Kigali Day 1

We departed for another hotel where we would eat breakfast at 7:15 and breakfast was quite good; lots of bread, fruit and eggs (omelet or hard boiled). We met a few more teams at breakfast and eventually headed to the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). Kist has a beautiful campus and large, modern buildings. On the drive over I, and almost everyone else, recognized how clean Kigali is, much cleaner than any American city. There were lots of workers tending to beautiful flowers along the road and sweeping dust off of the sidewalks. Many cars had I <3 Rwanda stickers across the back and in just a somewhat short drive it was obvious that the people of Rwanda take a lot of pride in their country and community. We also heard that the last Saturday of every month is a national cleaning holiday. All streets are closed and businesses and taxis are not allowed to operate until noon. Everyone just goes out and cleans. There is no trash in this city.
We had meetings all day and left for happy hour and dinner at a local bar around 5. Everyone was exhausted but it was great getting to meet people from all over the world with different plans throughout Africa. Tomorrow we are meeting a lot of dignitaries from across Africa but no one will say exactly who, my guess is that it is someone big if they aren’t saying because of security reasons. We are waking up at 4:30 (I’m writing this at 8:30) to leave our hotel at 5:15 for breakfast. Sooooo tired still but I’m not yet sick! :-)

-XO Mike