Living the Slow Life

Rwanda's thousands of hills are covered in agricultural tiers, making for a very dynamic and beautiful but, if you think about it, depressing for the actual nature scene.

This is a much different bus than the one we took from Tanzania.

12/15/11

Goodness.  Where to start with Rwanda so far?  We arrived in Kigali yesterday and got in a taxi we thought understood where we wanted to go.  Surprise!  He didn’t have a clue.  We pulled into another hotel, which, let’s say, seemed only slightly out of budget as business men crowded in the front drive beneath chandeliers and across granite floors.  Luckily, our driver got that we were in the wrong place right away and we went in to ask for directions.  We found it fast after that.  And they had open rooms!  Yay!  It’s bad but I think we’re getting into the habit of not making reservations ahead of time.  That might come back to bite us in the ass at some point, but I’ve had enough mosquito bites on these cheeks by now that I think I can deal with it. 

Our hostel is very nice and very accommodating.  The people are wonderful, like everyone else in East Africa it seems.  Andrew had passed out by eight but I stayed up getting to know some of the other renters.  Many of them are actually long-term visitors volunteering in the Kigali Genocide Memorial. 

After a good night’s rest, that’s exactly where Andrew and I headed.  Before I tell you about that though, I’ve got to reveal that I got Andrew to get on a piki piki (Swahili), a (bota bota) in Rwandan, a motorbike (American)!  It’s the cheapest and most common form of transportation around here.  Yes Mom, I know they’re not as safe as taxis but I’m in Africa.  There’s not much you can do about it, so there!  Safety is a high priority but not as high as affordable.  Okay, I’m being unfair.  They’re actually very safe here…  during the day. 

So we took a very fun and grin-evoking motorbike ride to the Memorial.  That grin was slapped off as fast as an old man on one of those motorbikes would’ve lost his tupe.  Genocide is not a funny thing.  There are no pleasantries in it.  It’s honest and brutal and in your face and overwhelming and oh so sad.  The Memorial is beautifully done and does a wonderful job educating, reminding, and paying respects to those that were lost in 1994.

It occurred less than twenty years ago and its presence is still so prevalent and interwoven into the lives of the people here.  It seems every single person is a survivor or the child of one.  One of our caretakers at the hostel even has a machete scar on her leg.  It’s such a real and glaringly loud symbol for the unspeakable atrocity that happened in her life.  I’ve seen some people with similar scars on their own legs, arms, and even heads.  There are many people who lost limbs and wander about the bus stations and street corners sticking their stumps through the window at people and asking for money.  The country is full of genocide orphans.  The raging river and waterfall Andrew and I had walked above to enter Rwanda once ran red with blood, lofted floating bodies, and its swamp reeds hid many people for weeks.  Andrew also revealed to me that the gate we came through was where one of the largest max exoduses of people has ever occurred.  People were crossing that border by the thousands every hour!  If you could’ve seen this road, you would be very skeptical that thousands of people could fit there.  Unfortunately, many of the refugee camps in other countries also became sites of genocidal activitiy.

Even before Andrew’s and mine conversations about the genocide first began, we both admitted to having been bewildered at looking at such a beautiful place and trying to imagine the horrors that happened here.  Driving through the hills that first day I couldn’t help but see faint scenes of violence, blood, and bodies littering the road.  I didn’t mean to.  Maybe those images are an essence of this place; one more side effect of this country’s attempt to never forget. I feel horrible that I can’t fully understand and right the pain these people feel.  It still hurts my heart to think about it and every time my heart turns to those thoughts, I feel like the air is being forced from my lungs by a crushing vice.  The tears well.  I can’t help but picture my friends, my family, everyone I know, care for, and love under similar circumstances.  I think that’s an amazing thing about humanity. We have an affinity for sympathy, empathy, and compassion that are forever prevalent. 

And I feel guilty.  In 1994 I was three years old, but I’m an American.  A mzungu.  Where were we when all of this was happening?  Where were we as a genocide just as brutal as the Holocaust was happening under our noses after we claimed never to let it happen again?  Where were we in Armenia?  Russia?  The Balkans?  Why do people keep doing these things to one another?  But the Rwandans have moved on.  By the end of my walk through that memorial, I felt inspired by the love, forgiveness, and growth displayed by the Rwandans to the world and felt further ashamed that we let such horrible acts continue to such a great people.

12/15/11

Same first 24-hour period in Rwanda, but I had to take a break and get my mood back in order to continue writing. 

After the memorial, Andrew and I headed to a café called Bourbon, which is specifically known for being a mzungu hot spot.  If you want to do some good white-people-watching, that’s the place to go.  No surprise why, it’s in the middle of a very modern and westernized shopping mall!  We were stunned.  We haven’t seen anything like a mall in months.  I’m sure our open gaping didn’t make us any less conspicuous.  They even had something similar to Target!  Whoa!

While Andrew looked through the Target-look-alike, I sat down in Bourbon with a scoop of ice cream! and FREE INTERNET!  Okay, not free since I had to buy something, but 1000 francs for a large scoop of delicious ice cream and unlimited internet is a darn good deal. 

Shortly after Andrew followed me in, a young man who looked to be in his late twenties joined us.  He was dressed very nicely in relaxed business attire, pulled out two computers from a briefcase and appeared to be very well put together, that is until he started loudly cursing his computer for not charging properly.  I was unnerved, first by his rude outburst but also because I had thought he was Rwandan; he was black.  I’ve met two African Americans now in Rwanda (hadn’t met any prior) and it’s just as much a shock to me as I’m sure it is to Rwandans when these men start to speak.  Anyway, this young man starts cursing and of course I have to make some sort of smart-ass comment to get his attention and highlight he himself is being an ass.  It kind of worked.  I got his attention but he was far too blockheaded to pickup on the admonishment.  Then he wouldn’t stop talking to us!  And he’s from Los Angeles so it’s that horrible ghetto slang and loud enough that everyone in that café could hear him.  Ugh.  And let me tell you, if you wanted to hear endless testosterone inflated nonsense about a douche bag’s lucrative business, amazing traveling, wasted and high parties, and order-taking South African body guard, this was the guy to talk to.  Did I mention he is only twenty years old?  Yah.  His father taught him straight out of high school how to deal in import and export trade in Africa and last year he started his own business and is now raking in the dough and representing everything wrong with the world.

He didn’t listen, was rude, discourteous, emphatic and smug in his behavior towards the female waitresses, loud, selfish, and blockheaded.  He even went on to bellow out how one time he was hiking to see the gorillas and was getting high in front of them and tweaked at how big their canines were.  He then proceeded to suggest we go to the Congo where the weed is good, things are cheap and children run around in ratty clothing with AK-47’s in hand.  What a wonderful idea!  Ass.  I hope one of those AK-47’s lets loose on him.  Okay, not really, but people like that should at least be hidden in padded rooms where they can’t infect the rest of society.  He then insisted on going to the grocery store with us and we didn’t rid ourselves of him until he seemed to start a seemingly very private and sketchy conversation with another young men he had apparently met before.  At that opportunity, we peaced as quick as the Road Runner himself.