CATCHUP PART III

 January 17, 2014

Farewell Uganda.  We are in Mr Milton’s car travelling to Kigale, Rwanda.

We leave two hours later than scheduled; African time.

Kigale is stunning clean. Modern, manicured boulevards, lots of construction. Our hostel is bustling with interesting characters. It’s expensive by hostel standards ($30USD/night), then again Rwanda is noticeably more expensive. 

Megan, Sarah and I visit the National Genocide Museum. Intense. Heartbreaking. Powerful beyond words. Each of us cries. Not silent trickling tears, but audible sobs. How ca humanity become so mired in mass psychosis? Lemmings to insanity. This unfathomable evil repeats: Armenians, Jews, Croats, Huti/Tutsis. There’s a genocide waiting to happen in Nigeria – Muslims vs Christians

We mingle with a group of locals and a couple of expats associated with Agis, an organization spawned by Rwanda’s past but from my point of view too idealistic, too removed from reality; such is the downside of operating out of an urban locale and having headquarters in a European capital. They talk corporateese. When I push about what can be down to stem the slippery slope in Nigeria, it’s all about “networking with parliamentarians.” ReallyO? Come on now.

We join this group for clubbing at Horizons. Music is ex hip hop. Glasses or Armarulo and lots of sweaty Nijai style dancing late we discover Sarah’s purse with passport is missing. Kate, one of the Agis expats, has also lost her handbag. We pile into two cars and head to Kigale police headquarters. A suspect comes along. Endless hours later, the suspect having been smacked up the side of the head a few times, we are uncertain if anything has actually been accomplished, leave, and collapse into bed.  Three hours later Sarah’s alarm pulls us from sleep. It’s only when we ask for coffee from reception that we find out we’re an hour behind Uganda. Its 7am. Damn, we could have snatched an extra hour of shut eye. 

This entry now is being written at Discover Rwanda Hostel where we’re chillaxing,  weary, listening to a local reggae/folk local band.

Is today Saturday?

We’re on the Rwandan Riviera. Staying at L’Eglise Presbyterian Hostel, basic but clean, set in a well tended garden just down the street from Gisengi Market. Our accommodations are a whomping 10,000 Rwandan francs (around $8-9 each)

Neither Sarah or I are able to determine how we feel about Rwanda. The people are reserved. No one on our bus was helpful. As we walked to the beach here, we were stared down, sometimes with visible hostility.  This lakeside town is one of the genocide flashpoints 20 years ago. I’m sure the memory is vivid for many. Our taxi driver tonite, Habib, is 29.  He’s lived here all his life. I can only imagine what he remembers. Back in Kigali at the Genocide Museum, the rooms of skulls and other human bones is palpably haunting. The Children’s Room, the family photos, the sculptures all echo a feeling of ghostly energy. Despite its sordid past, Gisenyi, where we now find ourselves, is beautiful. Lake Kivu laps at sandy beach. The Congo border is just minutes away, its shore visible to the south and east. The architecture is different. Clay tile roofing, pointed tin roofing. People pepper the highway shoulders, their numbers large for this small space.

We walk to and along the beach, stop in at a posh lakeside hotel, find out from the cabana girl about a restaurant further down the way called Thai Jazz. The owner there takes a fancy to us. He’s a colourful character, large Java-the-hut ish  “one quarter Congolese, on quarter Belgia and 50 per cent Indian,”  wearing a cowboy hat and scarf.  Amarulo arrives at our table, compliments of Jamail. He offers to send us adventuring with his driver. Id’ like to head to the Congo border to see if I can get my passport stamped.

Oh, and lest I forget, Sara found herself in a pissing match with one of the police officers who had helped her with the passport issue when we were in Kigali. Part of the process involved providing a number in the UK. This guy has called Sarah’s parents’ phone number in England 20+ times since 6 am, professing his love.  “Why do I always pick such dickheads?  I’m SO angry about that!”

DAY TWO IN GISNEYi

One more day of adventuring before Wednesday and a Thursday 2:55am departure.

Jamail holds true to his word. He sends us on our way with his driver – heading south into hillside villages dotting the coast.  It’s gorgeous. People walk the edge of the roads much like India; I love the activity. As we move deeper into the hillside, clothes become  dirtier, bare feet become more prevalent.

Some observations:

Sitting lakeside at Thai Jazz in the evening, waves crash into shore. How many people remember?

Children with faces far beyond their years

Children having children; such young mothers

Gisenyi fishing boats with long poles – lanterns hang from the bamboo poles as boats bob in the night luring small sardines to surface

YAY!!!!  GIANT fruit bats sweep into the dusk.  Locals don’t know the word “bat; say mouse with wings and they understand.

