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Dispatch #7 from Rwanda
First off, apologies for not sending a dispatch last week - I was busy preparing for the arrival of my significant other, who was coming for a one week visit. Paul arrived on Monday afternoon and I had the week off so we could spend some time together - and what a week it's been.
Our first night was spent in one of Kigali's two "luxury" hotels - the Hotel des Milles Collines. There, in the late afternoon and evening, we watched the lightning in the skies above the hills and listened to the rain as it fell.
The following morning we hit the streets of Kigali. I, in the role of tour guide in a city I had only just recently become acquainted with, and Paul as the culture-shocked and jet-lagged muzungu. We walked through the city center dodging both human and vehicular traffic, often with me yanking him back as he was about to get blindsided by a minibus or some other car as it raced through a roundabout. Paul found the condition of the roads, with their myriad potholes, cracks and crevices, and the lack of sidewalks a bit of a challenge.
The highlight of the morning was hitting one of Kigali's markets. As we trudged our way along the cramped aisles through the squished remains of rotten fruit and vegetables, the smells of human sweat, urine, fish and sundry animal products was overwhelming. After getting a sense of what the market was all about, we exited and walked along the side of the street again. I was disappointed because I hadn't found any of the African fabric I love so much. But then suddenly I saw "fabric row"! We headed back into the market and perused the two long aisles of fabric stalls where the brightly colored fabric stretched high above to the tin roofs covering the market. Of course we ended up making several purchases including a lovely fabric for Paul. When we went to my tailor in Butare, she was clearly thrilled with this particular fabric and said we had also gotten a good price, which made me happy!
We made our way back to the hotel, packed up our things and made our way back to the center with Paul's 35 kilo bag (most of which were supplies for me) in tow. We hauled the bag onto the bus, which was a feat in itself and spent the next 20 minutes trying to decide where to put it. We finally decided that we would take up the 4 seats at the back of the bus with the bag occupying one of the window seats. We just prayed the bus wouldn't be full. Well, it was.
But with a generous bribe to the driver, who asked me if I had paid for a seat for the bag, we were on our way. I felt sorry for the poor woman who sat next to the bag as we were going to be going around some serious mountain curves over the next couple of hours and I feared the bag would fall and crush her. Paul kept reaching behind her to try to prop the bag up, but she didn't seem to appreciate his stinky armpit in her face. After two hours, during which Paul was enthralled with the Rwandan countryside, we arrived in Butare.
The owner of the hotel came out to greet Paul and we were then led to my little room. I was shocked and touched when we opened the door and saw that the staff had transformed my room by covering the tables with linens and having flowers and a lovely fruit basket waiting.
The next few days were spent puttering around town meeting fellow expats and showing Paul some of my haunts. The main highlights, though, came towards the end of the week. Friday night a friend had organized a party at his place and we had arranged for the dance troupe from the National Museum to come and perform in his garden. I soon realized there were a few challenges in having a dance troupe perform. The light in equatorial Africa is completely gone by 6:30pm and the troupe had only been dancing for half an hour before we all found ourselves in complete darkness. Yikes, what now? The dancers basically stopped, waiting for direction.
We ended up moving to the other side of the garden where one fluorescent lamp cast a dull pall on the yard. Within 15 minutes the performance began anew. Next challenge. The drummers had to stop early as we didn't have a permit - who knew there was a noise ordinance in effect in this small town (I found out later that a city official actually showed up!). I think, though, we all had a great time and the dancers were fabulous and one dancer even dragged me up to shake my booty.
Perhaps the real highlight though was the next day. We had arranged for a driver to pick us up at 8am to take us to Nyungwe Forest, one of the last remaining pockets of equatorial rain forest in Africa. Both the destination as well as the actual drive were worthwhile. The route to the forest took us first through the densely populated, terraced hills west of Butare then suddenly the gentle hills became forested mountains.
As we drove through the town of Gikongoro I was amazed at the predominant mode of transportation there. Young boys pushed roughly hewn wooden, 2-wheeled scooters laden with tremendous sacks of coal and god knows what else. Even more thrilling was seeing these boys then flying down the hills on their scooters with huge grins on their faces as if they had just completed some Herculean task, which I believe they had - at least until the next hill.
While tourists from around the world come to see the mountain gorillas in northwestern Rwanda (made famous thanks to Dian Fossey), Nyungwe is less known but has an incredible population of various monkeys. Our driver came to a sudden stop a couple of times en route when he saw monkeys scampering across the road. It was a pretty incredible sight.
We were assigned a guide and a guard (complete with machete) once we arrived at the park entrance. I explained we only had time for a quick 60 or 90 minute walk through the forest. We were in for a surprise. We began our hike on a well marked trail then suddenly veered off onto a damp narrow clay path, on which I promptly slipped and fell on my butt despite the walking sticks we had been given. We took pictures, collected some sound of the forest and watched in awe as huge, brightly colored butterflies danced around us. The guard moved on ahead and started chopping down bits of forest and tarzan ropes so we could make our way through the dense, overgrown jungle.
Then suddenly we saw them. A group of Colobus monkeys flying through the trees ahead of us. We were transfixed by the sight. I had never seen monkeys in the wild and it's something I won't soon forget. The guide was intent on having us get closer, so we pushed on through even more forest and lines of biting ants. By this point we could actually smell the monkeys, a very pungent, distinctive odor. We were thrilled by what we were seeing but the guide wanted to take us further still. I explained we had to return as it would be at least a good hour's worth of trekking through mountainous jungle to get us back. They reluctantly changed course, chopping as they led the way.
We ate our picnic lunch of South African wine and local bread and cheese at the main site from which we could look east and see the expanse of Lake Kivu, and beyond that, Congo, below us. We piled back into the car and finished our bottle of wine as we headed back along the curvy, mountain road. Our next stop wouldn't be quite so pleasant - we were headed to one of Rwanda's starkest genocide sites.
Even now, it's hard to write about what we saw. The Murambi genocide site sits on a low hill on top of which are a number of buildings. The first building one sees is a two-story building which hides everything behind it. We walked in and within a few seconds a man came to get us. He led us out of the building and behind where there were a series of long, brick one-story buildings. At one time, these buildings made up a school and it was to this school that several thousand people sought refuge nine years ago only to end up brutally massacred.
The guide took us to the first building along which were a series of doors. He opened one door then moved to the next, leaving us to look inside each room. I couldn't believe what I saw as I peered into the first small room. On simple, wooden platforms lay the white, shriveled, almost-mummified looking, corpses. Corpses of adults and even more shocking of tiny children who couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 years old when they were murdered, many simply thrown against the concrete walls of the school leaving gashes and cracks in their skulls visible now as they lay there in what surely were the positions in which they died.
Then there was the smell, the smell of death, that kind of smell that lingers, that clings to you, your clothes and the stifling air surrounding the dead. We went down the outside galley, looking into each room until we got the nerve to actually go into one of these rooms. It was horrifying. I will never forget the corpse of a small child, the string around its neck with a small metal medallion. And there was perhaps the starkest room of all. On one side skulls covered a platform. I counted at least 200. Behind the skulls lay a huge pile of leg and arm bones stacked to the window.
As we left each room a woman followed slamming the metal doors with a resounding bang and the sound of finality. Ahead of us, the guide was whistling.
Be well,
Michelle and Paul
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