It’s like coffee times a thousand.
Today, Shelley, the program coordinator (and our babysitter extraordinaire thus far), thought we were ready to experience the cheapest way of getting around Kigali – by ‘moto’, a little diesel-powered motorbike that weaves its way through people and heavy traffic. My first ride was early this morning and I if I’m going to be starting out every morning like that, I can definitely skip the coffee.
It was the first time the bunch of us “muzungus” (a.k.a. foreigners) split up, to make our way downtown on a mission to get cell phones and check out our future media placements. There are no addresses here, so you name drop locations and landmarks, and hope that you’ve reached an understanding with your driver and get to the place you want to go.
Even though I spent the entire heart-racing twenty minutes white-knuckled and mumbling profanities in a language the driver couldn’t understand, by the end of it, I felt completely exhilarated, and halfway confident that I can get back on the back of the bike and do it all again.
I quickly observed the traffic rules that prevail here: the largest has the right-of-way. The larger taxi-buses do whatever the hell they want, then there are these cute little semi-trucks things, cars come next, and finally the motos. The few cyclers are at the bottom of the chain, and my sympathy goes out to their nervous system.
Don’t worry mom, I’m wearing a helmet.
In the afternoon, the lot of us went to check out the media locations Kate and I will be working at. Kate’s at Newsline – a weekly-(ish) alternative newspaper. It’s impressive that they can do so much with what appears to be very little resources.
Next we went to City Radio, the private radio station that I’ll be starting at sometime this week or next. It seemed pretty chill, somebody was checking out the latest Ciara video. Everyone seemed open to having me there – I’ll definitely have to work on my French.
Anyway, post more later… running out of battery and internet time.
Love y’all.
