The Land of 1000 Smiles

Now i know i'm prone to fall in love with places (oddly - the direct opposite to the way i usually feel about people) and i know that i am somewhat prone to hyperbole (!!) .... and that the places i've ever not been effusive about are probably countable on just one hand (really just Portugal and Botswana .... and i guess also the US for which love-hate doesn't begin to describe my conflicting emotions about) ..... however i am happy to admit that i've fallen deeply in love with Rwanda ....

Flying from Nairobi (which included the ubiquitous unscheduled stop - this time in Bujumbura) ...
[An aside: Bujumbura! Those of you who i went to school with - do you remember doing all those cake sales and school fetes to raise money for Burundi - well congrats girls - i think it worked .... the place looks pretty good]
........ you pass over endless dry plains and beigey-grey landscape ... and then all of a sudden you're met by this deep green jewel-like land all misty and romantic. My school-girl imagination immediately kicked in - this was a Place for High Adventure .....

But right from landing in Kigali - the smiles started ...... the immigration officer was positively ebullient (in SA this is a role whose job description it seems to stipulate extreme grumpiness and sheer refusal to be helpful in any way) ....... the baggage handlers couldn't have been more efficient or eager to assist ..... in short the hospitality and grace of the Rwandan people has been incredible .... obviously some of this will have been enforced through the knowledge that this is the first major conference in the country and there is certainly a high level of state "control" here .... but truly the courtesy and care shown to me by every person i've met here has been unlike anywhere else i've ever been .....

Now the initial glow did subside somewhat when i was told on arrival that my nice cushy hotel room for the conference had mysteriously been double-booked (i'm blaming the yankee organisers and not the lovely Rwandese) ... and so i was allocated to stay at a private home about 15-20 mins drive away .... gulp i thought - .... as we drove out of the city ..... past a mosque (who knew there were rwandan muslims?!) and further into the suburbs .... what am i going to tell my mum if anything happens to me?

But its worked out fine .... in fact its been really good to escape the constant networking of the conference in the evenings and come back to a place where i'm forced to practice my GCSE (high school) french ... eat real rwandese food (grilled goat is so good!) and hang out drinking local beer in the neighbourhood .... and even far away from the tourist hotels and police presence - i am amazed at how warmly i've been welcomed and how safe i feel here .... the people are so thoughtful and nice that in fact i find myself smiling more too and even being friendly to complete strangers ..... what on earth will i do when i get back to SA?!