HOTEL RWANDA

HOTEL RWANDA


One of the best people I met in Rwanda left last week; Noel was an intellectual sparring partner who as VOA correspondent kept me informed on the Nkunda scenario, we occasionally disagreed but on the whole she brightened up the Kigali circuit. Her leaving was rather sudden, after some three years in Darfur and a recent robbery in Kigali she felt she had enough of Africa. I went to see her off on Tuesday and was invited to Hotel Rwanda for a goodbye drink; by Hotel Rwanda I off course mean Hotel Milles Collines, the most famous or infamous place in Rwanda. The movie has given it a certain cache; Ben Affleck came over a few weeks ago and couldn’t resist staying at the hotel, forsaking better hotels such as Novotel and Serena. I have been to the hotel twice before; once for a conference on tourism and for an editorial meeting. Both times I didn’t recognise the significance of the Hotel in the worlds conscious but on Tuesday I did. It has a morbid reputation when ironically it is the only place in Rwanda where there were no massacres.


It is strange to think that this was the best hotel in Rwanda, it has hardly improved since its heyday but sits defiant in a changing world. It was an eye-opener; a brief glimpse into the expat world that I have studiously avoided since I got here. Its design is plagiarised from the most awful soviet style architecture, a staccato block that screams utilitarianism and function, the car park is full of hassling taxi-drivers that ask for your custom as you arrive instead of when you leave. The lobby is as unwelcoming as a slap in the face, the deco was designed by Stalin’s hairdresser, the staff are idle-minded monuments to the worst service you can imagine. Tuesday night is Karaoke night; except members of the public aren’t invited, only a professional band is allowed to massacre a catalogue of hits. I stated that this is the only place massacres didn’t take place, I spoke too hastily.


This hotel embodies all I hate about Africa; it shows why Whites and Blacks should be kept from each other, the presence of Whites brings a certain gaggle of miscreants. These included prostitutes, gold-diggers, gigolos, drug-dealers and people trying to be what they are not. I was the only Black guy sat at a table of white people and it was as if I didn’t exist, when I ordered a drink the waiter didn’t even bother and after waiting half an hour I asked one of the white boys I was with to order for me. The bar downstairs was like the who’s who of losers in Kigali; prostitutes so haggard they must have serviced Henry Morton Stanley on his adventures. The band was so loud we had to take a seat outside to hear each other, we sat by the pool; this is when I remembered the movie as someone was having an evening swim. I remembered the people drinking the chlorinated water for months to survive.


No song was safe; Dr. Claude (the biggest Rwandan hit) Justin Timberlake, Britney, Madonna, Kenny Rogers, and just about any random hit you could imagine. We managed to block it out and have great conversions amid the madness; Kitty, Eric, Noel, Tom and a host of other cameo actors all made the night pass so quick. We covered all topics; Kitty and I talked mostly of our memories of England, we played a game where we got points for identifying the songs, which bore no resemblance to the originals. I occasionally checked on the score of Ivory Coast and Mali and this was when I had to encounter the misfits in the bar. They white guests enjoyed the notorious surroundings as the hookers flirted with any foreigner who passed bye. I was stood with Eric when the Gayest man in Africa walked past; he minced his butt so hard that we were worried that the friction would cause a fire; he went over to his fellow prostitutes and crossed his legs more effeminately than any woman could.


I spoke to the manager called Paul as he sat with us, the service improved. I remembered the movie had a protagonist called Paul; a man who elicits real anger in Rwanda. I remember when the movie came out, I was happy; because of all the worthless drivel that Hollywood produces perhaps it was time the produced worthwhile drivel. Check this storyline; a cop with 3 days to go to retirement has to solve ONE LAST CASE! How many times have you heard that? So when they chose to handle a more serious matter, a grave matter, a million dead. They didn’t have the vision or budget to handle such an epic saga; so they made it about one mans struggle in an insane world. Time has showed that Paul Rusesabagina was not the one-dimensional hero he claimed to be but I commended the film for opening global dialogue on the genocide and since then there has been a slew of movies.


The film is shot like a Zombie flick; the intricacies of the causes and effects of the genocide were skimmed over and ignored and it became a movie about genocidal zombies trying to enter the hotel. Don Cheadle and Sophie Okenedo used their best Nigerian accents for the movie but nonetheless had emotional intensity that carried the film and made up for deficiencies in the films structure. Rusesabagina was highly connected to the genocidal government; he used the hotel as his personal profit-making machine. Each survivor had to pay him handsomely; even one of the top Hutu Generals had hidden his Tutsi mother there. So very much like the real hotel Rwanda all is not what it seems; in movies we need heroes and villains and Rusesabagina wrote in himself as a hero. There are better films on the genocide such as “Sometimes in April” which conveys the true terror and ambiguity that existed at the time.


I know people who were in the real Hotel Rwanda; it was terror, a thin fence is all that kept the maniacs out. The theme of the movie was “the show must go on” and it still does at Milles Collines; a Rwandan mogul had bought it in order to change it but sadly died before he had the chance. It is stuck in a time warp, the staff are just droning along like the zombies we mentioned. It is too valuable as a memory to destroy and rebuild. It has a morbid fascination that it engenders and maybe that is the problem, there is little competition and tourists always want to say they stayed on a film set. Rwanda is so modern and dynamic now, it wants a new image based on unity and progress and not the usual genocide, genocide, genocide. I remember one time in 1999 when I was coming back from Kent and was stuck in a car with the driver making fun of Rwanda and the genocide for 3 hours. It was 4 in the morning and I had no money to take a bus so I was stuck; I don’t hate many people but he is up there on my list, Johnnie Oquaye – Ass-hole. Eventually Rwanda will mean something else but it is for us to define ourselves and forget what the world thinks about us. The first step is to shut down Hotel Rwanda. The last song they sang was Hotel California “You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave.” Indeed.