There’s a great little organization in Kigali, the Nyamirambo Women’s Centre. It’s a work co-op and educational group, teaching women job skills. They run a fun walking tour around their neighborhood, which ends with lunch–which happened to be some of the best food we had in Rwanda.

I highly recommend this! To tantalize you, here are some pics.

Nyamirambo is known as the Muslim part of town, though it’s really quite mixed.

It’s also known as the place to get your car detailed, and, if you’re a moto-taxi driver, where to get your regulation green helmets.

First we visited the market. Men pounding things that women should be pounding: always funny.

Also in the market, a crew of ladies was ready for all our sewing needs. If only I’d brought my other pants! They are still held together with a safety pin.

Nyamirambo is also known for its hair salons. I got a big long braid put in.

We stopped in an herbal medicine shop. Like pretty much everything in Rwanda, it was very organized and licensed by the government.

A great deal of Kigali is still dirt roads.

One of our guides helped us pick out passion fruit and avocadoes, because we needed one last fix before we left town.

Our delicious lunch in process–just mixing up the ukali, the corn-flour pudding, in the outdoor “kitchen.”

Our wonderfully satisfying meal, clockwise from upper left: plantains stewed with onion, tomato and celery; sumptuous potatoes with green peppers; red beans I wish I’d asked more about; the ukali, the corn-flour pudding, that is cut into wedges; and dodo, callaloo with, in this case, peanuts, dried sardines, green eggplants and celery.

Passion fruit are on prominent display in this pic because our guide Marie Aimee (who runs the organization) taught us how to eat them without a knife and spoon–a life-changing skill.

(FYI on the passion fruit: You just bite off the end of it, and suck the insides out! Of course, you should wash the fruit first. It’s all so obvious now–and to think how many years I wasted fussing with them…)

Thanks for everything, ladies!