I Can Officially Add Rwanda to the List of Countries I’ve Visited…..

…..Made it to Kigali (pronounced Key-gall-lee) and was met by a supervisor from the Embassy who escorted me to the hotel and got me checked in. Although I arrived after dark, my initial impressions of Rwanda were very good. I talked a little with the Embassy representative and she told me it is relatively safe to walk around alone and that most of the restaurants are safe to eat at.

After 19 ½ hours in an airplane seat I had trouple sleeping when I got into my room but finally managed a decent night’s sleep. This morning was overcast and rainy but very cool—around 66 degrees. The hotel is a former Novotel—a very good class of hotel—but has seen better days however is still really nice. It is, by African standards, a four-star hotel. The room has no heat or air-conditioning which is common for this area. Although Kigali is in “central” Africa, it is also situated fairly high in the mountains. In fact, the motto of Rwanda is “country of a thousand hills.” I’m on the third floor with a secure outside patio so I can open my patio door during the day and run a fan in the room and it’s actually really pleasant. High temperatures are expected to be in the upper 80s this week so I finally got away from all that cold Texas weather.

This morning I walked around the hotel grounds which are really nice—so much better than the situation in Cameroon last year. There are some stork-like birds walking around everywhere and the grounds are really well maintained. Like I said earlier—my initial impressions are very good so far.

I start work tomorrow morning and next week I will have a recertification program with some of the students I worked with in Ethiopia two years ago so there will be some familiar faces.

The Internet is relatively cheap--$10 for six hours time—so I should be able to email and post to the blog on a fairly regular basis……