Last September, I took part in a Makerere-sponsored trip to Kenya for graduate students. It was the most unorganized thing I had ever been a part of…at the time. A month or so later, I found out that there was a similar trip being organized to go to Rwanda. Letting my frugal side outweigh my common sense, I opted to go along again. I had a good idea of what I was getting into, and didn’t think the planning could be any worse than the trip to Kenya. Ha! That’s the last time I will ever question someone’s ability to under-plan over here!
The official reason for the trip was the same as that for Kenya: an academic conference about graduate study in East Africa. We were going to spend 3 days there – 1 1/2 at the national university in Butare and 1 1/2 in the capital, Kigali. Like the Kenya trip, I really wasn’t interested in the academic conference, I just wanted to see Rwanda!
My first indication of how the trip would play out came before we had even left. A day prior to departure, I got a call from the trip coordinator saying that he had switched the departure time to 3:00 AM on Thursday morning, October 30, leaving from some random place in Kampala. Apparently, he was trying to time our arrival for something…I never figured out what that was though.
I got to the meeting point a little before 3:00, and everyone else arrived soon after. Amazingly, we were on our way within 30 minutes of the scheduled departure time! I think that was the only thing that happened according to schedule the entire trip. :)
The ride over was fairly uneventful. Once the sun came up, I gained an appreciation for western Uganda. The flat East African plateau turns to rolling hills, which develop into the foothills for the Rwenzori Mountains, which form much of Uganda’s western border. Beautiful.
My first real shock came when we crossed the border into Rwanda. I had been told to expect a different feeling entirely from that of Uganda, and that’s exactly what I found. Less than 15 years ago, Rwanda was the site of one of humanity’s most horrific genocides. The gains the country has made since that time are incredible. Unlike Uganda, where garbage is littered everywhere and many laws are blatantly ignored, Rwanda seems orderly and clean. In fact, our bus got searched when we crossed the border for any polyurethane bags, which are illegal in Rwanda. As we drove into Rwanda, the differences were striking. First of all, the countryside itself, with its alternating mountains and valleys, is gorgeous. And, unlike Uganda, there is no trash piled up to distract from nature. Additionally, the roads are well maintained (no more huge potholes!) and drivers aren’t as crazy. In fact, boda-boda drivers are, by law, required to wear helmets and provide a helmet for their passenger, which all of them (at least that I saw) did. Rwanda really did feel like a breath of fresh air from the chaos that I had grown accustomed to in Kampala.
Still, Rwanda definitely is not perfect. It has the highest population density in all Africa, with most of the population engaged in subsistence farming. The per capita income is only $900, almost 20% less than that of Uganda. Development is still reeling from the 1994 genocide and poverty levels are higher now than before the genocide. But the country definitely deserves commendation for its turn-around since having its entire infrastructure decimated, and international aid is starting to flow into the country in support of this effective development.
As we continued driving through the country, it became apparent that the group coordinator, who told all of us that he had made the trip a few weeks ago, either had not actually come before or just remembered nothing from the trip. After hearing him say “only 10 more minutes” numerous times during the final 3 hours of trip, we finally arrived at our lodging, about 2 hours later than expected. After a basic meal we had the rest of the evening (about 2 hours) to ourselves. Most of us retired to our rooms early to crash from the long journey. I fell asleep still trying to understand the logic behind leaving at 3:00 am…
The next morning was the conference. Naturally, our group arrived 30 minutes after the scheduled start time. But, of course, the conference hadn’t actually started. In fact, it appeared like nobody there knew what we were talking about when we asked about an academic conference. I hung around for awhile, then, knowing that if/when the conference ever did start, we would be covering the exact same topics I had sat through in Kenya, decided to make better use of my time. I, along with Ryan Schuette, another Rotary Scholar in Uganda, quietly exited out of the building, grabbed a couple bodas, and took off to see the city of Butare. I had done my research before the trip and knew that there was a well-acclaimed national museum in the town. The two of us headed there and spent the next couple hours reading all about the history of Rwanda. The museum was very well done, and, in my opinion, a much better use of our time!
At that time, we decided we should get back to the conference before it became too obvious that we were completely MIA. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a little more difficult getting back than it had been getting to the museum. The main culprit: language barrier - Rwanda is officially a French-speaking nation. Although many of its residents speak English, most of the drivers do not. I wasn’t too worried since I knew how to direct my driver back to the university. The problem was Ryan…great guy, but lousy sense of direction. He knew some broken French, so he tried to use that in talking with the boda driver. The driver’s response: blank stare. No luck there. So, after explaining the directions to Ryan and drawing him a map, he was confident he could get back. Off he went, and, after taking a few minutes to get myself a driver and haggle him down to the right cost, I was following behind. When I got to the site of the conference, Ryan was nowhere to be found. Great, I thought, I lost one of the Rotary Scholars! Luckily, I found Ryan, about ½ a mile away with no real idea of where he was, but happily taking some pictures of a memorial from the genocide.
