Moments before leaving LA, I considered all the time I'd have on the various flights and decided to bring some "light"reading for the trip. One book I bought was An Ordinary Man. I was heading to Rwanda after-all... and a book about their past seemed like good reading (this book - not actually "light" - is the first-hand account of the Hôtel des Mille Collines... or Hotel Rwanda).Granted, I was also heading to Kenya, which was having it's own current-day mini-version of Rwanda's troubles from 1994. Needless to say, the book got me mildly anxious - wondering if Kenya was heading down the same genocidal path of its neighbor (what do I know?).
In Rwanda, they've come a long way since 1994. We visited the Hotel Rwanda and a genocide museum and talked with people first-hand about the experiences they went through. The end result of their tragedy is a keen awareness of how destructive racial & class distinctions can be (were) - when bred, believed and left to fester. My impression (during my short visit) is that they learned (albeit the hard way) something a large number of people still have yet to learn... Hopefully the learning process won't be so hard for everyone else.
Enough on that... Rwanda was incredible (and not just for the politics lesson and the gorillas). The landscapes are lush and green, and nothing like I was expecting. Overall, I'd say Kenya and Rwanda were both greener than expected (and I didn't even bring a rain coat on the trip - big mistake).
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