Saturday, September 20, 2014

Arrived in Kigali!


Yesterday was a whirlwind of travel! We drove a little, funky-looking purple Peugeot (stock photo below) on the Italian Autostrade from Rapallo to Milano. We passed many signs warning us of the strong winds and felt lucky that our heavy baggage was holding Little Purple down so we didn't blow away! When we were up in the mountains the clouds were hovering in our midst and we felt lucky that it wasn't raining.


The Turkish Airways flight from Milan to Istanbul was remarkable only for it being the end of my short guilty-pleasure love affair with Scandal. In this last month of vacation, I have watched all three seasons of Olivia Pope and Associates' antics, plus a President and Chief of Staff who do almost no work. It's gripping as those of you who have also succumbed to its charm will admit!

The flight from Istanbul to Kigali was 3,000 miles, about three times as long as the first flight and the plane was equipped with fancy individual screens for each passenger. Andrew watched Tim's Vermeer, a movie about an inventor-type who becomes obsessed with the painter Vermeer's methods and spends years investigating them by recreating one of his paintings. I guess I was in the mood for a catharsis of sorts and I watched The Fault in Our Stars, a tear-jerking romantic drama about two teenagers who meet in a cancer support group and fall in love. The young woman, Hazel, introduces her new friend to her favorite book, and the two seek out the reclusive author in an optimistic naïveté to find out what became of the characters. It struck a chord about how precious love is and how devastating it is to lose someone close to you. These young people were inspiring, though, as they figured out how to absorb the life's essence in a short time and deal with its ambiguities in ways that others doubtfully could. The movie packs a lot of perspective.

I also caught a bit of The Promised Land too -- and feel ashamed to admit I didn't know for sure what fracking was until its dramatic activist description by one of the movie's community members who organized a simple stand-up-to-the-man demonstration at the town hall in the high school gym. The flight landed in Kigali before the movie was over so I will have to wait a little while to know how it ended. I was astonished at the selection of movies on this plane, though! Everything from The Truth About Cats and Dogs with Uma Thurman and Janine Garofalo to a made-for-TV movie about Gabrielle Douglas, the first American gymnast to win both the individual and the team gold medal in the Olympics.

We arrived in Kigali after midnight, which was a relief! The plane had two destinations - Entebbe and Kigali -- and we weren't sure which was coming first. We deplaned and went through passport control. Before seeing the agents, we filled out a screening questionnaire for possible exposure to or symptoms of Ebola virus infection and had our temperatures taken with a infrared (non-contact) thermometer. The two workers who checked our temperatures were wearing masks and there was information on Ebola provided by the Ministry of Health available at the agents' desks.

Samuel, a driver arranged by the hostel, greeted us after we got our baggage, and took us to the Discover Rwanda Youth Hostel where we are staying for two nights. He gave us a little tour along the way -- we stopped in Remera at an ATM, then passed the Convention Center Hotel (under construction) which he said was being built on land that used to be owned by Microsoft's Bill Gates. We also caught a glimpse of the Senate and Parliament buildings, but it was very dark so we'll have to get out and see them again today!




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