My visit to Kigali, Rwanda: How It Came About
Kigali is a beautiful city and you only know this when you actually get there. My visit to Kigali, Rwanda was one of the happiest moments of my life. I love travelling and I have to admit that I don’t do it as much as I would like. So when I met a friend from Kigali, who consequently invited me to her wedding in Kigali, I had to take that chance.
The whole trip came about after I met my friend, Molly at a conference in Kenya. I had just finished my college final exams when I got an opportunity to attend a mobile development workshop organised by an East African organisation. It was one week long and free so I had nothing to lose. It was happening during the last week of October.
When I got there, I realised that I had been assigned the same room as a lady from Rwanda. We got close in that period of one week. We talked about our personal lives, where she mentioned, that she was getting married on 25th December. She invited me to attend it. At this time we both thought it was not possible. I mean, we had just known each other for a week, and here she was inviting me to attend the ceremony in a different country. Not to mention, a country I have never been to before, and I have absolutely no one else I know from there apart from her.
Me being who I am, decided that it was a great idea and started planning. I was going to travel on 22nd Dec so I had some time to explore Rwanda before the wedding.
On the D-day, I went to the airport and due to underestimation. on my part, I ended up missing the 3 PM flight and I had to stay at the airport for 5 hours waiting for the 11 PM flight.
My first flight
I got to Kigali at 11 pm, since Kigali is 1 hour behind Nairobi. Molly was waiting at the airport together with two guys, whose names I really didn’t catch but she said they were her cousins or something. I later came to know that one of the guys was her cousin’s husband, James.
That night I stayed with Molly at James’ house. He and his wife are one of the most welcoming people I have met to date. It helped that they speak both Swahili and English making communication easier.
The next few posts will be about my visit to Kigali. Talk about a trip down memory lane. Next, My second day in Kigali.
You can also check my weekend vacation series Diani edition.
