Feb 29, 2008
Kigali 5 – To market
Had a decent connection this evening so I’ve uploaded a few photos from the afternoon. mah has a great update on his day and on musings of open source that he’s been thinking about while here. Meanwhile we went to a very large market today mostly to look around but we also picked up some craftworks and hot sauce (wheee!)
The folks are very friendly and all point to their wares and try to describe them. Its great but does get a bit tiring after a while – as everyone is trying to get your attention… and this is a very big market.
This particular market is not a tourist destination though there were those few tables with crafts. Its mostly for the people of Kigali to get just about anything. Including food. When I whipped out the camera at these tables the people working them would dive behind them laughing.
Upon arrival our car was mobbed with young boys trying to be our guides and to carry anything we might buy. The best thing to do in this situation is to strongly pick one person and let everyone know that you have chosen. We didn’t really do that and had a good entourage following us for quite a while. We did settle on our friend Peter who asked us to remember his name. He was good – knew just where everything was (and even told me which dealers he liked and which he didn’t). Of course, he was looking for a tip and I obliged – I enjoyed his company.
Tomorrow we are still planning to go somewhere out of Kigali and right now we are really just considering hiring a driver to simply “take us” – which sounds pretty great to me. We might end up at the golden monkeys or we might just end up in a town. Either way is cool. Will be nice to see more of the countryside. What I’ve seen of it so far is steeped in banana farms, tea plantations, and lush green hills. I could really stand to see more of that.