It's been about 5 months now since I arrived in this beautiful country and it's only today that I'll tell you something about its capital and my new home, Kigali.
At this point I should probably mention that I had written a post about the same topic previously but I found it to be insufficient so I deleted it again.
Kigali is a relatively small city with population estimates ranging from around 600.000 to 1.000.000 inhabitants...don't ask me how they came up with such a wide range of possible numbers but it kind of suits the rest of the country with a population between 8.000.000 and 10.000.000 inhabitants. You can safely say though that no matter which of the numbers is correct it is going to be too many people. Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa with an ever growing population and Kigali makes no exception. In some parts of the city like the predominantly Muslim quarter Nyamirambo (which is very close to where I live) you will sometimes have 2.000 people sharing a small space of 1 km². Considering that most of the houses here only have one floor, you probably wouldn't be surprised to hear that people share beds according to the shifts they work. That means that one person sleeps while the other one works and when the person that was working gets back home they switch.
This is one of the central mosques in Nyamirambo. The picture was taken from one of the many hills that make up Kigali.
However Nyamirambo is also one of the liveliest parts of town with a sort of Middle-Eastern atmosphere; Amazing spirit and definitely an amazing place. It’s also the place where we…meaning my two ‘permanent’ flat mates and I…do our shopping on the weekends.
We live in one of the better parts of town by the way. The place is called Kiyovu and is right in the center of town. That has it's advantages as you could probably imagine. However I think we are the only people who actually live in the Boulevard de la Révolution, the rest are office buldings, embassies and hotels.
The guest house that we inhabit is part of the office compound that we also work at which kind of comes in handy when you don't like getting up in the morning.
We are actually very forunate to live in the place that we live in; we have electricity ALL the time because we have a generator, we also have running water and can even have hot showers, we have a fridge, and EVEN a WASHING MACHINE (which is an absolutely amazing thing to have in Rwanda)! Other volunteers that we hang out with are not quite as fortunate; some have to travel for 1 1/2 hours to get to work, have no running water, no proper bathroom and NOBODY has a washing machine.
We also used to have a great garden.
Until they turned it into this...
There is so much more that I could be writing about this city, but I also want somebody to actually read this. I'm sure you'll find out more as I continue my blog.
To finish with, just a few more pictures...
My office...
My Street...(that must have been on a Sunday because it's usually not that empty)
My hill...it's the one in the background.
2 comments:
HEYY THIS IS GREAT LARSI!!
You are getting very good at writing blogs...
For some moments, the combination of text and pictures, made me feel as if i were there.
Thank you XXX
Lars, I had no idea until this moment that you had a blog! I'm getting myself caught up! Rwanda (at least Kigali where you live) is absolutely gorgeous! Its so exciting hearing about it! My mom is sitting next to me reading along with me :)
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