We caught the last session of the conference and then joined everyone for an afternoon social event. No one seemed to have noticed that we were gone, probably because they were having a hard enough time staying awake themselves during the conference! The social event was great because of the food; I had forgotten how much I enjoyed cheese, which Rwanda, unlike Uganda, uses frequently!
We then boarded the bus to head back to Kigali, which we had passed through on our way to the conference. We were on a fairly strict timeline since we were due to be at the Ugandan embassy for dinner that night. We stopped at a couple locations on the way back, and still managed to get lost for awhile, which, of course, made us late in getting to the embassy. However, we did eventually arrive there, and spent the rest of the evening eating more delicious Rwandan food and speaking with the Ugandan Ambassador to Rwanda. It was a very interesting night, because I got to hear the Ugandans’ impressions of Rwanda. There was basically unanimous consent that Rwanda was doing something right that Uganda was missing, and a very constructive conversation about what they could do to change that. Encouraging to hear!
As the night wound down, we boarded back on the bus and exited the embassy en route to our lodging for the night. That is where the little planning that had been done for the trip ended. We found out that we actually had no lodging for that night. Well, the coordinator said he had reserved rooms, but since we arrived late in Kigali they had been given away. He had been working through much of the meal trying to find rooms. He had found enough rooms for about half of our group, or nearly everyone in our group if we agreed to pair up. Ryan and I agreed to split a room and got dropped off at the first of several locations where the coordinator had found a room or two. Several in the group took one look at the rooms and refused to stay in them. I looked in a room, and it was definitely the sketchiest place I had ever been. Still, it had a mosquito net (or at least most of a net), so Ryan and I said we could handle it in an effort to reduce the confusion.
The next morning came and, after speaking with the coordinator, I found out that there was no set rendezvous point or time. He assured me that I had a couple hours’ time before anything would happen. I had no doubt that that was a true statement, so I set off to explore Kigali by myself for awhile. I found a boda driver and basically paid him to be my chauffeur for the next couple hours. We visited the Hotel des Mille Collines, the hotel documented in the movie Hotel Rwanda where the owner saved over a thousand lives by sheltering them during the genocide; the American Embassy; and a few other random locations in the city. Again, I was blown away by how much order Kigali seemed to have when compared to Kampala.
I eventually returned to the hotel and, as I had expected, found that nothing had yet happened to organize the group. The next couple hours were spent driving around the city, picking everyone up. I really wanted to get the group together so we could get to the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, the official memorial for those who died during the genocide. To my dismay, I found out that organizing a group of Ugandans was quite a sizeable task! Eventually, after plenty of prodding, everyone was on the bus. We then had an extended “discussion” about what everyone in the group wanted to do. After some compromising, we finally agreed to do a short stop for breakfast before moving on the memorial centre.
When we did finally arrive at the memorial, I was filled with a weird combination of excitement/dread concerning what I was about to see. Before I had decided to come to Rwanda, I knew next to nothing about the genocide. I remembered that there was a conflict in the '90’s that had caused a refugee crisis and a movie (that I had never seen) had been made about it. Beyond that, I didn’t know the difference between a Tutsi (the people targeted in the genocide) and a tsetse (a fly that carries African sleeping sickness). After deciding to go to Rwanda, I had done a little reading about the genocide, but I was still pretty ignorant about the whole thing.
The memorial visit started with visiting the mass gravesite of over 250,000 who had been killed in the genocide, a suitable beginning for what I was about to see. I spent the next four hours wandering through the rooms, reading about the atrocities that had occurred in 1994 and wandering how I had never heard about this event where more than 800,000 people were slaughtered for no reason at all…during my lifetime. Appropriately, the final room of the memorial was dedicated to the children who perished, with short biographies of several children that listed their favorites (food, game, activity, etc.), the last photo that had been taken of them, and their method of execution. “Bone-chilling” is the only real way to describe it.
The experience wasn’t a happy one by any means, but it was definitely worth the trip to get there.
Once every emerged from the memorial centre, most of them being visibly shaken by what they had just seen, we made our way back to the bus. This is where things got interesting.
Before we started on our way back to Kampala, our trip coordinator informed us we were going to have a group meeting to discuss some “issues.” As he went on to explain, we had run out of money, and didn’t have enough to purchase enough fuel to get us back to Kampala. You can picture how that went over with the group. At this point, chaos ensued, with lots of accusations and complaining. After awhile, I tried to speak up to offer some suggestions on what we could do to get home, which involved people pitching in a few extra shillings each and covering our own meals. This is the point, as I was doing a quick accounting of expenditures to try and figure out where everything had gone, where I found out that Ryan and I (the only two white people on the trip) had been charged 20 percent more than everyone else.
As you can imagine, I wasn’t very happy about this, but that wasn’t the time to dwell on that fact. Eventually, after the group lapsed back into chaos/borderline anarchy a couple more times, we got everyone to agree on a plan, and we set off for Kampala.
