4 August 2005 -- Uncomfortable Observations

It’s been a couple of days since I’ve written, and a couple of days to explore Kigali. So now I can give a few first impressions, as I sit here under a bamboo lean-to at the Novotel hotel, with sweeping views of one of the hillsides.

Before I get started on new thoughts, let me update one of the things I wrote last time, the whole traffic light bit. Yeah, I was wrong. People do drive safer here than they do in Phnom Penh – there are no families of five with all of their earthly possessions on one motor scooter, for example – but there aren’t many more traffic lights here. It’s just that people follow the lights and signs that are up.

That’s quite enough about driving, but it is one of the easiest things to notice. Now on to other thoughts and observations.

Kigali is not an easy place to explore on foot. Between the hills and the beating sun, it’s just not that pleasant to take a good long walk. I know I should be wearing my ridiculous big-brimmed hat, but pride and vanity are getting in the way. I feel like a beekeeper in the thing, and it doesn’t allow me to blend in as well with the locals. Fortunately, it’s not hot at all. The sun is just incredibly strong. If you check the online weather for Kigali, you’ll notice that the UV ratings are usually 10-plus. Yikes. It’s like I’m walking around in a tanning booth all day. At least the sun is down by about 6:30, every day, all year. We are just north of the Equator after all.

I’ve also made some possibly uncomfortable observations about myself. I’m wondering why I felt more comfortable in Phnom Penh than I do here in the first few days. I think part of it is that I had a cadre of people in Phnom Penh, ex-pats and locals, who were looking out for me. They needed me to put out their newspaper. I don’t have that here; my contacts are all in the States.

But I fear that my discomfort level in Kigali may also be because of some biases ingrained in me. Could it be that I feel slightly less at ease because everyone around me is African? Could it be like when white people lock ‘em up and roll ‘em up in Harlem or the South Bronx? I hope not. Hell, I never do that. And it’s not like I think people are sizing me up to rob me. But I can’t discount it. I can, however, get over it. I don’t think I could do that unless I was open and honest about what I was feeling. And since this here Web site is all about telling you what I’m thinking and feeling, I felt like I should put that in there. I hope none of you think less of me.

Transitions are often the hardest part of writing. And trying to find the proper transition from discussing my ugly internal deliberations to trying to get my ugly work situation off the ground is harder than most. There, I think I’ve done it, but in a cheap and tawdry way.

I’ve found my fixer. For those of you who don’t know what a fixer is, it’s the local that makes foreign corresponding happen. It’s usually a man who knows the people to know in the country the correspondent is covering. And the fixer generally has a car. They’ll often make appointments for the journalist, and also do the driving. Of course, one has to pay for the fixer’s services, but it’s his job.

I met this fellow Eric through a contact Rebecca made before we got here. He’s 27, tall and fluent in French, English and Kinya-rwanda, the local language. He was a refugee in Burundi for a few years, so I felt funny after I told him that Rebecca and I were tired of living out of suitcases, which we’ve done for the last few weeks. Party foul, we’ve never had to run for our lives.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that Eric doesn’t sleep. He is in charge of four different essentially charity organizations, including a school-exchange program with Montpellier, Vermont, an anti-AIDS organization, an ethnic reconciliation forum and a business development group. He’s also in his second year at university, where he studies business at night. Eric is going to introduce me to some of the journalists here, and then to some government folks and others. I think he’ll help a lot.

Of course, I haven’t yet introduced myself to any of the Catholic hierarchy here yet, and since I’m writing for the Catholic News Service primarily, they’re probably people I should meet. I tried, but they changed their phone number.

I have a feeling I’ll be writing mostly for CNS. There’s no famine here (Niger and soon Mali. Get your tickets), no riots or ongoing genocide here (Sudan) and there’s not going to be a coup anytime soon (Mauritania). Yep, I certainly know how to go where the news is. I guess that’s the price to pay for being in a relatively stable country.

That’s pretty much it from here. Our luggage arrived yesterday. Funny story, it actually arrived on Tuesday, but Kenyan Air decoded not to tell us. So it was sitting in the Kigali Airport for a day. So far everything we packed appears to have made it. And we’re going house hunting this afternoon. Here’s hoping for the chateaux, or at least something bigger than one bedroom.

Hey, if anyone feels like I’m not answering questions they have or anything post them. Also, if this sounds funny, like it was just posted on Saturday even though it was written Thursday, well, sorry. I guess I’m just a slacker. Like you didn’t know that already.