Day 1: Saturday July 16

After a long trip and a less than restful sleep, up to our hotel for the rest of the trip. Lots of people busying about, more quiet than I thought it would be. We are in the peek travel season so we expected more traffic.

Hotel Iris is a rather modest place. Small rooms in a garden setting. That's once you get past the big medevil metal gate and dude with the machine gun (note: there are a lot of people with machine guns. Guns are illegal in Rwanda except for police, military and private security. After the initial oh shit, it's actually a bit comforting that there's so much security considering the past).

Luckily there’s a great restaurant on premise so we hand a quick bite, my first taste of African food in many years. Very simple meals, mostly starch (Atkins would not do well here) and good flavor. The local beer is fantastic, which is a very very good thing. And the coffee blows away anything at Starbucks (note: Costco brand Kirkland coffee is from Rwanda). So far so good.

We met Hope and Charles today. Hope runs a micro enterprise we will be visiting and sponsoring; she's a lovely lady, very quiet and doesn't look me in the eye much. She also complains that I speak too fast. Charles is a young fella, right out of college and will be our translator for the week (note, most people we met speak some or very good English but the local language is very prevalent, especially among the regular population. More on that later I'm sure, it's an interesting language). Charles is also quite the businessman. He has run a few construction projects in Rwanda, notably two residential projects. (note: Everything is under construction here, the economy is doing well do to a lot of foreign investment.) Charles is extremely well spoken and should prove to be a great guide.

We ventured around town by car checking out the market and the local transportation center. There are no trains in Rwanda so everything is by bus for most people. A lot if people driving like crazy people. Tons of motorcycle taxis. It's amazing people don’t get killed every day.

All in all Kilgali reminds me of a few other sizable African cities I've been too. Lots of hustle bustle, dusty but this one is very clean. You don't see a stitch of garbage anywhere. I wonder why.

Not on mission yet. Things move very slow here. Someone said "you Americans live by time (pointing where a watch would be on their wrist) but here in Rwanda we have all the time in the world." I can see how that would frustrate westerners but no one here looks like they need a vacation.

We spoke to Charles and Hope about Rwanda and the transformation it is undergoing. Both expressed immense hope and optimization. They spoke of reconciliation and forgiveness and how, unlike South Africa (it came up that I had been there) there’s love in people's heart and everyone wants to move on. I'm sure when you scratch past this surface there’s more to the story, but it's a romantic notion and both seemed to genuinely believe what they were saying.

We tried to visit the national memorial today but it was closed due to a funeral. Even today, when remains are found from the genocide, the remains are honored by family and buried in the national genocide memorial. We visit it tomorrow 1st thing.