We drove across the remainder of Rwanda with no real problems. That doesn’t say much, though, since the country is smaller than Massachusetts. Once we crossed the border back into Uganda, several people commented how nice it was to be home, opened the bus windows, and tossed garbage onto the roadside. So much for my hope of this group taking steps to make Uganda operate more like Rwanda…
We stopped in Kabale a short distance later for dinner. As we were eating, the idea of staying there that night was discussed. By that point, I was more than ready for the trip to be over, so I was a strong opponent to the idea, as was Ryan. However, we were apparently the only two who felt that way. We consented to democratic rule and went with the group’s decision. However, after speaking with the bus driver, who explained the dangers of driving at night in Uganda, I agreed that the idea wasn’t that bad.
And, this gave us an opportunity to do a short trip to Lake Bunyonyi, which was less than 10 miles from Kabale. I had heard a few good things about the area, and I was interested in seeing it. We all got back on the bus and made it over the hills to the lake just as the sun was starting to set. The views were absolutely stunning. The lake is completely surrounded by hills (and, although fairly small, is rumored to be the second deepest lake in Africa) and, as it appeared before us on our descent, I was blown away by the views…definitely the most beautiful place I had yet seen in Uganda!
We spent the next couple hours going between three different resorts/campsites and taking in the beauty. I quickly admitted that I was wrong about wanting to continue on to Kampala; seeing Lake Bunyonyi was worth the extra night!
We eventually returned to Kabale, and several of the people decided they were going to go out that night. I was in a better mood by that point but definitely was not looking for a crazy night, and I went back to my room and crashed. The next morning, after a couple hours spent pulling everyone out of bed and threatening to leave people behind, we were on the road within an hour of our scheduled departure…I was fairly pleased with that.
The trip started off well, but issues came up again once we reached Mbarara, about halfway to Kampala. At this point, the coordinator informed us that we were completely out of money. He got creative at this point, though, and instead of asking everyone to contribute a little more, he decided to turn the bus into a glorified mutatu. So, we started picking up people along the side of the road who were looking for a ride to Kampala. The money we charged them went to buying fuel.
It wasn’t a bad idea, except for the fact that our bus was already full. After picking up about 5 people, the people on the bus started complaining…fairly vocally…about space issues (which was the first time I’d ever heard people complain about personal space in Africa). At this point, chaos returned. The coordinator got frustrated and told everyone that we had picked up to get out of the bus. But then the people riding the bus realized this meant they were going to have to pay more, and they decided to let the newcomers stay.
I had lucked out and gotten the very front seat, across from the driver, for the whole trip. It was nice because I had a little extra room, and even had a seat belt to myself. However, the only thing that separated me from oncoming traffic was the full-length windshield, so if we ended up getting into a collision, well, I opted not to think about that scenario. By this point in the trip, I had quit offering suggestions and was just sitting in the front trying to imagine if there was possibly anything else that could go wrong. I was also trying to document everything that was happening, because I knew I couldn’t think up a story this good!
Eventually the chaos calmed and we continued on our way. After a few more hours of listening to the same cassette tape of sappy love songs over…and over…and over (I now know every word to the song “Hero” by Enrique Igelsias), we arrived at the outskirts of Kampala. I let out a sigh of relief, believing the end to be near. Just as I did that, the bus shuddered and came to a halt, and, of all locations, while we were going up a hill. I looked at the bus driver who just shrugged and said “out of fuel.”
Of course, this happened right in the middle of typically crazy traffic in Kampala, so we spent the next 15 minutes diverting traffic in order to let the bus roll back down the hill. Luckily, there was a gas station not too far away. We let the bus roll as far as it would go, then we got several of us to team up and push it the rest of they way.
The problem with a diesel engine that runs out of fuel is that you can’t just put more fuel in the tank and start it up. Oh no, that would be far too easy. Instead, you have to bleed the air out of the lines and then prime the engine until fuel is coming into all cylinders. We spent the next hour waiting as the driver got the bus up and going again.
Finally, we were back on our way, and we eventually arrived back at Makerere University. Approximately 16 hours later than originally scheduled, beating the previous mark of 12 hours from my Kenya trip.
In summary, all I can say…TIA :)
Cheers!
Chris
P.S. I posted a few pictures from this trip on my “Staying busy…” Nov. 13 post. Also, as I was writing this out, I remembered that Ryan had taken a few pictures of us pushing the bus. Hopefully I’ll get those from him and get them posted here in the next couple days.
The Rwandan countryside. Just across the Uganda border, the valleys are filled with tea plantations.
A few local children came up to our bus when we pulled over for a pit stop
What? Boda-boda drivers with helmets? Weird...
Much of Rwanda's development is fueled by labor groups composed of convicted felons from the genocide. They're easy to pick out with their bright-colored uniforms
The Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre
1 comment:
Chris, I am so happy to read all your stories. Keep up the good work.
Mary/GSB
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