First walk in the countryside
on Geri Skeen (Rwanda), 30/Jan/2011 10:11, 34 days ago
I’ve been out for a two hour walk. Closer to African pace than my usual speed as it’s like a hot English Summer’s day here, though with an occasional cool breeze. I walked out of town on the tar road and then turned off onto a dirt road which took me up a hill. Rwanda is all hills, and all of it I’ve seen so far is cultivated apart from the odd grove of trees. The houses never seem to be far apart, even outside towns and villages. Each has crops growing around it, most of which I don’t recognise, but always including banana trees, maize and potatoes plus quite a few avocado trees. Some houses have a couple of goats or a cow, also chickens. Many of the houses have a neat border of flowers in front, or a flowering hibiscus bush. Most of the houses were made from hand-made bricks. They look like they’re just soil and you see them drying in the sun when they’re first made. Most people then render over them. A few houses were made from factory-made bricks. The roofs were mostly tiled; the beams local saplings, with a lattice of smaller branches on which the tiles were laid. Mud was added round the edges. Most of the houses had doors and windows which had been bought.People stared, but no more than in Gitarama itself. Whenever I said hello, people replied, many smiling and some shaking my hand and saying things I couldn’t understand. I can manage,‘Mwaramutse’, to which the response is ‘Mwaramutse’. Then you say,‘Amakuru?’ to which the response is always ‘Ni meza’, even if you are at death’s door. Then you ask,‘Namwe?’ and they reply ‘Ni meza’. The conversation may end there, but if it goes on, then it’s totally behond me at the moment. Quite a few adults speak a bit of French though and the children can mostly speak a bit of English. Even though they no doubt thought me very odd walking through their village, people were polite and I didn’t feel unwelcome, just a bit uncomfortable at being such a spectacle. I’m sorry there are no photos but it doesn’t seem right to wander around with a camera.Back home now and pleased I managed that walk. I even bought two bananas for 6p on my way home from a very friendly woman in a tiny shop.This is all way outside my comfort zone though. I’d expected it to be a breeze coming back to Africa as I’d found South Africa so easy to be in. This feels very different though and almost everything is a challenge. I started sleeping better after a couple of nights in Kigali, but haven’t slept so well again since getting to Gitarama, so that’s not helping. It’s not that it’s noisy at night, just that I don’t feel relaxed here yet. Plus there’s a man with a drum who goes round shouting at 5.30am; the town alarm clock, I suppose. I’m rather dreading tomorrow, which will be my first full day in the office; hoping I’ll have the energy to get through the day. Then Tuesday is a public holiday. I’ll just take it one day at a time.  If I make it to Saturday, a friend of someone in the VSO office, who has a music studio, has offered to meet me in Kigali and show me where I can buy a guitar.