice in Kigali transportation.

There are a few private taxi companies, but I think most are run by private individuals. Few have lights on their roofs or stickers on their doors. Mostly, I’ve found drivers in parked cars just call out, “Taxi,” to passersby.

When I settle into the back seat, I instinctively go to put on my seatbelt and find it’s not there. Although the drivers I’ve had have been fairly strict about some safety measures (only four passengers to a car - no more), few drive cars equipped with seatbelts for all passengers.

Driving – In a country where more than half the population lives under the poverty line, cars are a luxury for the rich. I’ve never seen a traffic jam or a four-lane highway.

Unlike Canada, I sometimes see pickup trucks packed with men standing or sitting in the back bed (again, no seatbelts). Other big trucks pass by with groups of prisoners wearing orange or pink jumpsuits (t-shirts and shorts).

Speed limit signs and traffic lights are around, but there are fewer than in Canada. Also, roundabouts are common.

Kristen Shane

Three weeks into my stay in Kigali, I’ve had enough time to settle into my journalism internship. Here’s a slice of life from the land of a thousand hills:

4 a.m. – Groan. Roosters cackle loudly. Roll over and go back to sleep.

7:30 a.m. – Wake up. Tie up the mosquito net above my bed. I use it every night to prevent malaria. Luckily, mosquitoes haven’t bothered me much.

Tiptoe to the bathroom to shower with hot water. In a house of 10 people (student interns and working journalists acting as teachers) and three bathrooms, a warm shower is a luxury.

8 a.m. – Breakfast. In Canada, it would be a massive bowl of milk and cereal. But in Kigali, a regular-sized box of Frosted Flakes or Special K can cost up to $8 US.

I stick with toast, peanut butter and bananas.

Swallow my daily anti-malarial capsule and eat breakfast in between sips of water that has been boiled and filtered. Kigali water is treated, but we’re just extra cautious.

8:40 a.m. – Climb the red dirt hill outside our house. Sweat under the beating sun. Watch my feet so I don’t twist an ankle in ruts or potholes created by the heavy rains of the rainy season, which is just ending.

8:45 a.m. – Squeeze in the back of a 20-seater mini-bus. Four people to a bench seat is standard. Listen to the driver’s radio choice: usually reggae, gospel music or talk radio, as we speed along the pavement.

Pay 150 Rwandan francs (about 40 cents) for the trip.

Walk by a group of small cement shanties with metal roofs. The occasional goat or rooster saunters across the road. Kids play and sometimes call me “Muzungu,” which means foreigner/white/rich person (depending on who you ask). They don’t say it with malice. I think they’re curious because they don’t often see white people. Some of them wave or run up to hold my hand.

9 a.m. – Arrive at work. The editor and publisher of the Blink magazine live in one half of the house and use the other half for offices.

Spend the day researching on the Internet, contacting sources, and bussing 20 minutes downtown to do interviews.

Journalism in Rwanda is challenging. Companies and individuals have much less of an Internet presence than in Canada. There is apparently a phone book, but most people use cell phones. Luckily, if you don’t know someone’s number, chances are a friend or colleague does. Despite being a city one-million strong, the people are well connected.

2 p.m. – Lunch. Like many other middle-upper class Rwandans, the magazine’s editor and publisher employ a cook. He makes delicious meals of stewed beef, kale, cabbage or carrots. It’s always served on a large bed of rice, potatoes or ugali, a thick Kenyan porridge made of maize.

5 p.m. – Catch the bus home.

Ring the doorbell for the guard to unlock the gate. The house is guarded 24 hours a day. It is also surrounded by a high wall lined with broken glass (a practice now banned) and barbed wire in some areas. It’s a lot of protection in a city that is relatively safe. You often see the guard sweeping the porch or reading because threats are few.

6:30 p.m. – Eat dinner, cold. The cook made it a few hours earlier. Heating it up is a hassle because I have trouble lighting matches for the gas stove.

Darkness falls. Gold and silver lights dot the hillsides.

Don a sweater to hang out with other interns on the porch (it gets a bit chilly after dark).

11 p.m. – Bed.

Kristen Shane

I spent my Saturday night jammed up against about 40 Rwandans and foreigners, our white clothing glowing from the black light in the small basement lounge of a Kigali salsa club.

But we weren’t there to dance or drink – at least most of us. We were watching The Monument, a Canadian play written in 1993 in response to the Bosnian war. It was a moving and intense experience.

The play opens as Stetko, a teenage soldier, is about to be executed for war crimes. He has raped and killed 23 women in a conflict set in an unnamed country. At the last moment, a mysterious woman, who turns out to be the mother of one of his victims, saves him from death on condition that he does what she says. The rest of the story explores her pain, his shame and the potential for forgiveness and compassion.

