Buying a map in Rwanda

Feb 25th

My objectives for this week are:
to get these damn viruses off my computer
to get my hair cut before I go to the refugee camp

Back down to Butare on the seven o’clock bus. No front seat this time; I’m sat folded into three in the rear, so I don’t see much of the view and it’s a relief to get out.

Determined to get my business done in Butare as fast as possible and then back to Gitarama to the office. So I find where the “Banque Nationale de Rwanda” is located, at the far end of town. Typical Rwanda – there are signs pointing towards it from both directions, but absolutely nothing on the bank itself to say what it is. You have to guess that two bored guards outside with pump-action shotguns must mean a bank!

Settle up with the bank and get my all-important “facture” (receipt), then a quick dive into the Lebanese supermarket for some honey and into the craft co-operative where I splash out some of my recently changed euros and buy some carved wooden dishes. I like them and they’re typically Rwanda. They’re also not too bulky to bring home on a plane. I’m feeling organised and efficient and the weather isn’t too hot yet and I’ve just got to collect my map and pay for it and then I’m off.

So back to the G I S office and…..

…… all my day’s plans crash in ruins. Not only isn’t my map ready (it was promised for last Friday), but the woman has lost my order. Nobody’s done a thing all week. For God’s sake, it’s just a case of entering a few parameters on their computers and then printing the thing off! She tells me to come back at three o’clock, so now I’ve got six hours to waste here in Butare. It’s no good fuming at them, so I grit my teeth and wonder how the hell I’m going to spend the day. I’ve already been round the museum and I’ve walked most of the town. How do I waste a day in Butare?

I have a good mooch round the Belgian quarter; grassy avenues all with street lamps but no tarmac. It looks really odd. Some of the roads are more grass than earth. There are some huge buildings here, and several really do resemble bits of Brussels suburbia dropped into Rwanda. The Belgians went on a spree of investment in Rwanda in the 1930s; I suppose it was the high point of their colonial occupation and life must have been pretty good for them here. At this time Rwanda and Burundi were considered to be one country, and Butare was geographically in the centre, so it was designated as the capital city and renamed Astridia after a Belgian princess. Not only was there a splurge of house building but public buildings – cathedral, hotels, post office, the University etc – all date from this period. Now the big houses are occupied either by European expats or by senior staff from the University. Ensconced behind their high, glass-topped walls and sheltered from public gaze by seventy years worth of shrubs and flowerbeds, these houses offer just about the highest standard of living in the country outside Kigali.

By now its mid morning and heating up again, so I walk back through the town centre and decide to have a sit down inside the cathedral and have a rest, a drink and a nibble. The cathedral (biggest church in Rwanda) is almost deserted. It’s plain inside, like all their churches, with just a fabric backdrop behind the high altar. You really couldn’t find something much more of a contrast to those over-the-top churriguresque churches in Mexico! There’s no organ or any visible source of music. I’ve only been sitting for a few minutes when a girl/woman sidles up and asks to speak to me. (Sigh!) I know what this means. She’s going to make polite conversation for a couple of minutes and then ask me for money for her school fees. And she does. We’ve all decided as a matter of policy that we’re not going to give money, especially cash, to people unless there’s some pretty special circumstance (like the person being a child of your cleaner or boss or whatever), so I refuse with as much good grace as I can and leave the cathedral.

By now it’s seriously hot outside and I can feel myself burning up. I mooch out of town, determined to explore the University area. This is a good mile out of the main centre. There’s a long, leafy driveway and a lot of construction going on (halls of residence for women as part of the national strategy to get more women through higher education). At the end of the drive there’s a sign to the arboretum. That promises peace and shade for a couple of hours so I walk on. And on, and on.

The arboretum is a bit rundown, but beautifully quiet and with only a few students taking a stroll through it. Begun in the 1930s it was used to test which species of trees, especially Australian eucalypts, could be used for reforestation in Rwanda. So the whole thing is divided into blocks of about an acre, and each planted with just one species of tree. Some of the eucalypts have those flaky, paper-like barks; others have the oily leaves. I learn how to distinguish Casuarina from Cupressus from Callistris, and discover a grove of bamboo which is gorgeous to wander through. (Alas, no pandas). Some of the trees have wild bees’ nests in them and I hurry past with visions of killer bee attacks in mind! There are butterflies (dun, with brilliant yellow lines on the rear of their wings) and damselflies (transparent wings with prominent black rectangular markings). Under the trees it’s shady and fragrant and very peaceful.

Back into the town centre and I stretch a snack at the Hotel Ibis into an hour, buying a paper to give me something to do. Tony Blair is visiting Kigali; he’s very popular in Rwanda and the British Government’s huge investment here is obviously reaping dividends. But by two o’clock I’m hot and bored, so I go back to the G I S office and sit there until something is produced!

By three I’m on my way back home, with my map, on what turns out to be my most uncomfortable matata ride so far. We’re really squashed; I can’t sit back because there’s a woman behind me with a very small baby in a basket; my knees are jammed into the seat in front of me and the man sitting there is grumbling, and there’s no room to move sideways because I’ve got a couple of Twa tribesmen in amazingly ragged jackets clinging nervously to the seat next to me. You can tell that they feel out of place on the bus, and the other Rwandans on it are scathing towards them. Even I feel embarrassed at how they’re talking about them. The Twa are very small, fine boned and with delicate hands. They look as if someone’s taken a normal sized Rwandan and reduced them to about 80% size. One keeps glancing nervously at me as if he’s afraid I might attack him.

By now I’ve had a text from Cathie saying one of Elson’s friends is coming to their house with a virus killer disk, and can I get my machine to them a.s.a.p. Well, no I can’t, ‘cos I’m stuck on a slow bus. But when we eventually reach Gitarama and I fall (literally) out of the side door. I grab my laptop from home and hurry down to Cathie’s place. It’s thundering in the distance and looks as if there’s a mega storm brewing. What should be a quick fix on my laptop goes on for three hours and we still can’t fix it. A few minor viruses are removed, but this blessed Raila Odinga one is really nasty and seriously resistant. Théophile’s virus remover won’t touch it. We decide that Elson and I will meet up at an internet café in town early tomorrow and see if we can update the virus guard.

Back to our house dodging the showers; spectacular sheet lightning but relatively little rain – I’m lucky in not getting soaked.

Best thing about today – I’ve got my map; it’s not perfect but it’ll do for a start.
Worst thing – I’ve caught the sun; my virus is still there; I’ve wasted a day