Kigali by night

It’s 8:30 p.m. on my second day in Kigali, and I’m walking, alone (note to readers, particularly mothers of anyone: This is into as bad as it sounds, even in spite of this post. I strenuously resist the woman-traveling-alone-in-Africa stereotype of fear, and I will until the day something bad actually happens to me.), back to my hotel from the internet cafe. I’m nervous. Kigali by night seems a completely different place. I recognize almost nothing, and no one—not even me, I am sure—looks friendly in the dark. Everything is quiet, a state I longed for only 12 hours ago, when I was stubbornly trying to sleep through the city traffic, a thing which, to understand, you must imagine New York traffic. And then magnify it a hundred thousand times. There are cars out there that sound like semis—and the biggest vehicle I have ever personally seen in Rwanda was the size of a VW Bus (note to the West Coast: yes, it is debatable whether Land Rovers, the Hummer of the development world, are in fact larger/noisier/all around more evil than anything the size of a VW Bus. And yes I concede that at the least, VW buses are cuter). The engines in those things, whatever they are, sound like they are leaving runner’s blocks placed on the pillow next to my head.

So I’m happy that it’s quiet…if I were indoors. But a dark, empty Kigali is somehow eery and uncomfortable.

And then this kid tries to steal the purse of a woman just up the road from me.

I don’t understand what she shouts at him, but I do get the message of the smacking. He drops it, and the contents spill everywhere. She is still shouting in Kinyarwanda as six men chase this kid down the street. I don’t think they ever actually catch him, but just seeing them sprint without a word makes me feel better.

But maybe not so much with the Kigali alone after dark.