Africa can be a challenging place to
travel, and my trip to Rwanda was no exception.
I arranged to take a 9 am bus to Kigali, so that I could go with our
contact to the airport to pick up the team.
It was a perfect arrangement. Too
bad perfect arrangements often don’t work out here.
I arrived at the bus station at 8:50, ready
to go. And I read a book for a while, I
noticed a tall white woman who came in and sat a ways down the hall. Eventually, I went into the bus station and
asked where the bus was. No real
answer. By 12 pm, I was annoyed. I went to see the manager, along with the
African who was with the tall white woman.
Finally the bus arrived at 1:30.
By this time I had met and started chatting with Jane* and her
boyfriend. Finally at 2:15 pm the bus
pulled out, with very few people on it.
Jane and I chatted for a while, about everything and anything. She’s a peace and reconciliation specialist,
working in Uganda and Rwanda. She is a
really great lady. (*Jane isn't her name, but I figured she'd prefer a name change)
We both napped, read, and did different
things. The tv installed at the front of
the bus played terrible Kenyan worship music videos, I drowned it out with The
Postal Service. Because of the emptiness
of the bus, we had to stop and pick people up at every step of the way. By about 5 pm, we were making slow
progress. I texted my contact in Kigali
and because I was going to arrive so late, I decided to try to find a place to
stay in Kigali. I asked Jane if I could
stay with her, and she said yes. In
America, I would never ask some random stranger to stay the night with them,
but in Africa I find things work very differently. Perhaps it isn’t that I wouldn’t stay the
night at a strangers house, it’s that I never am in a position to need to.
Finally we crossed the border, late at
night. Jane sat next to me the rest of
the trip, as the in bus video entertainment played a Mr. Bean actor police
drama with Chinese subtitles. It was an
amusing combination. We chatted about
the idea of “home” and our various experiences throughout Africa.
It was 1 am Uganda time, 12 am Rwanda time
when we finally arrived in Kigali. We
got a private hire and ran some errands... like getting money and buying
food. We reached Jane’s place around 1
am, then feasted on a huge round of cheese, mango juice, and French bread. It was delicious, and especially good since
neither of us had eaten all day. Jane’s
house was incredibly comfortable, and had a full wall sized map of
Africa, it
was super cool! She even had a small
room for me to stay in, it was great.
 |
| probably a whole season of this, played at an almost un-hearable volume, with Chinese subtitles. Yes. TIA |
The next morning was fresh coffee, and more
bread and cheese. We sat outside on the
step and looked out at the beautiful view of Kigali. My ride was running late, so after breakfast
we sat in Jane’s room and she packed up her stuff while we talked.
At about 10 am we went and met Francios at
the top of the hill. We gave Jane a ride
to her meeting and then continued to pick up Bishop Kizito.
Meeting
Jane was an incredibly experience. She is kind and generous and a
good conversationalist. I hope that we
can hang out again sometime.
Bishop Kizito is a tall, thin, incredibly
happy Rwandan man. The whole car ride we
all laughed and shared together. It was
wonderful. Finally arriving in Gitarama
(sp?) I met the team and we settled in.
 |
| A bit of Rwanda |
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