Hotel Rwanda

If you haven’t seen the film Hotel Rwanda starring Don Cheadle, I advise you do so.  With that said, here’s an overview of the story from 30,000 feet.  As the genocide takes place in Kigali, a four star hotel becomes a safe haven of sorts.  The temporary manager, Paul Rusesabagina, uses his connections to protect over 1000 people from death.  The movie was based on a true story, and it was nominated for three Oscars.  There’s since been some controversy surrounding the story as Rusesabagina (a Hutu) has called out the current president and government (installed after the Tutsi-led RPF took the capital), but it’s good story nonetheless.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, Rwanda is known as the Land of a Thousand Hills, and the story centers on the Hotel des Mille Collines (hotel of a thousand hills).  While the movie was filmed at a hotel in South Africa, it is in fact a real place in downtown Kigali, and they offer day passes to their pool for 5000 Rawanda Francs ($8.33 USD).  Our group took up the offer on Saturday, and it was somewhat of a surreal experience.  To many outside of the country the hotel is known for its role in the genocide, but the reality is that it’s still a hotel.  There are still workers to pay and bills to be met.  In effect, they’ve moved on because they had to move on.  It’s an interesting situation that seems to permeate the country, and it was one of the main reasons for instigating the Gacaca courts. Sentencing confessed murderers to anything less than life in prison seems unthinkable, but locking away 100,000 accused criminals in a land of 12 million just isn’t feasible.  For more on the topic, read this article by Philip Gourevitch (it’s long but good). 

If you’ve paid attention to my few facebook statuses, you’ll know that today was my first day in the hospitals.  However, I’m still behind on my posts, so I probably won’t begin discussing that until tomorrow or Wednesday. 

-Scott  

A bottle of coke generally costs around 300 RF ($0.50 USD) at local bars, with prices extending up to 1000 RF ($1.67 USD) at fancier restaurants.  A bottle of coke costs 1500 RF ($2.50) at Hotel des Mille Collines.  Here is my 1500 RF coke bottle sitting poolside.