Arrival in Kigali, Rwanda

     Yesterday afternoon at 12:35 EST I landed in Kigali, Rwanda. It was 6:35 pm here and already pitch black. I told a friend I thought one of the strangest things that I'll need to adjust to is summer weather with winter darkness and I think that holds true. Kigali is only 134 miles from the equator so the sun shines for almost exactly 12 hours, every day of the year. The weather was beautiful last night as I walked down the stairs alongside the plane, across the field and into the airport. Kigali International Airport is clearly in the middle of some major renovations, but was lovely. By 19:20 I had all 4 of my checked bags, TSA had only broken the zip tie of one and sorry to report Mom, but one of your handles broke on that borrowed suitcase of yours. I waited inside for Julie, a retired oncology nurse also hired by UT and a Texas resident. She will be living and working with me in Butare and via email this summer appears to have quite the sense of humor. She landed about an hour after me and by the time we collected her bags it was just after 8 pm.
     Our hotel was about 15 minutes from the airport and I couldn't see much it was so dark. I was checked in and settled by 20:30 and Julie and I grabbed a bottled water before both just relaxing on our own. I had a nice hot shower, burned through one of my zip ties to access my much needed hair brush, and then gathered everything together that I wanted to take to bed...

Very hot lamp sufficed since all my knives and scissors were in my checked luggage!

Success!

Baby Tugs is here of course, my glasses, my book, my head lamp... all of this so that I could properly tuck my mosquito net into my mattress to save myself from mosquitoes! My bed looks beautifully romantic with this hotel white laced net cascading down from the ceiling, but I can see what a nuisance it truly will be and any feelings of royal grandeur will be quickly squashed.

Prior to the full tuck in.

Relaxing afternoon at Princess Status.

     This morning Julie and I had a lovely buffet breakfast of eggs, spinach, fruit salad, some meat and potato dish (reminded me of an Indian dish alongside the spinach) and incredible African tea served with hot milk and passion fruit juice. Then a driver was sent for us, Wilson, and he took us to the Ministry of Health where we met Sage.

Sage is part of our support staff and has been emailing us the last few weeks helping us get all our paperwork sorted for our work visas here in Rwanda. It has been quite the ordeal and of course we learned today that it isn't quite sorted. We are missing one or two things that will hopefully be taken care of by UT quickly so that they can get our applications submitted. Apparently this won't hinder us from starting work after orientation next week. After paperwork we ran a few errands and officially got SIM cards for our phones. If anyone attempted to iMessage me today, I did not receive it as I switched the cards out long before any of you were awake (unless you happened to be working night shift as I will say some of my friends do). I believe that iMessage will still be free to those of you stateside if I am on 3G network/wifi, but until I'm sure I still recommend Whatsapp/Viber/Voxer/Facetime/Email/ Facebook for communication. SUCH limited options my goodness!

     We took Wilson to lunch at a local place (well he took us and we paid), which was delicious. I don't really know what I ate. There was beef and chicken with rice and potatoes and fruit and sauces... whatever it all was it was good. And for $3.67 per person quite the steal. $1.00 USD is equivalent to about 700 Rwandan francs (RWF). Today with all the errands we ran I probably spent under $30 and the most expensive bill was paying Wilson for his time and then charging our phones. We got a decent sense of Kigali. It is a city of 1 million, with paved roads and a few cobblestones with traffic lights and circles. The city itself is in a valley surrounded by mountains and minus the fact it's lacking in water and collapsed buildings, it reminds me very much of Port-au-Prince. The people are smiling and the women are carrying fruit on their heads in massive baskets. School has started and the children walk to and from in their uniforms. There are motorcycle taxis everywhere and we have already been told a million times never to take them. It's a bustling city with a "mall" and supermarkets and surprisingly not many mosquitoes.

View of Kigali hillsides.

Cobblestone street of Kigali.

     This afternoon I have just relaxed at the hotel, which is very peaceful away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and sent emails, updates etc. 

My hotel building.

Julie and I will grab dinner and drinks in a bit and then probably hit the sack early. Jessie Silver, another RN who was in my position last year in Butare and has now moved to Kigali for this year will be driving us the 2.5 hours where we will finally meet Vanessa, our other roommate who has hopefully found us a gorgeous home.

Chez Lando Courtyard

     I am on my balcony right this moment facing due south and it is practically pitch black outside at 6:28 pm. The sky has some very faint pink to the west with dark clouds like the 9 pm sky at home. I suspect that I will turn into my father and wake up with the sun and start to go to bed with the sun.
     Well now the mosquitoes have come out despite my Deet, so back inside I'm 

headed. Will have to remind myself which mosquitoes are the night biting ones... malaria or West Nile. And suspect that I'll be requesting Benadryl spray or some super high strength cortizone cream for bug bites soon.

     Will write more when I get to Butare! Love to all!

Rwanda Cell: +250 781521965