 Good morning from the cleanest city in Africa, Kigali. I'm actually here to rest, but I'm meeting people and the testimonies that I'm hearing, I feel like I cannot rest, but share these testimonies with you all. I mean, I love this country and I've done a lot to put this country on the map, but I never knew that it's actually reflected in an impact of people moving to Kigali because of my videos. We moved to Rwanda, or you came to visit? We moved, brother. You know, how inspiration that is? Yesterday, I got a message on Instagram, someone told me that, hey, I came to Kigali to open a coffee shop because of you and I'm an African-American and I feel like if that is the case, I'm leaving today, yeah? But I have to go meet her for her to tell me her story and what really inspired her to come to this country to do what she is doing. My name is Mr. Gane, baby. If you're new to the channel, please do me a favor, subscribe and be part of this awesome family. Since there's breakfast, definitely I'm definitely gonna go in there and have breakfast. I'm not eating yet, but I'm going to have breakfast in there. So come with me, let's have breakfast together. I am Maya. This is how the place looks like. It looks really beautiful in here and me, I just wanna go have breakfast, but the place looks more classy already. Hi, how are you doing? I'm fine, the way comes up. Thank you. Yeah. It's, oh, COVID protocols, yeah? What's your hands? Let me put on my mask. All right, see, thank you. I would love to sit inside, not better. Hi, man. How are you doing? So, what's around? Tell them I'm around, yeah? Oh, come, come, come. Brother. Yeah? You've been waiting for me? Waiting for you, but it's okay. How are you, brother? I'm good, sorry for being late. Okay. I'm always late, you know? You really have to sit down and we have to stand and have a conversation, but it's a pleasure meeting both of you. Oh, it's our pleasure. Pleasure is ours, brother. You moved to Rwanda or you came to visit? We moved, brother. We're here now. We're here. How long have you been here? Not very long. Six months. Six months. Six months in Rwanda? Yes. You already have the coffee shop that everyone is talking about. Yay! That's the beauty of Rwanda. That's the beauty of the continent. But guess what piqued our interest? What? A little Donovan boy sitting in a car in Rwanda saying, I am here eating food in the cleanest country in Africa. I was like, what? What? I remember he was following you for Ghana because you were looking at Ghana. And you said that. I was like, look, look what he said. Look, we saw, we're like... And that started our research. And that's what brought you to Rwanda. You know, let's have a seat. Yes. I want to ask you so many questions because I feel like I need to know more about you and what you're doing here at this very moment. And I believe you're starting to inspire so many. I mean, Africa is in the best person. Also, come back home and be part of the team that we're looking for. Yes. Awesome. Thank you. You did a video right at the moment where my why was coming through for me. You shared it on the video. No, because I don't want to be making the ugly face cry on the video. I just want to tell you. And it was when the last police killing. True. And you were crying and you did a video. A video. And you said, why are you there? And I was like... And I showed them and said, even he said, why are you there? And that right there was the energy that was like, let's get out of here for me. It might be different for him. But as I'm watching you, I was like, yeah, I remember. That's the why. And that's what we talk about for us, why we came and why we're here and what our mission is here. So I wanted to say it right now so I don't be, because people keep getting me crying. It's fine that we started the video this year. Like I said, it's just a conversation. Let me know, yeah. Now you came in here, right? How are the people embracing you? Oh my gosh. It's, you can't even put words on it. It's from the moment we came and arrived. It was nothing but open arms. And the word, just a small word that meant so much, welcome. Welcome home. Welcome home. And that went real deep for both of us because we knew that our connection is here on the continent but because we are so spread out, we don't know exactly where. But to come here to Ronda and those words, welcome home, you can't put words on it. You really can't put words on how that makes you feel. And not only just the words, but as you can see, just in a short period of time by the grace of God and the structure and the infrastructure of the country, we've been able to establish this, which would have been unheard of in the States. We tried in the States. We tried. My dream is always to have a restaurant. He wanted a coffee, he wanted a coffee in bookstore. And we would drive around Atlanta, we're from Atlanta trying to get a building didn't qualify. The odds are stacked against you. In the States, you have to have massive capital. You have to have excellent credit. You have to have the referrals, the connections, if you wanna do something like this there. And we tried. We've laid the groundwork, we did the work. So we come here after watching the videos of you other YouTubers talking about Ronda, the ease of business, how safe it is. I'm like, and they killed us. They kept killing us over and over and over again, right even in our own city. And I was like, it's time. COVID shut us down, we couldn't do any work. And we were like, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. And establishing this, was it that easy? It was so easy. It was very scarily easy. It was scary easy. Like they were like, they didn't, even the owner of the building was so happy because Ronda needed this. It's not just a restaurant or bookstore. This is a melting pot. We wanted to be able to have a place where the diaspora could come and integrate with the Rondies people. The Rondies. Yeah, so it's not like we're here and they're there. This is a family unit