Kigali - Post Report Question and Answers
Is it easy to make friends with locals here? Are there any prejudices or any ethnic groups who might feel uncomfortable here?
I have found locals to be very shy and discrete. It is not easy to make friends. Having said that, Rwandans are great people, very honest and trustworthy. - Oct 2023
Rwandans are quite reserved. I have found it difficult to make friends here or get beyond a professional relationship. - Aug 2023
Not easy to make local friends. The genocide made a lot of locals suspicious of everyone around them. - Jan 2022
See response to #2 with regards to making friends with locals. With regards to prejudices, if you're Black American and driving, police might assume you're Rwandan and stop you at a checkpoint, but as soon as they'd realize you were a diplomat, you'd be fine. - Jul 2020
Rwandans are, on average, hard to make friends with. Perhaps it's always been this way; perhaps it's because of 1994. They will be polite and make for good acquaintances, but if it rare you will visit a home and become a meaningful part of their life. - Sep 2019
