The first update I should give is that I did not, in fact, have any digestive problems this year. It’s kind of miraculous, because I thought all foreigners did. Maybe there was actually something funky in what I ate the first night last year. Or perhaps my stomach is just used to it by now (and I did still feel a bit queasy, as I said).
I’ll give some credit, though, to the probiotic pills I’ve been taking: the principle is that they populate your digestive tract with natural, helpful bacteria that can restore balance when things are off (e.g. after an antibiotic kills all of them). The package features a whole laundry list of other wonderful effects that they can supposedly have, but that have not been verified by the F.D.A., one of which is “[h]elp minimize travel associated stomach and digestive issues.” I figured I would try it, and hey, all the food stayed down! Pretty unscientific, I know, but I’m happy with it.
Anyway, today (Friday) I went into the city center for the first time. It was morning, and I had some things I wanted to buy in addition to exchanging money. It was very good to see the place again, and though a number of things were noticeably different, I was happy to see that the general vibe was the same, and that I still knew my way around.
I got everything I needed and then headed back. The overall theme I noticed on the day was that things were getting better (though, in some cases, they are better than last year because before I’d just been doing it wrong). Let me elaborate a bit:
The City Itself
Kigali is constantly growing and constantly developing. I commented more than once, last year, on how many construction projects there were, and how apparent it was that most of the modern buildings in the city center had not been there just a few years before. In the ten months I have been gone, things have changed noticeably.
There is a big convention going on, with lots of huge white tents, in what was last year a completely undeveloped, open field not far from the city center (just uphill from Nyarugenge Prison, roughly across the street from La Gallette). The soon-to-open Marriott Kigali is noticeably more complete than it was last year.
Probably most visibly, the massive construction right in the middle of the city, which was last year entirely shrouded in dark-green scaffolding, is now partly exposed. I’ve heard it is going to be a new city hall, and that it is funded by Chinese investments. (Either or both of those statements may be true.) Anyway, large swaths of shiny windows and swanky elevators are now showing, and it’s pretty impressive.
I was only in town for a couple of hours, and kept myself pretty directed in the interests of being home for lunch. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll make sure to go back and document these changes, maybe even trying to match them up with photographs I took last year in the same places. It’s these sorts of things that we assume are documented by someone, somewhere—and, in the Information Age, probably are—but I still like to think that I might be contributing to something by doing my part.
Mass Transit
This is a very preliminary assessment, based on the one minibus ride that I took to get home. For the most part, the minibus taxis that I saw riding around were as I remembered them: some nice, actual buses, even air-conditioned, but mostly standard, 18-seat minivans with lively designs and a happy, scrappy feel. The nice ones, from my experience, usually went on the nicer routes (through Remera, Kimironko or Kacyiru), and I very rarely saw one going to Nyamirambo (on the route that goes closest to where I am living). The first one I saw going to Nyamirambo, though, which I got on, was one of the big and nice ones. Take it or leave it, just an observation.
Side-note: There is something distinctive about the smell of the inside of a minibus taxi. It hadn’t occurred to me that it was anything interesting until I got into one today and realized I hadn’t smelled it in a year. I’m pretty sure it’s mostly sweat. Maybe Rwandan sweat is somehow different—or maybe everyone just sweats a lot because it’s hot. Never having been to another equatorial country, I’m in no position to judge. Again, just an observation.
Telecommunications
I bought myself a phone, and a SIM card to go inside (and was proud that I did so without speaking any English). I forgot to register said SIM card, rendering it useless until businesses open again on Monday, but never mind that. Anyway, I asked for a cheap phone (iterefoóne idáheenze), and suggested a price of Fr. 10,000 (about $14).¹ This is about what I remembered paying last year, and I got a phone of the same brand that I had, and that looks pretty much identical to what I remember.
It is a somewhat better phone, though: that price now buys you a wider language selection (including Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili, in addition to English and French), and a few other features that are less interesting to a linguistics major. See? Improvement.
On the advice of a friend (thanks, Augustin), I also bought a modem to use to get online. It is of the same sort that I used last year, a U.S.B. device that holds a SIM card and hooks your computer up to a cellular data network. This one comes from Tigo, rather than Airtel, though, and unlike the one I had last year offers reasonable rates: Fr. 800 (~$1.15) for 24 hours of unlimited usage, whereas I ended up paying almost that much for every megabyte with Airtel.
This is where I think I might just have been doing it wrong. Perhaps Airtel offered a daily plan that I just didn’t know about. In fact, I would be pretty surprised if anyone in their right mind chose to use that pay-per-use service, knowing that there were other options. Nevertheless, even the pay-per-use deal from Tigo is much better, and the Internet now is faster than I remember it being before too. So I’ll call it an improvement.
Infrastructure
Get ready for another judgment based on limited sample size: the neighborhood where I am living has a problem with running water. It’s been running for about 14 of the past 18 hours, and otherwise not since I arrived. This is much more consistent than it was a year ago! Caveats: (a) I’ve only been here about three days. (b) It probably has something to do with all the rain we just got. (c) 14 hours over three days is still pretty inconsistent. To fit with the theme of the post, though, let’s look on the bright side!
I noticed lots of other things that were about the same as I remembered, for better or for worse. You’ll hear about them at some point; for now, I think I’ve written a pretty good amount.
¹ This reminds me that the exchange rate from U.S. dollars to Rwandan francs is also much better than a year ago: I got 693 francs per dollar, whereas I am used to around 650.
Nice account, Jake. Thanks!
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