Back to Life, Back to Kigali

Rwanda – land of a thousand disparities. Wait, what’s that you say? It’s actually the “Land of a Thousand Hills”? Well, technically, you’re right, but my first 48 hours in Rwanda has been one of immense differences and incongruence. I first came here in 2005 (many of you taking time to read this blog now may have also been kind enough to read my long rambling emails then) to ostensibly “serve” in a district hospital in the northwestern part of the country. I left feeling I had learned a million times more than I had given, and have been coming back ever since, hoping to learn more about this beautiful place and how better how to serve its people.

Not much has changed since my first visit in 2005, except that it seems perhaps everything has. Kigali, the nation’s capital, now boasts numerous posh coffee shops and a full grocery store with foods from all over the world. The house I’ll be living in on the weekends has wireless internet. It seems that every new restaurant has an electronic touch-screen register and English-speaking staff. I ate dinner a few nights ago with Clinton Foundation coworkers and ordered couscous salad with artichoke hearts and parmesan cheese. They had the pumpkin ravioli with pine nuts and a calzone the size of my head. All delicious, all impressive, all very…non-“African”. Kigali is clearly a city on its way up - one eager to impress and ready to accommodate visitors, businesspeople and the elite. I must say I’m not complaining.

When we head out of Kigali, however, change is much harder to find. The same gorgeous hills remain, covered in glinting banana trees and tea bushes. The same lines of people walking the roads - a man pushing a load of potatoes on a bike, a woman carrying a bucket of water on her head, children playing tag. The poverty here is clear. Poverty followed by more of the same. Our house in the “field” (in Burera District in the north) is small and simple, but comfy. There’s no running water, so I heat some up in a pot on the stove to wash my face. There’s reliable electricity though, so again, I’m not complaining.

The next year will be interesting, as my Global Health Corps friends and I work to contribute in a positive way to the mission for health equity in Rwanda. How will we reconcile our work during the week out in the country with the indulgent lifestyle that beckons from the shining lights of new Kigali? There’s only one way to find out.