Kigali Christmas Day 2018. 12/25/2018

Muraho and Noheri nziza n’umwaka mushya muhire (Christmas and New Year Greetings in Kinyarwanda – Rwanda’s language)

Merry Merry –

Before going into our Christmas Day… a few interesting facts:

• The area where we were walking yesterday – Nyamirambo – is referred to as “California” (according to the taxi driver) because a lot of Rwandan movie stars live in that neighborhood.
• While there is less English (in fact almost none) spoken in the lower-income areas, the word “California” is well known.
• Kigali has car-free Sundays: on the first Sunday of every month main roads are closed until noon
• It’s considered rude to eat or drink on the street – not even a piece of fruit or a cookie

We began our day at the Heaven Boutique Hotel Christmas brunch; figured it would be difficult to find anything other than a hotel open on Christmas. It was fine, but frankly by the standards of the hotel design and the regular breakfasts we’ve had each morning in the smaller restaurant, we expected more. So now a bit about Heaven Boutique Hotel:

• It’s owned by an American expat couple (a little googling showed that he is a Yalie and has a PhD in public health from Columbia; she is a Wesleyan grad with MPH from Harvard. He had done some work in East Africa and was also a clinical professor at Columbia, heading up some sort of center on health initiatives operating throughout Africa; they came to Rwanda on their honeymoon and decided to stay and to attempt a social enterprise, believing that they could establish a “non-NGO” that included a business model to train locals while at the same time delivering extremely high quality services. They recognized that the tourism business would begin to grow as the years beyond the genocide passed.
• They have three birth children and adopted three Rwandan teens after their mother (who was their housekeeper died of AIDS); so now they are a family with 6 kids.
• Josh Ruxin (the owner with wife Alyssa) wrote a book about their experiences developing this enterprise and what they’ve learned living here in Rwanda.
• They started with a restaurant – having no experience with cooking (except that they seem to be foodies) and no experience running a business or training marginalized people. The restaurant was a success, and they grew it into this boutique hotel.
• The hotel is divided into three distinct spaces: the villas, the “retreat,” and the chalets (each appears to be set up as a separate “business” and staff is assigned one of these three “mini-hotels” – each has only about 10 rooms. The villas are the lower-end cost, the chalet rooms the mid-level, and the retreat rooms are top of the line). While you can walk easily between the three parts of the hotel there are separate entrances for cars. (A class system?)  We booked online and didn’t really understand all of this, so we booked a villa room. When we arrived we began to understand the lay of the land and really didn’t like the villa room, so we asked if we could be in the area where we registered when we arrived (chalet), so they said there was a vacancy and we walked with a staffer to see that room which was clearly a nicer room – but as we walked through this middle section (retreat) we asked about those rooms and were shown the one remaining available room. We were sold! Only problem was that we could probably only have it for three of our four nights and would have to relocate on the fourth night. We figured we’d take our chances. Alas, we are now in the process of moving to a chalet room… which will be a downgrade.
• The retreat part of the hotel was designed by an Italian architect but built by Rwandans. It is impeccably detailed. In our retreat room we also have a private terrace, a private deck, and an outdoor as well as indoor shower.
• So this is how the hotel works:  ALL staff are locals (mostly Rwandans, but also Burundians and other parts of East Africa); they are well paid and are trained to either remain at Heaven or to move on to jobs at the high-end hotels that are springing up (Marriott, Radisson, etc.) in Kigali as tourism grows. Staff are encouraged, and assisted, to attend college. Several have graduated already. Many take classes at night. While it appears that they are very overstaffed, it’s probably because people are a different levels of their training.
• Staff have been trained well to be polite, welcoming and thoughtful. Wherever you go, staff always greet you (in fact the walk from the room to breakfast involves about a dozen ‘hellos”…

So, we began our Christmas Day, following brunch, by reaching out to the taxi driver from the previous day (via WhatsApp), since he expressed interest in driving us to our destinations for a second day…  and he replied that he was at a wedding,  but he would send his friend, Jado, who had a blue car. Jado arrived quickly; his English was pretty weak, but we could show him where we hoped to go with the map we had. We wanted to go to local markets (add to the growing list of markets we have visited all around the world). And off we went – first to the Kimironko Market which is located in the far east part of the city and then to the Nyamirambo market which is near the area that was called California by January, the other taxi driver.

Here we saw more of the underbelly of the city – clearly people of much less means (both the vendors and the shoppers); the markets looked a lot like ones we had seen in India and also in Uganda. Photographing was tough; people asked for money if we photographed them (I understand we are taking their image, but I also know the mess that occurs if one pays to photograph – including the flood of people who suddenly want their photos taken, so my rule of thumb everywhere is to photograph people who are ok with it.

Along the way, at the Kimironko Market, some young women wanted their photos taken and I was pleased to comply… Then another person came up and wanted a picture too… They explained that they were in action movies produced in Rwanda. Although there was no English, we expressed excitement with meeting a “movie star.”

The second market was even more marginal than the first, but we walked through and got the lay of the land… chatting where possible and smiling a lot. Saying many times how beautiful Kigali was. One young woman who had a bit more English said she was sure that California was more beautiful.

Before we left on our market journey, we walked a few blocks (uphill) from the hotel to make a reservation for dinner that night – realizing that a lot of places would likely be closed for Christmas. We tried to call as did the hotel, but the restaurant didn’t answer. Given our experience the night before when we arrived at a closed restaurant we figured this made sense. We didn’t have a lot of options because of the holiday. We walked to Chez Robert and they were open so we booked. When we arrived at about 8:30 pm, we were the only guests. And they had this huge buffet. We opted for the actual menu; felt bad, but really didn’t feel like eating food that had been sitting there for hours. We ordered brochettes; it took about an hour for them to arrive (and we had quite a discussion with the waitress who spoke no English – but a little French). Anyway we explained we wanted the middle of the meat to be “red” – rare–fearing we would get very well done meat. When it arrived, the food was good. They had about 5 items on the dessert menu but didn’t have any of them. So we walked back to the hotel and had dessert there.

Now I’m signing off as we need to pack to move rooms. So much more to report..

Fern