On Fridays, the office closes early. I think today is a good opportunity to finally go to town to look for souvenirs and call Beatrice if she accompanies me. Although she is still tired from her trip to Uganda, she agrees to meet me at the office. However, it takes some time until she arrives, because at that moment the census officer comes to the house. I know from the news on TV that they don’t just count the persons living in each household, but ask a whole set of questions. Even in my absence, they count me, as a visitor, too. I have now been officially counted.
With a taxi, we go to Kigali’s town centre. Fernanda told me about handcraft shops in front of a supermarket called Nakumatt, but Beatrice guides me to other places. These shops all sell the same things anyway. The only variation is the mix of objects and their arrangement. I am in the right mood for shopping. Instead of hovering between buying or not-buying, I just take and buy what I like. Beatrice also wants to go to a library. Reading for leisure is not common for Rwandans at all and the library is not well equipped. The majority of books are for studying, on accounting, English grammar or biology for example, dictionaries and religious works. Another big part is reserved for journals.
The town centre is a crowded place. Cars, motorbikes and people mix on the road and sidewalk. I am glad that I don’t have to pass here every day. Shops line the road. They are all overflowing of whatever they sell, be it phones and other electronic devices, clothes, plastic toys from China, building material or carpets. Even here, in this mess, Beatrice greets many people she knows. Kigali is big and growing, but still one always meets familiar people wherever one goes.
By now, I have totally lost my orientation, but I want to know where Kigali City Tower is, because that is the name I was told to go to. Beatrice brings me there. It is one of the modern, high buildings. Here, the expensive shops are to be found. We enter one shop where they sell high-quality watches, but there is no need for me to see more. As already mentioned, Kigali is growing and becoming big. Beatrice’s problem with the high buildings is, that you can’t look across them to see where you are. But there also is another problem. Everything sold in the shops there is much more expensive than somewhere else, because the owners have to pay expensive rent. Those who can’t afford these rents, loose the place of their former shops to these new constructions.
It is getting dark and we are getting tired. Before returning home, we make one last stop at a German supermarket. They also have a German butchery here and a great scent of fresh bread is hanging in the air. Here, too, some prices are higher than elsewhere for the same products.
Unfortunately, returning to Kabeza is not very easy. There are no signs at the bus stops that tell what bus is stopping here. You have to know where you need to go or guess and be lucky. We have to walk a long distance to find the right bus station. Walking along the road, we pass a long queue. We are lucky we are not going in that direction. When we finally arrive at our bus, we can immediately enter and just have to wait a short moment until it is full and departs.