The play was modified slightly to fit a Rwandan context and translated into Kinyarwanda. I read it in English beforehand. Despite my high expectations that it would be an enlightening educational experience, my attempt to learn more Kinyarwanda by following along with the script in hand was basically fruitless. The dialogue moved too quickly. It helped when the actors repeated the same word several times in a scene; but overall, I didn’t understand much more than the occasional “Yes,” “No,” or “Listen!”

Because I couldn’t really understand what the actors were saying, my focus shifted from the stage to the audience. The Canadian director of the theatre company, Isoko, warned us beforehand that this wasn’t a play for kids. Nevertheless, about four kids sat on the floor in front of the makeshift candlelit stage for the first 15 minutes, till their parents scooped them up and left. The rest of the people watching were mostly young – in their 20s and 30s.

Unfortunately, the club set-up was a bit disorganized and it seemed a lot of young club-goers kept barging in during the performance, only to realize this wasn’t the Saturday night entertainment they were looking for. Many stayed though, enough that the whole left side of the room was standing-room only.

There were cell phones ringing, and even an enterprising waiter who took a few drink orders during the show. But despite the distractions, the audience, for the most part, remained fixed on the stage.

As I looked around during the more powerful scenes, I expected to see an outpouring of emotion from the majority Rwandan crowd, most of whom probably knew at least one person who had been killed or hurt in the genocide 15 years ago.

But other than one woman two seats down from me whose eyes were welling with tears, others were not visibly shaken. They just sat there, somber and transfixed.

I mention this not because I want to speculate on why I didn’t observe a greater outpouring of grief. To me, it just proves that I had assumed a certain reaction. I had built up certain expectations about the likely response to something I had never experienced, something I thought I knew.

I thought I knew what they would be feeling, what I would observe. If a bunch of people had cried, it would have confirmed my presumptions.

I’m glad that’s not what happened. I’m glad I’ve had this opportunity to reflect on my assumptions and expectations

Kristen Shane

Dear reader: I will try not to make any sweeping generalizations in this blog, but please be aware that these are my personal observations qualified by my own background and prism of understanding. This blog is not the gospel truth of what “Rwanda” or “Rwandan culture” is. It is only a snapshot taken through my lens.

It’s been a week since I arrived in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city. Little by little, I am getting to know it better. Every day, I learn a few more words in Kinyarwanda (the local language), I discover a few more neighbourhoods and I meet a few more of the million people living here. But my growing ease has come along with a few lifestyle changes.

My journey started May 6 as I sped away from my empty Ottawa apartment in a cab to the airport.

Two days and three planes later, I found myself in Kigali International Airport, bleary-eyed but excited. I filled in the standard immigration card questions, until it came to my address. I don’t have one.

In Kigali, the main roads and some side streets have names. But my street and many others do not. To tell people where you live, you identify your neighbourhood and landmarks nearby.

Luckily, a Rwandan I knew from Ottawa, who had become my travel companion since London, scribbled my neighbourhood on the immigration card and the processing officer didn’t ask questions.

On the drive to the intern house, I was struck by the landscape. Rwanda is known as the land of a thousand hills and Kigali lives up to the hype.

The view from the top of any hill reveals a city full of life: from the valleys teeming with grasses, corn and other vegetation, to the steady stream of people navigating the dirt and cobblestone sidewalks. Tin roofs dot the hillside, spread along red dirt side streets.

The red earth reminds me of a childhood trip to Prince Edward Island; but that wasn’t the only similarity between the two. My debut restaurant lunch in Kigali, a classic American burger and fries, was the first of many helpings of potatoes – a Rwandan staple food, it seems.

I’ve had to get used to eating lots of starchy foods and fewer vegetables and fruits. Commonplace Canadian foods such as cereal, apples and milk are expensive.

Attempting to tell my parents of my safe arrival was another reality check. Although the house is equipped with wireless Internet, the connection is often slow and unreliable. I’d gotten so used to easy Internet access in Canada that I’d forgotten how frustrating life is without high-speed.

Random power outages are also common here. So far, they’ve lasted anywhere from a few minutes to a couple hours.

I was out for an early evening walk yesterday when the neighbourhood’s power went out. It was already dark (the sun sets before 6:30 p.m. here, all year round) so I stumbled home, dodging pot holes and puddles from that morning’s rain.

All the while, I knew I was being observed by the occasional local who was curious about my white skin, as well as private security guards keeping watch outside the walled-in houses of their middle-upper class employers.

I could rhyme off a hundred differences between Canada and Rwanda, but they often overshadow the similarities. Take a walk down a street in Ottawa or Kigali – red dirt or asphalt – and you will see men and women headed to work, kids off to school and shop owners tending their wares. Some aspects of daily life are almost universal.