Living in Kigali

Hi ,

I am Anh (female) from US. I also will go to Rwanda to do my internship in June and Jul. I have checked some information from the company where I will work for, and know that living expense in Kigali is quite expensive.

• Housing rent is around 200$ - 400$/month for a one bed room shared apt.
• Phone: you can bring your phone there and by a number in Rwanda for just 3$, then Pay as you use
• Bank: you can open a bank account in Rwanda with your passport
• MOney: I am not sure about Canadian dollar, but if you use USD, you must bring the money with series after 2006
• Internet: there is Internet in offices, but there is no wireless in housings. If you want to use INternet, you can buy wireless service from a company and pay around 30$/month
• FLight: I am not sure about flying from Canada, but you can try www.onetravel.com. I bought my flight ticket there. From Washington DC to Kigali and from Capetown to Washington DC for 2,100$

Very nice to know you. Let's keep in touch and see if we can share more information for each other. I'll let you know when I know more information.

Thank you very much cherryaf! that's pretty much the info I was expecting... it seems quite expensive, but at the same time the internship i would do interests me a lot. I still have to do the numbers and see..

have you found an apt yet?

cheers

marie

If you are looking to save on airfare, flying to and from Entebbe (Uganda), and then taking a bus to Kigali (something like 5-6 hours), would probably save you several hundred U.S. dollars. Flying into Nairobi would save you a fair amount more, but (at least when I researched this two years ago) it would take several days to get from there to Kigali by bus.

HI

Have you been in Rwanda yet? I am here already. I work for a project of USAID, so they pay for my housing. I live in a house near MTN center. And it's true that life here is crazily expensive. I can't imagine that it's even more expensive than in the US

If you are here already, hope to see u soon one day. I am quite boring of living alone here, and getting out to know more people.

Anh

Hi Marie and Anh,

I, too, am coming to Kigali in July for an internship. Marie - I was wondering if you were able to find housing or came across any good resources for figuring it out?

I was planning to stay in a hotel, but the prices are too high and an apartment would be ideal.

Thanks!
Kalina

Hi all,

I just arrived in Kigali and am also doing an internship, also searching for housing. If anyone has any luck in finding relatively cheap accomodations, it would be awesome if you could share how you went about doing that. I'll do the same if I have any luck.

Best,
Chris

After talking with several people this weekend it seems like the easiest thing to do is join the Yahoo group www.kigalilife.com. It's basically craigslist for Kigali. Hope this helps, good luck everyone!

Best,
Chris

Note on #3:

The bus from Nairobi takes "24 hours", and it is brutal.

Hello all,

I´m also moving to kigali soon to work there and I have lots of questions but with the info you already posted I got most of the answers I need.

I have no problem with the housing for the first month, my company will pay for the hotel but after that I will have to find my own place. I was thinking to share a place but I still have no idea about the part of the city I should choose. My first idea is to live as close to the center as possible since I dont wish to be lock at home during my free time. I also wonder how is the living there, more exactly how feasible is to keep a western quality of living there.
I was also concern how easy is to get those pills to protect from malaria on the city and what could be the price.

Finally If anyone wish to share experience about the city would be cool.