This is the end of our first week in Kigali. We have accomplished a lot of preparation for the construction work on site.

We got in contact with authorities of KIST, CITT (Center of Information and Technology Transfer, department of KIST), Jumelage, Deutsche Welle broadcasting station (Kigali) and Karongi and Nyamagabe District, where the Kirambo bridge is situated. It was a pleasure to work together with this group of interested and supportive people.

For the optimization of the existing Kirambo bridge, we have to fix steel profiles on the upper belts. Supported by Guillaume, an experienced local, we bought all the steel profiles needed at the marked and cut them in the right length. From the workshop facilities at KIST, we can borrow some tools for the time of construction.

On thursday we travelled to Karongi-District to meet vice major and the district engineer in charge to present the project and a suggestion for the future maintenance program. They were very interested and promised support. They also helped us to arrange accommodation while we will be on site.

Together with the Jumelage, we were able to arrange the transport of material and personal to and from the site.

After the first days full of new impressions, we start to get settled here. We were invited to a meeting of active people, who are in the process of installing engineers without boarders, ruanda. We went together to a restaurant where we tried typical Rwandan food and beer, learned Kinyarwanda and had a funny and inspiring evening, before taking the motor taxi back home through Kigali by night.

We have the impression, that the people in Rwanda are active and we can see a lot of effort to work for the future of their country.