Focus: Getting to know the Bazungu in our midst

Recently Rwanda was the best exhibitor in the African category at the annual ITB Berlin tourism exhibition in Germany. True to this exhibition, Rwanda is increasingly becoming a major tourist destination in Africa. Many tourists come to Rwanda seeking different experiences, and experience they get in the land of a thousand hills. On any weekend you will find hordes of bazungu enjoying the hospitality of the night life that Kigali has to offer. It’s Friday night and at KBC night club, a group of four Bazungu girls are dancing to the tune of Juliana Kanyomozi’s latest hit Kibaluma. Their dance floor exploits are just not in tune with the music playing. They are obviously a spectacle in themselves as many people are enjoying looking on rather than taking to the dance floor with them. A young wannabe probably from one of Kigali’s several university campuses joins the group and gets ‘jiggy’ with one of the bazungu girls. Laura Stewart Gray from New York sits at the Bourbon café terrace at the UTC building commonly referred to as Kwarujugiro. She has been in the country for three weeks and plans to travel to the southern university town of Butare. I ask her what she finds interesting in Rwanda, she says that tracking mountain Gorrilas in the Volcano Park has been her most exciting experience. Despite coming down with malaria after the trip to the park, she says that it was an enjoyable and exciting experience. Like many other tourists, Gray is a typical backpacker who has just completed her undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She says that having travelled thousands of miles from her home in New York to attend college in UBC, she finds no problem being on her own in Kigali. Since coming to Kigali, she has made friends with another backpacker from Australia, Kimberly, 23, who is quick to add that her friends call her Kim. For more than a week they have been hanging out together and enjoying the sun. Kim had trouble adjusting to life in Rwanda the first week she arrived in the country. “I was not used to the food. That is how I developed diarrhoea but soon my system adjusted to the food.” She adds, “I had been advised by my big brother who has visited Africa that I would in the first few days have problems with the local food.” But after a few days she is grateful for her brother’s advice because she has been able to adjust and enjoy the food. She advises fellow tourists not to be scared of trying local food because their system will naturally adapt to it. Talking of food, Gray says that local food is so enjoyable. She loves eating ‘brochette’-roasted meat. Most evenings, she hangs out at the Hotel Chez Lando in Remera, a ‘happening’ suburb in Kigali. Though most tourists come and enjoy what they think are Rwanda’s rich tourist sites like the Akagera Game Park and tracking gorillas in the Virunga Park, others find time to do some part time work. Hannah Bleser has been in Kigali for the last three months and apart from sight seeing and visiting two genocide memorial sites, she also says that she would love to stay around for around one year before going back home to Scotland. After completing two years at university, she decided to take off some time and “travel the world”. Coming to Rwanda after visiting the pyramids in Egypt and volunteering in a slum in Uganda with orphans, she plans to find a charity or orphanage to work with on a voluntary basis. She chuckles as she narrates to me her experience in Uganda before coming to Rwanda. “I worked with these little kids in a place called Namuwongo and they are so amazing.” “I wouldn’t mind doing the same kind of work with kids here in Kigali,” adds Hannah with an excited grin on her face. Hannah says that she was influenced by many reasons to come to Rwanda. The recent history of Rwanda is one of the factors that made her want to spend her ‘sabbatical’ in Rwanda. “It is a learning experience,” she explains. She hopes to learn more about Rwandan culture and also about the Genocide. This interest, she adds, stems from her academic life at the University of London. She says that she has plans to continue her studies on leaving Rwanda. She hopes to build on her experience for her graduate school academic pursuits. Apart from the love for travelling and touring, it is pretty obvious that many young people you see on the street are using their stay here as part of an internship after completing school. Lochhead spent several weeks in Rwanda travelling and had some time to do journalism with a local newspaper. Writing on her blog after going back to Canada, she talks of travelling to see gorillas with other another muzungu from Denmark. Lochhead says her friend’s mission was to negotiate free trade on behalf of the EU. But after a few days decided to go out and see the gorillas in Northern Province. This ‘double sided tourism’, combining work and play, is not uncommon among the several bazungu you meet on the streets of Kigali. Contact: frankkagabo@yahoo.com