Going down south - day 1

Mar 21st

After breakfast Els changes her mind and decides that she doesn’t want to come to Gikongoro with us after all; she wants to spend Easter with another of her group, Hester, who lives at Rusumo. Now Rusumo is right on the border with Tanzania; its way past Akagera and a long, long journey to get to. It’s the furthest out placement from Kigali; in fact it’s so far away that on her telephone she gets a Tanzanian service rather than the Rwandan one. Els’ll certainly take the whole of Friday to get to Hester, and need the whole of Sunday to get back, but that’s what she’s decided to do.

So we leave her to it and take the matata to Butare. I know Butare well by now, so it’s “Bruce’s tours” round the museum, the Belgian quarter and the middle of town. I don’t particularly need to go round the museum again, but I’m interested to find that some souvenirs there seem cheaper than at the craft co-operative in town. At the museum there’s intore dancing and drumming going on all morning; it sounds wonderful in the background. Unfortunately it’s a private booking for a group, so we can’t gatecrash it.

At the Matar supermarket we chat to the manager, who’s fast becoming a lifeline to all the VSOs in the south. (He sells a wide range of stuff and his prices are very reasonable). Turns out he and his brother used to run a supermarket in Kigali, and even in Kigali were a staple of VSO life (there’s lots of references to them in the VSO Cookbook compiled around 2003), but something happened – I reckon he fell foul of powerful people in the city – and they decided to relocate to Butare. They’re about to open a restaurant/café in an extension, and I’m sure it will give Hotel Ibis a run for its money. Good job, too!

In the afternoon we catch another matata to Gikongoro. It’s now new ground for me, as well as Marisa. For the first few miles we run through a beautiful wooded valley, with rice paddies along the whole of the bottom and sugar cane on the lower slopes. Then we pass the jam factory where all the jam I eat comes from! Next we pass fields of coffee on the upper slopes. The hills are closing in on us and getting higher; we’re really talking mountains now, rather than hills. This is the coffee growing part of Rwanda; it’s where the Marabou coffee is grown. We chug past the experimental station and coffee washery. This is some of the best coffee anywhere in the world, and deserves far more fame and publicity than it gets.

Next, the road starts climbing steeply. Some fields are terraced, but there’s a lot of farming on ridiculously steep slopes, and I can see why soil erosion is particularly an issue in this area. The views are simply wonderful; it’s like Byumba but the valleys are tighter and narrower. Much, much prettier than Gitarama, but I still think my area with its thousand hills is the “soul” of Rwanda.

We reach Gikongoro, which is also called Nyamagabe. (It’s rather like Gitarama & Muhanga; sometimes the two words are used almost interchangeably. If you’re a local there’s no problem but it’s almost calculated to be confusing to outsiders). As we get off our bus in the bus park we’re hailed by Mans, who’s on his way home to Gacerenda in another bus, and immediately see Tiga and Caroline who are arriving from Butare in a third. Five muzungus all together brings things to a halt, as usual.
Tiga and Caroline are starving, so we go to their favourite bar and have brochettes and ibirayi and a cold beer. I’m deciding the brochettes/ibirayi combination is the definitive Rwandan culinary experience! Thunder is crashing away in the distance and its clear there’s a storm coming. Caroline leaves us to go back to Butare; there’s a band playing at the University and she’s going to listen to them with a friend and stay in Butare overnight.

We’re to stay in Samira’s house because she’s away all week, and there aren’t enough rooms chez Tiga. Samira lives right next to the main road from Butare to Nyungwe and Cyangugu (and hence to the Congo). There’s a fair amount of traffic passing, but not anywhere near as much as past our flat in Gitarama. She’s painted the interior bright blue, and has decorated really artistically inside with bamboo, banana leaves, and photos. Makes me feel ashamed that I haven’t done more to personalise our place!

We dump our stuff at Samira’s, and then Tiga takes us to see her place. It’s about half a mile away, down a mud track. Thunder’s still booming and crashing all around. We pass the army barracks, with soldiers coming and going with AK47s slung over their shoulders; then the prison where the toilets seem to empty into an outside drain and the stench is overpowering for a couple of hundred yards. On, on, down hill past a community centre and sports field, and suddenly you’re at the school. Tiga is in one of a row of staff bungalows right next to the school itself – in a hundred yards she goes from home to classroom! She’s also right next door to the head teacher (who can be a bit too friendly at times, but is distantly related to the President and hence very safe and influential). Next door on the other side there’s a family with a baby who cries constantly…..

Tiga’s front garden is amazing. She’s got lettuces and all manner of vegetables; in a few weeks she’s be almost self sufficient in food. I feel so ashamed at how little I’ve managed to do. I wonder if I can arrange to find a plot of land to cultivate, after all. There’s a small walled yard at the back where Suerte, the rabbit lives. Suerte was supposed to be dinner a month or so ago, but looked so pretty that Tiga decided to keep her as a pet and fatten her up….. Suerte is the Spanish for “luck”; I reckon this rabbit’s stock of suerte is going to run out pretty soon!

Her house is really comfortable; there’s an outside squatter loo, and an outside shower room, but the electricity is reliable and she’s made the whole place very homely.

She takes us on a tour round her school. It’s by far the best equipped in the area, and in many ways it’s a waste of a placement for a VSO to be based there. They don’t need a westerner; we’re a luxury they like to have to boost their prestige. Makes you wonder about the criteria by which volunteers get assigned to positions.

Anyway, we speak to loads of the “children” (remember that in secondary schools here you’ve got pupils as old as their mid twenties in the 6th form) and escape back to her bungalow. Now we have spectacular lightning as well as thunder and it’s going to rain at any minute, so we all three hastily scamper up the hill back towards Samira’s. (Tiga’s going to sleep with us). Just as we reach home the storm begins, and for the next couple of hours you can barely hear yourself speak against the noise of rain on the roof.

Samira works for the PHARE project, which does HIV/AIDS prevention work in schools and youth clubs in Nyamagabe district. She’s not a teacher in one particular school, like Tiga, or covering education in general, like Marisa and I, but very specifically targeted towards teaching people about the dangers of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The project is funded largely through IrishAid, which is the Irish equivalent of VSO and is the parent body for all the southern Irish VSOs here. There’s all sorts of AIDS literature in the house, but on a ledge in the middle of the lounge are four wooden penises which she uses to show how condoms should be put on. I can assure you they’re fully life-sized and remarkably life-like (and, of course, they’re made of a black wood for added realism here), and they certainly make a striking room decoration. And yes, I’ve got photos to show you….. Good job Samira’s got the chutzpah to carry it all off. Nothing fazes her; she’s a wonderful person. What a pity she isn’t here to tell us some more of her stories…..

And so to bed while the storm rages. Best thing about today – meeting Tiga and Caroline, discovering how beautiful this little part of Rwanda is.
Worst thing about today – realising the Nyungwe trip tomorrow is going to be very expensive and will use up absolutely all my money till the end of March. Not sure how I’m going to manage, but no doubt Tom will give me a loan to keep me going!