My first observation when arriving in Rwanda was as wow it is way more developed than Tanzania. Rwanda is right next door to Tanzania and it is a drastic difference. I’m staying at my coworker’s sisters place here in Kigali. She’s right in the Nyamirambo Neighborhood a famous neighborhood in Kigali. I think it’s one of the oldest? I took a cooking class at the Nyamirambo Women Center. The women center supports educating women in Rwanda who may not have had the opportunity to have an education. They offer courses to these women where they learn to read, write and learn a skill to be able to go into a job. The history of the center only starts in 2007 when 18 women came together all with different educational backgrounds wanting to build a community together that helped each other out. They created sewing courses, English class and computer classes to help educate the women that come into their community. In 2013 they started to offer tourist activities providing jobs for women to work in tourism. The cooking class consisted of me and this woman, Aminatha who makes tradition Rwandan meals everyday for tours. She originally is from the DRC but left due to the Congo war in 1998 and found refuge in Rwanda. I got to participate in the shopping for fresh vegetables. We first walked to a shop to find the vegetables to make the dishes for today with. I learned that not everyone can afford a refrigerator so people here go to the market everyday to grab fresh ingredients. On the menu we made 5 different dishes traditional to Rwanda. This included Cassava with beans, dodo (similar to spinach) with a variety of vegetables, Matoke (plantain dish) and cabbage mix.  Everything is done by hand. There is no canned ingredients, no peeler, no vegetable chopper. We diced and crushed tomatoes ourselves, peeled potatoes and carrots with a knife, and we chopped all the vegetables and cooked everything over a charcoal stove outside. There was no oven or electric/ gas stove. It took a good 2 hours to make everything and it was all fresh! We served 28 people and of course I got to sit and eat the meal as well. It was absolutely delicious 😋 

After that, I walked around the Nyamirambo Neighborhood which has lots of old markets and stores. I then found a park to read and to get away from all the hustle and bustle of the city. Took myself out to an Italian restaurant near the convention center. Which is a totally different neighborhood. It’s very modern with 5 star hotels. Very fancy I will say. But the Italian food was great but nothing can beat a fresh homemade meal like the one I helped make earlier. 

Tomorrow I will be going on a reconciliation tour in a village, learning more about the Rwandan Genocide and the efforts of how Rwanda rebuilt its community after its atrocities.