here. So everyone that comes in is either ex-fats or Rondon people. And we introduced each other to them, like listen, you need to meet him. We'll find out Rondies as a background in this. We introduced them to this ex-fat because they're trying to do the same thing and we're connecting people. And yeah, so the mission is bigger than just having that building. That was our foundation. But now we see that Godwin is here for an even bigger purpose. We're showing people that there's options out there. There's opportunity here. Opportunity here. What are the kind of opportunities that you've seen since you got in here? This is our second business. We also have an Airbnb here. In Rondon. Yes, that's our first business. So which means that whenever you're coming to Rwanda, see, I'm just gonna tell you. You know that I don't beg, yeah? I say that it's my fault because I'm telling you guys that it's time for us to change our narratives that Africans don't support Africans. They have Airbnb in here. Whenever you come, it's rather unfortunate that I didn't know I'd have stayed in your Airbnb. I would have locked it down free. Whenever you come in here, I'm gonna put the details, yeah? But also when you come, please, come and grab a coffee in here and tell them that, oh, because of what the Maya got to have here. I would love to hear those. Your coffee would be free if you say what a Maya would be like. No, I'm not saying free coffee. She's the coffee. Have a line outside the door. Looking for free coffee. Free coffee, come on, come on. They're lucky. Exactly. We want you to come. Yeah, but you've been in Rwanda. If you should tell people who have no idea about Rwanda, what will be your definition? I mean, how will you describe Rwanda? Love. I would say it's the people which is a reflection of the leadership. That's very important. The investment the leadership has in its constituents, the people is reflected in the people. Going back to the welcoming. It didn't know it then, but we saw that the reflection is that investment the leadership has in them and not just in them directly, but in understanding that there are those of us who are here from across the diaspora and those of us who, those that know that we have an experience where we come from and there's an empathy that is put forth that he's wanting them to have for us that allows for them to say, welcome home. So the root of all of that for me is love. Is love. So that's the experience for myself. If I could put it in the word, that would be it. And for me, a sister told us when we came, we visit for a week, just really to pick out our house and see, make sure it was everything that y'all were saying it was. But a sister said when we were here, this was the day before she leaves, she was talking about the leadership and he had told the running people when the expats come, welcome them. Black Americans. Black Americans come, welcome them. Yeah, right. Because they've been through what we've been through. That touched my soul because people don't understand, we're really been through some trauma in the States and still is. We're a stolen people and a lot of Africans don't even know that we're a stolen people. They just think we're another group of black people in the US. No, we're a stolen people. We don't even know where we come from. We all believe we come from Ghana, from the West Coast. We're over there because that's where the ports were. But for us, it don't really matter what part of the continent we're from. We're one people. And we wanna be here on the continent in the field that people want us here. The Rondies come in, they were like, we need this. We love this. They don't know about our experiences. So we have the bookstores, we have the books. We wanna bring the black American experience but we still have books from other African authors as well. So it's a merger, it's a fusion. Even our food, you're gonna have food being made for you. I want you to try. But it's a American fusion, yes. So we have American, we have really a dealer's stamp on American food and then we have the Rondon food and it's a true merger. Merchant, merger. I'm so excited. But it's a fusion of foods, our music, our artwork. You see we have the Rondon art but then you also have the black American art as well. So everything is trying to bring the two together so it's a family unit. There's no, you're not more important than we are. We're just trying to cohabitate and bring the love and we need it. We're traumatized people. We don't even realize how messed up a lot of us are until you come through a place that has love and peace every day. And you're like, wow, we don't even trust it. Like, there's... No, baby, that goes to the driver. Oh. I see, you know, somebody might be watching this video and you've been like, oh, Maya, whatever they're talking about is all rosy, yeah. I mean, I want to know when you go here, definitely you face two or three challenges as an African-American trying to fit in in the society. What kind of challenges did you face when you came in here? That you feel like people used to know before that move. Sure, sure. Cultural challenges. We come from a place where we worked us to death. So our ethic is work, work, work fast, fast, fast, don't be late, let's get it, let's move it. I think we're probably more aggressive than the laid back, rounded people. So they look at us sometimes like, okay, relax. Especially me, he's more laid back. I'm more rounded. We said that, like he's rounded. But for me, I got to get it. And that's the mindset that I'm trying to, not necessarily come away from, but slow it down a little bit. And so even dealing with our team, it's a lot of colonialism that still, you see traces of. So our team, we want to call us boss. We don't like that. We cut that out. Yeah, because in the States, boss is a slave term. All right, boss, that's they whipped that into us. So we're like, no, we're not your boss. We work together. We're a family unit. We don't have another guy came in here last