Day 107: Kigali

We slept reasonably well, had breakfast, chatted, and then set out to take out COMESA insurance. This is in addition to our German insurance and might reassure the police.

What wasn't possible in Uganda works here. First, take out insurance for Rwanda and then COMESA – it costs us around 70 euros for three months.

We meet Ian and Cath for lunch at Cafe Camellia Plaza. We can walk and leave the car in the insurance company's parking lot. Kigali reminds us a little of Taipei. Busy, full of small, old-fashioned shops and modern buildings with cool stores.

And then we both visit the Genocide Museum. So depressing! In 1994, around 250,000 Tutsi were slaughtered in Kigali alone, and about a million people across the country. Systematically and in a short period of time. Neighbors, friends, spouses, children. Targeted rapes by HIV-infected men. And the world looked the other way, for far too long. What a national trauma.

And even if there may be an ancient history to the conflict, a categorization of people during the Belgian colonial period laid the foundation for the escalation: people with more than 10 cows were declared Tutsi, people with fewer than 10 cows Hutu. So it's not really about ethnicity, but rather about rich and poor.

Last night, we had already discussed the memorial and the events, and a local man came to our table. A little drunk, the emotional floodgates opened and gave us an idea of what this man might have experienced.