Last night I was so tired from getting up at 5 am and bussing to Kigali. Good thing when I went to bed then, I lied there tossing and turning until 5 am. I mean, I planned for 10 hours sleep, but I really only wanted 2 so I’m glad things turned out this way. At 7 when my alarm went off I just groaned. That’s all. One big long groan. So Kara and I were off by 7:40 to walk to Serena for the conference. It was supposed to start at 8 am, but at 8 when we arrived, there was no one around. The girl at the sign-in said they were running late and we could go get coffee or something and come back in an hour. So we went to the restaurant and had a coffee and sat out on the patio. Now Serena Hotel in Kigali is by far THE nicest hotel in the city. I mean country. Or do I mean in Africa? The world? I really doubt the world. But still, I don’t belong in this place. Millionaires do. And even if I had a million dollars in my bank account, I still don’t belong here. It’s that nice.
At around 9:15 the conference actually started. It’s bigger than the last one we attended, and therefore it’s less interactive. It is just lectures and then very short Q & A sessions with the presenters. The conference is interesting, but just like Serena itself, I don’t belong there. It’s about Urban Planning and the future of Kigali. I feel like I’m wasting my time sitting there. In fact, they handed out these little note pads, so I started writing short stories so I was doing something constructive…and less boring. One thing I maybe should have known, but unfortunately never thought about, was that conferences are ALL TALKING. And I like talking as much as anyone. But I’m finding that people in positions of power here love the sound of their own voice, and they preface their asking a question by talking for 10 minutes about who they are and their opinions on things. I’m sick of talking. I’m sick of the words “action plan”. That is the funniest oxymoron going on in this country. Because everyone says it all the time, and planning the action is as far as anyone seems to go. I just want to work.
The plus side of all conferences though, is the networking. They are excellent for getting a group of great minds together and people interested in similar things. We even met some cool young people, a girl from Washington D.C, one from Toronto and a young guy from Holland. One awesome thing about being in Africa, is that every ex-pat you meet is be default a cool person. No one from outside of Africa is doing boring things inside Africa. Nobody comes here to hang out and be unemployed. At the very least, they’re backpacking (and therefore interesting and have a sense of adventure), like Martijn from Holland. Or they work for governments on worthwhile projects like helping refugees with the UNHCR, like Joanna from Toronto. You don’t meet uninteresting people in Africa.
After the conference, we all made our way to Freddy’s office at Rwandatel, because I had so many huge files to download and I never would be able to without a fast, steady connection. His internet was as fast as Canada and I downloaded like a fiend. I had so many software updates and patches and programs and we spent a couple hours getting it all. We also got to see Joseph, and hanging out in the office was fun. I was so busy downloading though I didn’t realize what time it was, nor how hungry I had somehow became.
At around 9 we left his office, and Freddy gave us a ride back to our hotel, being the extremely nice guy he is. Kara and I ate dinner in the restaurant and I drank two bottles of Golden Sleep Juice. In the restaurant, a British guy approached us very awkwardly and asked if we were on some bus earlier today and we said no, why? and he said that he had leant someone his Lonely Planet guide and then accidentally left without getting it back, and that person somewhat resembled Kara. He apologized for seeming accusatory, he was just hoping to get it back. We laughed and didn’t mind, and told him yeah we had it now get lost. Just kidding, it wasn’t us. But we talked to him and he works for the British embassy in Sudan so we got to talk to him about the situation there and how the country is going, and it was sweet. Again, cool people everywhere. I had fun eating and talking with Kara, we discussed movies and music and life and it was nice not to be talking about action plans. At around 10 or 11 I went to bed, and I think I was out before my head hit the pillow.