week and he said, well, maybe your servants can go do blah, blah, blah. And I was like, whoa. We don't have servants. No, these are trigger words for someone coming from the States. We have no servants. One of our employees or teammates, he was surprised that we asked them, how are you feeling? We were talking to him, what's going on? And he almost was in tears because he said, who am I that you ask how I'm feeling? And you're our bosses. And I'm like, what, you're a man. You're a man. And I see you. And I see you in pain. You a grown man. That's how we see you. You're not no servant. Yes, we, you work for us, but we're a team here. We need you as much as you need us. So we don't ever want anyone that we work with to think that we're your boss. You're our servants. You're beneath us. No, that's not. And so that's weird for them because they want to call us that. Our team call us Jada and Abou. Is it safe in Ronda? It's very safe. And if I may, with that, you know, as you may know, and the audience may know that the measures that were put during this whole pandemic here in Ronda, we came at a time where it was, you know, fairly strict. You know, curfew time was like, you know, very like, you had a small window of time to do your thing. You had to be back in the house. So things have gotten better and the restrictions have lifted a bit to the curfew is extended, you know, where you can really kind of like, you know, be free. So the very first, I remember this, the first, when they first lifted it to where it extended into the night hours, I walked to the store. When I left my home and I walked out of the gate, I saw a group of young brothers, young black men. And I had to really pause in my mind and remember that I'm in Africa. I'm in Ronda because had I been in the States, that would have been an alarm because I don't know. They might try something. They might have tried something. And so I was immediately put at ease and I walked by them. They waved, I waved, and I kept on going. And then as I went further up the street, I saw a female walking. She didn't clutch. She didn't look at me as if he may do something. She just kept on going. And I kept walking a little further. And as I was walking, I was coming upon another female from behind. She didn't look behind her thinking. She just, and I said, wow, man. It was just, it brought me to tears because, so the safety factor is again. It's real. It's real. It's real, it's real. And I can be me, man. I can be me. I can be. Feel free. And feel free. Not having the forethought that because I'm black that I may do something to you. Or harm you. Or feel harm or whatever. So it's real. The security is real. Because the security is in the hearts and the minds of the people. But they don't have to be the way that we were. Like they don't have to be on alert at all times. That's how you have to be in the stage. You gotta be on alert. You gotta have a whole security mindset. We're here. People are just being alive. Like we have another cultural thing is we fight against it. We know that the girls or the women here are leaving. I wanna say be careful. Be alright. Have a safe journey. Be careful. And they're like, be careful of what? What do you mean? I'm sorry. It's hard. Cause I'd be like, all right. And one of them went to the ATM. It was like seven o'clock pitch black. And I told another girl to go woofer. And I turned around and she's still here. I said, you let her go by herself. She said, Jada, it's okay. And I'm like, oh, but no. But okay. That's a mindset that we're fighting against because we're afraid we want to protect them. But from what? From what? They don't have that. They don't have those. And another very major, our children. See in the States, you have to have a very watchful, close hand on your children. Especially girls. Especially girls. Because you have the human trafficking and the sex trafficking and the reality, the unfortunate reality is that I can turn right here this way and I can look and in that second, my child could be gone. They steal your children right from you in the store. They'll snatch them. I can't send them out just to be children. Just to play at a playground, at a park and just go and be free and play. So when we got here, there was a young girl across the street from us that our children was able to, hey, we want to go play. She knows where a park is. So our minds, as parents, is like, hey, let's meet their parents, let them meet us. And the little girl comes out and she takes off. And we're stalking them, walking behind them. And our girls were right behind them. We're like, but they can be children. Because every eye is the eye of a parent in Ronda or even on the continent, for that matter. So what we say in the States, it takes a village to raise a child. We, for the first time, were able to experience that. This is a village of people. And that they're going to watch whether it's your child or not. We're going to make sure of these children. So we see little children, yay-high, walking from school, busy streets, no one bothering them. Nobody's watching them, no parents over there. I'm like, oh, Lord, where that baby mama at? And they're just walking. They're carefree. They have no home. So it's amazing of the security factor. It's amazing. Is it affordable to live in Ronda? Way more affordable than you. It's a lot of affordable. Yeah. It just depends on what type of life you want. If it was just me and my husband, we'd have a nice little small apartment in the city. Nothing, very inexpensive. But we have six people here. We have both our moms. So we have retirement people here with us and both our girls, 10 and 11. So we chose a different lifestyle, of course. But price-wise, the food costs way low. You don't have insurances and all that kind of stuff you gotta worry about. Everything is pay cash at point. We're learning even the medical in the States, they're charging you stuff just to go into a hospital just to be seeing my pinky hurt. That's gonna cost about $1,500. But here would be 15,000, was it 15,000 francs? 