A visit to a medical facility in Kigali

Hi again,

Time to continue my story! So this is, with a few weeks of delay, the story of my first night and second day in Rwanda.

Midnight had passed, so this event occurred on August 9th. Eric walked me back to the centre pastoral Saint Paul, shit happened upon arrival. It was dark and I was quite tired so I was just following. Suddenly I was bleeding in the bottom of a hole which was actually the deepest part of a water evacuation channel. I scratched my legs and my lip was bleeding as hell. I didn’t dare to look at first so I washed my other wounds first. . He said yes, so I dared look. I never saw a lip so huge but my teeth where straight. So I went straight to bed and woke up several times with my mouth full of blood. Chill nice first night in Rwanda.

I was not sure if I would be able to stay a second night at the pastoral center of Saint Paul but I didn’t really have much courage left to move. So at 8 am I went to ask the nun if it was possible for another night even though the day before she told me it wouldn’t. She was choked when she saw how I looked… She told me she thought it was not possible but that I should come back at 10 am and that I should go to the hospital next door also. I went back to my room to pack (not easy with one hand) and it took me until 10am! At 10 I heard good news: I could book the room for an extra night. I went straight to the hospital thinking they would just disinfect the thing and it would be over!

Critical error. I saw a first nice doctor who spoke enough French to communicate, who told me I would first see one doctor for my leg and then the dentist for my mouth. The helper took me to the first doctor but this one was the worse fool ever. Instead of looking at my leg he just pushed me down and start stitching my lip. Out of the 3 anesthesia pricks he gave me not one was right so he just started sewing which felt as if he was going straight through my nerves. After minutes of pain he stopped and send me to another doctor cause I was a problem and he couldn’t fix it.

After some administrative fuss and walking around the polyclinique a few times I finally managed to meet the –english speaking- specialist I was supposed to meet. She looked at me and told me I needed stiches! I was very astonished, I told het I already got some but she couldn’t find them. That crazy fool really messed up : het hurt me and then took everything out. I got a 4^th shot of anesthesia and turned out the previous guy did it all wrong. This time it didn’t hurt and the sewing was done in a few minutes. !

The stiches went loose after a long week and after 10 days they just fell out. Anyway, I still spend the next two week eating a lot of bananas and yogourt cause I was forbidden of any non-soft food but everything seemed to heal well. This story is not over though, the dentist promises me huge problems in either a week or 5 years.

This is what I fell in !

And this is what it looked like if you wanna see :

I don’t like too long articles, so I’ll just try to catch up some of the next weeks in the next days. I really suck at holding a blog 😉

Arrival in Kigali

Sunset on the plane and first glimpse of Africa

Mwaramutse `hello’,

On August 8th I landed at Kigali International Airport and for the first time my feet touched the African soil. As every tale has to start and finish somewhere, and because I love telling stupid anecdotes, the narration of my African adventures will begin and wind up in an aircraft/airport. Besides, I don’t know why I am writing in English yet as I’m not good at it!

After a long 4 hour drive to Frankfurt and some airport shopping, I boarded a Boeing 787-8. The only likeliness between this Qatar Airways flight and a Ryanair flight is that it gets one from a point A to a point B. This was truly the best flight I ever had.

• The lights inside are composed of nice shades of blue and pink, you could almost transform the cabin in a club!
• You might be travelling in the economic class, but you can still choose between different types of wine
• There is a remote control so you can play games during the flight…
• And last but not least : instead of regular window blind, Qatar airways provide you with a system allowing to dim the light coming through the window in 5 shades of light to dark blue !

Qatar airlines plane

However, the plane I took after a 3 hour stopover in Doha, Qatar was not fancy at all! Nevertheless, I had the opportunity to experience the unbearable Middle East warmth in the scarce time that I was outside after disembarking the plane (if you like saunas, you should think about visiting the Middle-East). I was also able to act as a Japanese tourist in Doha Airport! The crowed was remarkable: I presume the transit terminal is one of the most multicultural areas on earth. Other outstanding facts:

Doha airport

• The showers in the toilets
• The presence of an Arabic version of AGW
• The fact that the airport manager understands business : no tax free shop but an entire floor
• The existence of male/female only mosques

The plane was crowded but in Entebbe, Uganda, most people left the plane and I experienced my first take off while laying down on 3 seats (it gives some weird tickles). I landed early, so I had one hour to sit in front of the airport waiting for Pieter (my thesis supervisor). A taxi brought us to the Centre Pastoral Saint Paul which is located in the city center and where one is able to rent a cheap room from some religious women. I had a fresh pineapple juice (yamiiiiiiiiiii) and a buffet meal (they have it everywhere) with among other things some manioc leaves (not so good) and some cooked bananas.

After arranging some practical issues, we wandered around the city. Kigali is spread over several hills and live is distributed over different local centrums. It is also one of the cleanest cities I have ever seen. I really didn’t expect this! Moreover, the city is relatively quiet. After walking around, I bought some small sweet bananas in the local market and went back to my place with Pieter and his friend Kadada. We relaxed for a while and I played with Arnaud, a local kid always running around.

centre pastoral saint paul

Centre pastoral Saint Paul

Centre Pastoral Saint Paul

                                                                                                                       Around 6pm, we left for the Muslim neighborhood where we met Eric, Kadada’s friend. He brought us to a local tea room (?). A table was set outside for us between at one side a truck, and at the other a car and a moto ! Everyone had some very sweet tea with ginger, a freshly made chapatti and we shared a large platter full of mini-brochettes with lemon (yamiiii again)!

Later we went to a bar/club called The Must where I made another key discovery worth mentioning: Primus, a Rwandese beer which tastes pretty good. The place itself was very alike European ones in terms of design but the ambiance was unalike. People danced together spontaneously! I enjoyed it a lot even though I didn’t like the Pop-RnB-HipHop-Reggaetone music. Fortunately, there were also a few local tunes to discover. Around midnight I started to feel tired though (not much sleep) but I continued chatting with Eric for a while. I walked back to my room and Eric made sure I didn’t get lost. At this point I already spent approximately 18 hours in Rwanda, and that’s when things got tough! However, I will keep that story for my next post (sorry, must keep the suspense up!).

Cheers !

(Coming soon : my discovery of a Rwandese hospital and more Kigali sightseeing).