Rwanda Has Not Been At All Like I Expected……

…..admittedly I was expecting another impoverished Third World country like Cameroon or Chad, but the fact is that Rwanda is one of the most beautiful areas of Africa I’ve visited. It is pretty close to the Equator so there is the element of heat and humidity but the altitude here in the mountains keeps the climate reasonably comfortable. The by-product of this heat and humidity, however, is a very high rate of rainfall which, in turn, makes this one of the greenest countries I’ve ever seen. They also have a huge variety of plants that are bright yellow—they even have a yellow cactus over here—so you get this constant splash of green and yellow. For that reason, the national flag of Rwanda is green and yellow.

They use the British system of traffic circles over here and every one of them has beautiful landscaping and most have statuary and even fountains that actually work—something unheard of in Africa outside of Egypt and South Africa. The roads are really well maintained and even have paved shoulders. Even outside the downtown area, there are wide sidewalks with contoured stone curbing. And the place is immaculate.

After work today, I took an hour walk despite a light rain. I was actually looking for trash and never once saw a piece of paper or trash on the ground. As I walked around I was impressed with the people I passed on the sidewalks. They weren’t particularly friendly but if they looked at me, I would say hello and they would always smile and reply. I never once felt threatened in any way although I did draw quite a few stares (probably because I was out walking in the rain.) I certainly had a lot more people stare at me in China and other places.

I have a good group of students here also. I have two local Rwandans and students from Burundi, Liberia and Sudan. They all speak good English and we’re off to a good start. Next week I’ll actually know some of the students from our training in Ethiopia two years ago.

So far it’s been a really good job—the only problem is that I really got hammered with jet lag this trip. Until last night I had gone nearly 60 hours without any really good sleep.