15,000 francs. Which is, no, that's $15. 1500. Yeah. Yeah. Blah, whatever. 1,500. It's crazy. Yeah, francs. And then here, you're paying $5. Medicine, my mom had medicine, her co-pay in the States was like $10 for this medicine. We needed to have it filled. She brought the medicine from here, she paid $10. Buying it. Her co-pay in the States was more than that and the insurance covered the rest. So it's, they don't, they're not taxing you here. It's just, you just, it's way affordable. It's way affordable. I have so many Africans in the diaspora who watch my videos, so I believe that one of you have a beautiful message for them. If I should give you the platform to send a message to them, you'll find out what's true. Africans living in the diaspora, what that message be? For the Africans living in the diaspora, like African Americans or just Africans in the country? I see African Americans. Everybody, one family. Jamaicans, all of them, for me, I call them Africans. Yes, that's right. Me too. So that's the message that I want for them, yeah. My message would be, get out, get out. Man, they were lying to us. They lied to us. Africa is filled with bugs. They're hungry, they're starving. All the babies got pop bellies and flies in their eyes and we're doing UNICEF, trying to send money to them because they're starving over there. Even at that time, the president of the United States, I said that Africa was the, what was it? The scum of the, some of that line. And I'm like, really? Listen, I have never seen anything so beautiful. And we travel, we've been in beautiful places, Dominican Republic and Jamaica, Mexico. We've been to those beautiful places. But when you come to a place that is connected to your soul, you're like, oh my God, every morning, if I'm sad, I can go outside and be reminded of the blessing that God has given us. It's so beautiful. We can't wait to explore and see more of it. We're trying to be like, wula mai, wula mai and see the world. We have to hit Ghana. We have to hit Nigeria. We have to hit Senegal. Which is Ronda's your first? No, we've been to Tanzania. Tanzania, Zanzibar. Yeah, we've been to there. This is our second passport stamp year. But we fell in love. We fell in love. We were like, let's make this our base. And to be able to be somewhere where you're not looking over your shoulders. We're in about the colonizers. We've had some traumatic experiences over there, man. We've got stopped by the police here. And me and my husband like, all right, head straight, everything straight. 10 and two. Cops coming, they fist bumping, fist bumping us and like joking around with the driver. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay. At home, that couldn't result in something different. You could have lost your life just because a cop stops you. This is real. We're not being dramatic. Because I'm only can tell you what I've been through. So man, get out. Get out, why we keep, like you said in that video, why do y'all keep staying there dealing with that? Right. We've asked people here, do you know anyone that ever got shot? They're like, no, that's any of them. None of them know anyone that ever got shot. They don't know anyone that's ever had a drug overdose, let alone been abused by a cop. They don't know any of that. That's not even a thing over here. That's normal life in the States. That's a part of normal life. That's normal. That's just what we go through when we just deal with it. But like you said, why? So I would agree with that. You know, as Africans, we are original people. The whole entire earth belongs to the original people. There's nowhere on the face of this earth that you could go that you won't find us. We have a right. We have a global right. We have a human right to be able to go and live wherever we should desire. And the living is in here. So if you think that you leave from where you are, you're going to miss out, you're not going to miss out because the opportunities are vast and broad and wide all throughout the entire globe. The root of us exists right here on this continent. So why not come back? Even if you don't relocate and reside here, come, visit, explore, put that on the top of your bucket list or something to come to Africa, come to any continent, Ronda and the other 53 countries on the continent, whichever you should choose, but come for yourself. Let that be your pilgrimage. Let that be your pilgrimage. So it is something that would absolutely help you in the human development of you as an individual, the spiritual development as you as an individual, the intellectual development, the cultural, every aspect that allows for us to exist, coming to reconnect, even if it's for a week, two weeks or for the rest of your life, come to Africa. Ikawa means coffee. Coffee. I want to say thank you so much for sharing your experience with me. Thank you. This video will inspire many out there to also make that move that we are all looking for. Thank you so much for watching and don't forget to like the video. Subscribe and be part of this awesome family. And I will say once again that they have an Airbnb. Whenever you come in here, make sure you book it. And a YouTube channel. A YouTube channel. Yes, we've been documenting our journey. Really? You might have I say it. Of course, I didn't know. Please. It's the residential tours. I think I've seen it before. Okay, I've seen that residential, is it residential tours? Residential tours. Residential tours, yeah, so please, yeah. I'm gonna put a link in the description. Make sure you subscribe. Depart. I think if I knew this, I wanted to have even access to so many questions. No worries. So that they'll be able to get most of the answers that they're looking for on your channel. No worries. Thank you so much. No worries. We're so blessed that you even want to talk to us. Oh, come on. I'm everywhere. I'm just a messenger. Yeah. Thank you so much. And I'll see you in the next one. I hope you'll buy it. Peace out.