A Travel Through Books Guide to Kigali, Rwanda
Welcome to Kigali, Rwanda and our Travel Through Books series! In this free series of book-inspired travel guides we use literature to gain a deeper understanding of and inform the way we travel the world.
To fully experience Kigali is to embrace its past, celebrate its present, and look to its future. Though your first images of Rwanda may evoke thoughts of the 1994 genocide, the city has been rebuilt as a testament to the resilience and spirit of the Rwandan people. This guide, inspired by Clemantine Wamariya’s memoir, “The Girl Who Smiled Beads”, invites you to see Kigali not just as a site of historical tragedy, but as a vibrant, hopeful capital brimming with creativity, innovation, and unwavering strength. As Wamariya’s story of survival and renewal demonstrates, the city today is a place where new life flourishes, art and culture thrive, and people come together to heal and create. From visiting the poignant memorials that honor the past to exploring the bustling art scene, innovative coffee culture, and diverse culinary landscape, this guide offers a journey through a city that embodies the very essence of hope and rebirth.
WHAT TO READ:
“The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After” by Clemantine Wamariya
Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years migrating through seven African countries, searching for safety—perpetually hungry, imprisoned and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing inhuman cruelty. They did not know whether their parents were dead or alive.
When Clemantine was twelve, she and her sister were granted refugee status in the United States; there, in Chicago, their lives diverged. Though their bond remained unbreakable, Claire, who had for so long protected and provided for Clemantine, was a single mother struggling to make ends meet, while Clemantine was taken in by a family who raised her as their own. She seemed to live the American dream: attending private school, taking up cheerleading, and, ultimately, graduating from Yale. Yet the years of being treated as less than human, of going hungry and seeing death, could not be erased. She felt at the same time six years old and one hundred years old.
In The Girl Who Smiled Beads, Clemantine provokes us to look beyond the label of “victim” and recognize the power of the imagination to transcend even the most profound injuries and aftershocks. Devastating yet beautiful, and bracingly original, it is a powerful testament to her commitment to constructing a life on her own terms
WHERE TO STAY:
- Eagle View Lodge – if you’re looking for a secluded and art-filled stay this is the perfect boutique hotel in Rebero hillside. The hotel is filled with African art and sweeping views as far as Mount Kigali. There is an onsite restaurant with included breakfast and the option to pay for a 4-course meal each evening for 25,000 Rwandan francs ($17)
- Heaven Restaurant & Boutique Hotel is a 4-Star hotel with 28 rooms located on 2 separate properties featuring local Rwandan décor, warm hospitality, delicious breakfasts at Heaven Restaurant, and access to a solar-heated salt water swimming pool, outdoor yoga deck and fitness center.
- For a stay in the center of the city right next to the Convention Center Radisson Blu Hotel & Convention Centre, Kigali is a great choice.
WHAT TO DO:
- Learn about the 1994 genocide at the Kigali Genocide Memorial or Belgian Peacekeepers Memorial
- Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy a book on the rooftop of Kigali Public Library at Shokola Cafe or if you’re a Francophile visit Ikirezi Bookshop
- Take a Coffee Art Class or coffee farm tour at Question Coffee, the only small-batch, specialty roaster in the city. The cafe operates as a social enterprise, reinvesting all of its profits into training female coffee farmers and baristas across Rwanda.
- Check out Happy Hour and art at Inema Arts Center. Based in the suburb of Kacyiru, the cultural venue provides space for 5 artists in residence to explore their creative talent. Witness the artists working in the Inema Studio, before heading to the gallery to see their previous creations. The venue also hosts regular poetry nights, workshops, and cultural evenings to showcase contemporary African arts, crafts, music, and dance. Go on a Thursday evening to mingle at Happy Hour—the venue stays open until midnight with a DJ and cocktails on offer.
- Take a pottery workshop or make Imigongo, a traditional art form characterized by intricate geometric patterns and spirals created from a mixture of cow dung and natural pigments like ash, clay, and ochre at Azizi Life.
WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK:
- Repub Lounge serves up local Rwandan dishes in a two-story building in the Kimihurura neighborhood (a great neighborhood for bars and restaurants). It has become a local institution and has been a hub for local creatives and visitors alike for the past 20 years.
- Kultura Fine Dining Restaurant – Kultura’s name meaning culture in different languages comes from the founders’ need to share cultures through food, to be specific South-East Asian cuisine. They invite restaurant visitors to find Kultura in Rwanda as an entry point to the food culture of south-East Asia.
- Boho – the perfect place for Afro-fusion dining, rooftop view, and the best craft cocktails in Kigali.
- Tania’s Cuisine & Lounge is a great place for Congolese cuisine.
- If you have a longer stay a drive out to Mezo Malonga is a must. It made The World 50 restaurants list and is making waves with its rotating Afro-fusion menu. The founder and head chef, Dieuveil Malonga, blends indigenous cooking techniques with his experience working in Germany’s Michelin-star restaurants to create Pan-African dishes.
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