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Author Archive | Heidi Sequenz

Kibuye on divided Lake Kivu

By on 7. August 2011 in Rwanda
Heidi

Heidi loves Kibuye on the shores of Lake Kivu

My favorite place at Lake Kivu? Kibuye! There, the lake meanders deep into the green shoreline, creating narrow inlets. These are lined by green hills thick with eucalyptus and pine trees.

The trip from Kigali to Kibyue was my ultimate Rwandan experience. Paul, an Australian I had met in Kigali, invited me to join him motor-biking across the country. I did not think twice. Every village we passed, everywhere we stopped, locals surrounded us and marveled at Paul’s cool bike. He always allowed kids to climb on the seat, start and turn up the engine. It was so funny to watch their faces when the engine roared! Some smiled, others got really scared…

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When churches became deathtraps

By on 7. August 2011 in Rwanda
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the Church of Nyamata - the piles of clothes remind of the thousands of Tutsis murdered there

The iron door was forced open by grenades. Then the killing started. The bloodstains can still be seen on the bullet-ridden ceiling. Thousands of Tutsis, who had sought refuge in the Church of Nyamata, hoped to escape the slaughter.

They actually had good reasons to believe so. In 1992, hundreds of Tutsis hid in this church and remained unharmed. Could they possible assume that a fellow Christian would kill them in the House of God? Today, piles and piles of blood-soaked clothes, taken off the corpses, remind of the massacre.

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The Rwandan Genocide

By on 6. August 2011 in Rwanda
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Foto of the victim of the genocide taken inside the Genocide Memorial in Kigali

Between April and July 1994, within 100 days, approximately 1.000.000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed, while the world stood by and watched - hacked to death with machetes or other farm tools, strangled, drowned in septic tanks, palled, shot, buried alive or killed by methods beyond imagination. The Hutu militia was openly supported by the Rwandan army. The few UN soldiers there were forced to watch and the international community was busy defining if the mass killings were “acts of genocide” or indeed “genocide”.

Those three months of killing and murder were actually only the ultimate climax in a long lasting conflict that roots in colonial times. In pre-colonial times, the terms Hutus and Tutsis were used to describe social classes: the pastoralist Tutsis on the one hand and the Hutu peasants on the other.

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Déjà vu at the Hotel des Mille Collines (Hotel Rwanda)

By on 5. August 2011 in Rwanda
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Hotel Mille Collines in Kigali, the setting of the famous film "Hotel Rwanda"

Nobody who has watched “Hotel Rwanda” can leave Kigali without a visit to “Hotel des Mille Collines”, where the manager Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu, sheltered and saved 1.250 Tutsis. In 2009, I had the privilege to meet and talk to Mr. Rusesabagina in Vienna. One sentence remains ingrained in my memory, because it summarized the horror: “In 1994 in Rwanda, people sat on a pile of corpses and smoked a cigarette”.

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Rwanda – “The Switzerland of Africa”

By on 4. August 2011 in Rwanda
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Motos - Rwanda's urban transport, always carrying a helmet for their passengers

Clean, punctual, law abiding, orderly, expensive… Are you thinking of Switzerland? A few hours in Rwanda and these attributes are all around you!

Squeaky clean: in Kigali, in the most remote village, simply everywhere! None of the usual plastic litter - Rwanda banned plastic bags in 2008. Bus schedules are taken seriously: if your transport is scheduled to leave at 10:30, it does so. Never ever will you see a Moto-driver or his passenger without a helmet.

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No matter where you go, it takes a day

By on 3. August 2011 in Rwanda
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Map of Rwanda

Exactly 24 hours after leaving Vienna, I touched down in Kigali. A couple of hours at Istanbul Airport and a very short nap at an Entebbe hotel broke up the lengthy trip.

Nobody would have guessed the Boeing B737-800 leaving Istanbul was Entebbe-bound. About 99% of all passengers on the 4.500km long journey were Europeans - strong evidence that Uganda is becoming a prime tourist destination in Eastern Africa. Very different was the flight Entebbe-Kigali. I was the only non-African on this tiny plane. But being a woman I fit right in: the others were attending the Conference on Women Entrepreneurship in Kigali, at the very expensive Serena Hotel - as they cheerfully shared with me.

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Lake District: El Bolson & Bariloche

By on 8. December 2007 in Argentina
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Heidi in the Lake District

(Heidi) El Bolsón lives a bit off its myth being the first non-nuclear zone of the country way back in the sixties and the first to be named an ecological municipality. That the nearby Cerro Piltriquitron is considered one of the earth’s energy centers just falls in line with this image. There are a few nice hikes, but otherwise it is very “tranquilo”. To exemplify this very quietness: I wanted to do a boat ride on a nearby lake, but the boat did not leave because there were only four tourists who wanted to do the trip! Continue Reading →

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