My Kigali Diary - Day 5

My missing laptop somehow found a way to dominate my day. As soon as I posted My Kigali Diary- Day 4, my phone went gaga: calls, texts, twitter mentions, BBM’s all sympathising with me. In fact, some didn’t even read the blog to know what had happened. Some just concluded it was stolen in Rwanda while others said I should take actions against the airline I traveled with. LOL!

As I type this, my best friend is pretty mad at me. Turns out Ayo - or is Crazzie Wizzle or Kribobo or whatever name I decide to call her – should have been my first line of action after I landed in Kigali. She’s a Customs Officer who works at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos. How I never thought about asking her to help still beats me. In fact, she only found out about the missing laptop after reading about it on my blog.  “It’s painful though that you didn’t even consider buzzing me in such an emergency even though you were in my zone,” she wrote in a BB message to me. How dumb could I have been? Truth is, I had a lot to deal with and process at the same time.

Arrival at Kigali Airport

As soon as I landed at the Kigali International Airport on Sunday evening, getting by the immigration proved difficult. I didn’t have my accreditation before leaving Lagos. The plan was to get a late registration done in Kigali on arrival. So  when the guys at the visa point asked for my accreditation after telling them I wasn’t supposed to pay for visa cos the Rwandan government had cancelled visa fees for all nationals of participating countries of CHAN, I found myself going round in circles  trying to explain how and why I hadn’t got one. The guy on duty had to call his supervisor who came with his own questions: Where are you from? What do you want to do? How long are you staying? To be honest, I was already irritated but I just had to find a way to remain calm. The supervisor then asked the hotel I was staying. It dawned on me then that in spite of the fact I had been talking to Toby and Kelechi – two colleagues who were already in Kigali – I didn’t know the name of the hotel they were staying.

Fagged Out Waiting For DM's

Ha! Just when I was almost wrapping up with the immigration guys, I can’t answer a simple question? Had to tell the supervisor I needed to make a call first. Neither Toby nor Keechi’s numbers where available. At this point, my head was almost pulling off my head literally. I had to turn on my data (with MTN’s roaming rate that was killing?) and go to Twitter. Kelechi had posted something 3 minutes earlier. When I saw that, I felt like ‘‘thank God he’s online.” So I sent a DM. 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2, 5….. Ah ah! Where this boy come dey na? Then I tried Toby too. I kept refreshing the phone expecting a reply. All this while, I had not gone to get my bags. It felt like the whole world would crash…

The supervisor noticed the strain on my face as I waited for a reply. He then asked me to go sit down until I was certain where I was going. Finally, after 30 minutes of waiting, Toby finally replied his DM with the name of the hotel – Grilla Hotel. Thereafter, I got my passport stamped and went over to get my bags………

THE PRESENT

The cold on Thursday morning was on a different level. Temperature was less than 20 degrees I think. I was practically freezing when I woke up. Not even the cardigan I wore could save me. Somehow, I found a way to deal with it after all no be me dey type now? I don die?

Ready For Work

I and other colleagues had planned to go see the Rwanda Genocide Memorial later in the day before heading to the pre-match conference of Nigeria’s Super Eagles.  So I took time this morning to work on Wednesday’s Kigali Diary. I wasn’t even half way before news filtered in that the pre-match conference was for 11 am instead of 3 pm. I checked my phone and I was already past 9am.

I had to leave the job half way and dash straight to the bathroom. I got to the Nyamirambo Stadium (Stade de Kigali) in time to make the presser. Not much happened there. Just the usual question and answer session. I had to wait another 3 hours cos the Super Eagles were scheduled to train at about 3:45pm. The distance from my hotel to the stadium is like going from Ikorodu to VI or better still Choba to Old GRA. On a motor bike with the entire cold breeze in your face? Naaaaaa! Better to wait joor. So we walked across to a restaurant just opposite the stadium.

The Jaga Jaga Food

Food served there just wasn’t worth it at all. Yes, it was rice (after all, that’s all I’ve been eating since I came to town) but this rice sha, e get as e be. I only managed to eat a few spoons cos of the pepper I asked for. Oh, I forgot to say this: almost every restaurant in Kigali has got fresh pepper in a small plate or bowl. More like the way we have salts back in Nigeria placed on tables.

Resturant Across Stadium

After lunch, I edited sounds from the presser and sent stories to the CoolWazobiaInfo group. As I was doing so, I heard Churchill Oliseh, Sunday Oliseh’s brother was around and was “declaring” for the boys. I was just too busy to stand up and go take my own share of the largesse. Don’t ask me what it was. It obviously wasn’t worth me leaving the editing I was doing.  Training time came and I headed for the stadium. Apart from the first few minutes, I didn’t pay much attention to it to be honest. I, Kelechi, Rotimi and Toyosi and our Ugandan colleague Clive were just busy discussing about everything and anything: Rwandan women, food, politics, football…. You name it.

That unholy gathering of ours became the foundation of a super evening together. What did we do? Stick around here and you’ll find out soon…….

It’s Friday morning as I type this. I was damn right sleepy yesterday night and had to end the diary that way. I’m about to post it this morning and contemplating if I should just post it that way or finish up what went down yesterday. Anyway, I decide to go with the latter.

I need to introduce my gang by the way. Toyosi is a consultant for Google amongst many other things he does. Rotimi works with Beat FM Lagos; Kelechi is a stupid boy, oh sorry, he’s my CoolWazobiaInfo FM colleague from Lagos. And we had our Ugandan journalist friend Clive with us too. The rest of the journos decided to board a bus from the stadium to go back home. It was around 5 pm and I didn’t feel like retiring that early. So my crew headed in search of a new apartment. Toyosi had been complaining about the high cost of his hotel and wanted something new. Clive then told us there were still apartments up for rent where he resides. So we headed that direction very close that direction. It was quite a journey as we moved from the Stade de Kigali where the Eagles had trained to the apartment which was close to the Amahoro Stadium Kigali where the Rwandan national team, Amavubi plays its games. Almost same distance as I mentioned earlier.

Super Eagles In Training

Kimiranko Apartment

The apartment turned out very cool. Problem however was whether or not the Super Eagles would top their group and remain in Kigali. If they don’t, we would all need to leave Kigali for Gisenyi for at least 5-6 days. Today’s game against the Carthage Eagles of Tunisia would go a long way to determine it. However, our guide at the apartment John was hell bent on us paying for the apartment or he wouldn’t guarantee it being there by the time we returned today. We had to bribe him with 2000 Rwandan Francs – that’s close to 3 dollars or 800 naira - and explained to him about our predicament regarding the Super Eagles’ qualification. He accepted our explanation with a promise to keep the apartment till at least 5pm today.

Dinner Served

With that sorted, we headed to Eden Resturant nearby. Rice, a sauce that looked like pepper soup without pepper, beef and a glass of fresh juice was served for dinner. Clive went for a Ugandan delicacy that looked like garri but was made out of banana. After dinner, colleague from Port Harcourt Emeka called and asked where I was. We gave him the direction and a journey that shouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes from where he was took another 30 frustrating means.

Now that’s a hallmark of Rwandese I have to mention. People are so laid back and slow to grasp things. Most bike men do not speak English and even the ones that do would need extra explanations to get directions. Sometimes, it feels like they purposely take you round in circles just to justify the huge amount of money they charge. E clear say no be only okada people for naija dey do dis kain thing. It took Clive talking to the bike man like 3 times with my phone (nna the credit just they burn dey go and I dey complain oo say my money don dey finish) before Emeka finally located us.

The crew then headed to a beer parlour  adjacent the restaurant. That’s when all the fun started…..

To be continued…..