Kigali

After a long plane ride and several airplane meals, I arrived in Kigali this afternoon at 2pm Rwandan time, 8am EST. It was a 26 hour trip in total, but looking at a map I realized that flying through Ethiopia was definitely not the most direct route. ARC's logistics coordinator, a nice guy named Apollo from Uganda, picked me up from the airport. He could not believe that this is my first time in Africa and told me that I'd be learning a lot. 

Kigali appears to be a very nice city. It is very green with a lot of colorful flowers, plants and trees everywhere. Looking out in every direction you can hills. The main roads are paved. Driving from the airport to my hotel, there seemed to be a fair amount of automobile traffic but also a lot people on foot- women with bags and packages, men walking in pairs and small groups and kids in uniforms.

We dropped my luggage off at the hotel and immediately went to ARC's central headquarters in Kigali, which was only about a 10 minute drive. I there met the country director, the senior program coordinator and the finance director. They gave me a quick briefing about how ARC functions in Rwanda. Two surprises were that they gave me a cell phone to use while I'm here as well as portable modem that I'll be able to access the internet with. I have to say, I'm very thankful for the modem as I wasn't expecting internet to be that available to me.

I ate pizza and drank Rwandan beer for dinner and hope to be asleep by 830 because I am beat and am meeting again at the main office tomorrow at 8am. I'll be in Kigali until Friday afternoon when I go to my site in Byumba which is about 1 hour's drive north of here. So far so good, but I think Apollo is right- I'll be learning a lot!

This is the view from right outside my hotel.