Plastic bags are banned in this country with hefty fines for those who defy the rules. Same applies to tossing trash.  It’s brown paper bags, and only when required.

Tonite Jamail wheres a hat with crocodile teeth. His wait staff lifht buckets, similar in a way to antique milk buckets with lots of charcoal. The heat is wonderful. Easterly winds force waves into shore.

Pomegranate tree on site at L’Eglise. Exotic-to-us flowers of many varieties. Orchids I’ve ever seen before.  Yellow lilies, white canalilies, Yellow and alabaster white angel trumpets, yellow and fushia and purple and pink bouganvaelia, birds of paradise…

 Another Day

Ahhhwwsomeness. Another perfect place, several perfect moments. We are at Kingi Guest House in the valley cradle of Musanze Volcanoes.  Our lodgings are exquisite. I’m so very happy to be spending this wind-down day in such surroundings. We’re a five minute walk to National Volcanoe Park Headquarters. The gardens here are fragrant. Beautiful. Big heads of blue hydrangea, yellow angel trumpet trees, eucalyptus trees, trimmed hedges, volcanic stone pathways. It’s off season here, as it was in Gisenyi. We book a four room dorm that’s all to ourselves, complete with wood-burning fireplace. 

This is Dianne Fossey territory; high enough in the mountains that cold frosts our breath. Lush green, incredible fields of daisy-like flowers (used for herbicides), hedges of cannalillies, ragged peaked volcanoes around us, all for RfR 10,000 ($1USD in total). Gorillas are in the mountains beyond. To be so close is close enough for me. It’s exhilarating to know they’re nearby. Gorillas in the mist. Sarah and I walk to the Park gates, inquire about our options and decide for a nature walk into the rainforest. 

We visit an artisan shop chock full of colourful baskets woven by local women. As we leave, two women call out to us from the workshop and invite us in. Jacqueline and her baby, Mary and her huge smile.

We turn right on the dusty road, rather than left back to our lodgings, and find ourselves surrounded by exuberant laughing children. Their parents watch, bemused. Shoe repair rasta-man and his posse of lady friends offer welcoming smiles. The jolliest of the women nearly falls off her seat in laughter.  The children walk us along the village thoroughfare, a rutted lane framed by eucalyptus and dark lush vegetation.  The two eldest boys attach to Sarah and me. Both want to be Gorillia Guides. Both want to learn as many languages as possible. Any time we pull our our cameras the children scramble for a place in the scene. It’s SO perfect. We exchange names, hear stories, listen to dreams, discover that police will beat the older boys if they’re seen with us. When we part we do so a good distance before the village town centre, safely out of sight of police eyes.  During this return walk a snotty-faced, tear-stained toddler of two or three wails. His wee legs are too short to keep up. I grab his hand and let him set the pace.  Our collection of kiddies wave goodbye as we cross the bridge back to the other side. One young fellow follows us, picks flowers for us. Magic. Children are magic. If only we could all retain that innocence somehow, what a better world this would be.

Two memorable friends:

Joseph (my older companion) and Ben – the young one.

OH!!! I nearly forgot…someone found Sarah’s passport. How amazing is that? They called her Mom in the UK.

ADVENTURE’S END

At Rwanda’s Kigale airport. My African adventures are fini. C’est un bon vacacionne. Je parle Francais beaucop and surprise myself to be able to get main messages across. Damn. The mozzies in this airport are plentyo.

So, today was another early starte, up at 5:45am. Oddly an outfit that boasts conservation isn’t so conservation -oriented when it comes to insisting all park visitors come by hired 4x4.

Our hike is all uphill for the first 90 minutes and our guide is more interested in making time than making happy customers. Thankfully a porter comes along, grabbing my hand and pulling me up over the steeper stretches. Gawd I am so seriously out of shape. Heart pounds, shortness of breath. We slow the paces coming back, snap pictures of fields of flowers (who knew irish potatoes have such lovely pink and purple flowers). We encounter stands of bamboo. Nasty stinging nettles. The views are fantastic.

It’s interesting to see the terrain where our planet’s last 800 remaining silverback gorillas live, eating those nettles, bamboo shoots and other not so nice prickly plants.

After the hike we stop at the women’s shelter. I gift my zany pink ‘n yellow hi-cut runners, purchase a peace basket for Michelle. On return to Kigale Sarah checks into a rather gross Catholic-run hostel. Then to dinner at Cactus Restaurant which overlooks the city. A quick goodbye and here am I, batting at mozzies, waiting for a 2:25am flight.