People

One of the best parts of this trip for me has been seeing how people in this very different part of the world live. On the paved road from Musanze to Akagera we traveled about 80 kilometers per hour. People walk constantly on both sides of the road REALLY close to traffic. Even toddlers are on the highway, little kids, all ages, all day. Walking, walking, walking. They are carrying stuff or going to get something to carry. There are school kids in uniforms, older people carrying bundles. You wouldn’t believe how much time and effort go into getting water. Women carrying big jugs of water in their heads, kids with water jugs strapped to their bikes, little ones struggling with water containers which seem almost as big as they are. Usually water is carried in large (about 5 gallon) yellow plastic jugs. Richard said that these may have come from refugee camps or are reused after buying large amounts of cooking oil. One way to make life a lot easier for a lot of people would be to help them to get access to clean water. When they get it to their homes they must boil it using wood scavenged or bought or bartered for. Water. Such a simple luxury for us and so desperately complex and challenging for Rwandans. Sometimes they pump water from a communal well. Sometimes villages have a communal spigot they share. There is a lot of cool social time around the wells. As we were driving to Akagera Richard said during the genocide that this part of the country was under the protection of the RPF and so many people tried to get here. Refugees flooded this part of the country. It’s amazing how different this area of the country is from the volcanoes and gorillas to the north and east. There it was wet and tropical. As we drove over here it became much drier, far different from the tropical rain forest of the gorillas. From mountain gorillas to baboons, from air so damp that it made my shirt cling to my back to air so dry and dusty that it stung my throat and made my nose bleed. There are many more cows in this area. Dangerous looking horns, much thinner than American cows. Still there are people working the land relentlessly with hoes. Tall banana trees everywhere. Little kids standing by the highway selling bags of limes, eggs, avocados. Lots of people carrying firewood in bundles on their heads, much of it tied with the stem of a fibrous plant. Wood for cooking maize, corn potatoes, African tea, coffee. Occasionally you see “a police” or somebody from the military wearing a beret and carrying an AK47 or a shotgun. After two weeks being here that still freaks me out a little. Not as much as it did when we first arrived. Bob Marley on the car stereo. Most people who have a music system still listen to tapes here. Richard loves reggae (“Don’t worry, every little thing is gonna be all right!”). He sings along loudly, off key, but with gusto. Women strolling along carrying large colorful umbrellas in the bright sunshine. Boys riding or pushing bikes with huge sacks of produce (potatoes, beans, carrots) or large bundles of green bananas. Most people wear sandals or go bare footed. Two old men, white hair, one with a staff and a battered old fedora hat, both wearing tattered suits walking up the mountain holding hands. They are each other’s best friends. You can see that. Imagine all that they have been through together. Tiny little mud brick or just mud houses with dirt floors. Yet, often you see a colorful little flower garden. The poor may understand beauty even more than the rich. And there IS beauty here. An old woman, bent, leaning on her staff. A young man driving a motorcycle with an old man on the back (his father?) and a baby in his lap (his son?). Sunlight through banana leaves, dirty yellow water jugs, windowless huts, multi-colored scarves, sweat-stained shirts, people smiling – laughing – talking – teasing – primping – posing at the village pump. “Kirkwood High School Tennis Club” t-shirt on a radiant shining faced teenage girl. She’s riding on the back of a bike pedaled by a handsome boy of about the same age. They are laughing. White teeth. Joy. They aren’t wearing shoes but they are wearing happiness. Beautiful intricate braids, ebony skin. A day of dust. Freshly made mud bricks drying in rows and columns in the hot afternoon sun. Clothes drying on bushes. A primary school girl wearing her sweater on her head, dancing and clapping to her own inner music. Makeshift wheelbarrows made from found wood and a tire and axle. Nothing is thrown away if it can be used again. A group of women threshing grain in the slow breeze with baskets, large and round-patterned. They have made these baskets themselves with grasses they have picked. They thresh the grain they have grown to feed their hungry families in homes they have made themselves from materials they have fashioned from the very earth around them. A man planing wooden planks by hand from a tree he has cut and sawed into boards. It’s 12:15 and I can barely keep my eyes open. Before I sleep I will hold you in my heart. I hope I dream of you. I love you.