Beyond Kigali

Since my arrival in Rwanda, I have mostly been stayed in the Eastern Province and have not ventured further than Kigali.  So, with a two week break from my own training, I decided it was time to go to see some fellow volunteers.  My first port of call was to see Mary over near Lake Kivu, in the west.  The furniture was being delivered to her Teacher Resource Centre (TRC) so I volunteered to help her get rid of the old stuff and put in the new stuff.  Mary is a 2hr drive from Kigali.  We met up in the capital and travelled out together.  It was a very scenic journey and the town Mary lives in, about 15km from the Lake is lovely with a lively market and several bars which serve delicious brochettes and potatoes.  After much movement of furniture, we retired for a cup of tea and then to the local bar for some food.  I have to say, the brochettes really were delicious and far superior to the ones I can get where I live.  Next day, we visited Kibuye (Karongi) on the shores of Lake Kivu.  The sun was shining brightly when we arrived, so we went for a scenic walk around the town and along by the Lake.  Everything looked lush and green, it really was beautiful.  We stopped off at a Church with a memorial to mark the events of 1994. 

It was a peaceful place to sit for a while and it had the most beautiful stained glass windows. We continued on into the town.  We stopped at a small beach on the edge of the lake and had a drink whilst admiring the view.

Then we continued on to a hotel/conference centre and stopped for lunch.  We had our books with us, so spent a bit of time reading whilst we waited for the food to arrive, and plenty of time looking out over the Lake too.  It felt a bit like being in the Italian Lakes.  The weather was beautiful and the scenery was superb, it is definitely somewhere I want to go back to and I think any visitors to the country would be impressed by it.  Mary and I sauntered back to the bus via the market and purchased some cloth in there. 

Last week, I had arranged to go and shadow Isy, who was running workshops in her district.  We had all heard that she lived in a far off place, but I really had my eyes opened to how lucky I am in my placement.  I set off at 7:30 one morning.  I got a bus at 8am and it took 2hrs to Kigali and then another half hour across town to the main bus park.  I then managed to be incredibly lucky and get straight on a bus bound for Huye (formerly known as Butare).  This journey took nearly 2 and a half hours.  On arrival in Huye, I went to buy my ticket for the next leg of the journey.  I had a long wait and I really was hungry, so I had some lunch and then a wander around town.  I then boarded the next bus.  unfortunately this was a small bus and I had a large bag, so it had to sit on my lap for the journey.  This journey was on dirt roads so it was, to say the least, uncomfortably bumpy.  After 2 and a half hours, the bus arrived in the village of Munini – the end of the route.  I had rung Isy in advance, so she had sent her moto driver to meet me.  It was then a 30min moto journey to Isy’s house.  So, I eventually arrived at 5:30 in the evening.  It was getting dark, but I could see that it really was a very beautiful part of the world that I had arrived in.  Isy has no electricity or running water, but she did make a reviving cup of tea, for which I was very grateful.  We also had a lovely meal which had been cooked earlier in the day – rice, chips and a stew.  It was very tasty.  Before it got very dark, Isy (who had 2 other volunteers visiting at the same time!), Jo, Mark and I set off for the nearest village, which was about a 15min walk away.  We went to a bar for a drink.  We had a lovely chat and eventually walked back with the help of our torches and got ready for bed.

The next morning, we were up early to get ready for the training session.  Motos arrived at 8am and the four of us set off in convoy – much to the delight of everyone we passed.  FOUR abazungu!  The school where the training was being carried out was a 30min journey away and a small part of this we had to walk as the road had got wet in the rain and was impassable by moto.  We had a great morning of training – discussing the importance of visual aids and how to use them effectively.  The last part of the session was when teachers got a chance to make their own rice sack visual aids.  In the afternoon, we returned to Isy’s and went for lunch at the local bar.  We had some very tasty brochettes and potatoes.  Then Mark and Jo headed for the bus to return to their respective placements.

Isy and I decided we would go for a walk to explore the valley near her, so we set off down the hillside.  The hills are really endless here and as with much of the country, they are covered in lush green vegetation.  On our way down the steep and very narrow track, we passed many people on their way up with jerry cans of water.  We discovered at the end of the descent, that they had filled them up from a stream that ran along the valley floor.  To reach the stream, you had to cross an area of swampy land that had many pools of stagnant water.  Once over the other side of the valley, we started to look for a way up to Isy’s house.  This was quite fun and we tried out several narrow tracks before finding the right ones.  In some places, we were a bit lost, but we just had to ask any of the children trailing us which way to go and they pointed us in the right direction.  Then it started to rain – we had been watching the rain approach across the hills, so were prepared and donned our raincoats.  Another local child then guided us back towards the road so our walk home would be easier.  However, the rain quickly passed and we continued on our walk, stopping to greet many of the locals and explaining we were walking to look at the hills (we received plenty of laughs after saying this).  Once back at the house, we had a cup of tea and ate the food that had been prepared for dinner.  As darkness arrived, we decided we would make use of the charge on my laptop to watch a film (it is very hard for Isy to charge her laptop and telephone as she does not have electricity and most of the schools she goes to don’t either.  However, electricity pylons were on their way towards her house and she may soon be able to connect to it.  We decided upon a film and settled down to watch it.  Unfortunately 5mins before the end of the film, the battery ran out and we could not see the conclusion to the film.  How frustrating!  So we went to bed instead and read our books for a while.

The next morning we were to go and do another training session.  We started to get ready, but the weather had turned from being a beautiful clear and sunny day the day before, to being very cloudy with quite limited visibility.  The surrounding hills were invisible – in fact it was almost hard to see the latrine at the end of Isy’s garden.  Then the rain began – I had just managed to get a wash in the shed outside before it really started to bucket down.  The rain did not stop until after 11am.  The training was due to start at 9am, but as it was raining, the motos had not come.  They cannot get through on the roads when it rains hard.  We sat around reading and drinking tea and hoping the sky might clear.  Unfortunately it rained for the entire time the training session was meant to last, but we eventually had a short break in the rain and managed to get to Munini in order to get a bus to Huye.  The moto ride to Munini was a bit hairy – the roads were muddy and sticky in places and we had to walk a hill as it was not possible for the moto to get up it.  I was so relieved to be able to get the bus to Huye as I knew what a long journey home it was and I was hoping to break it in Kigali.  By this time, the rain had started up again, so we were very lucky to leave when we did – otherwise I would have been there for at least another day!  Enormous respect to Isy who has been in her placement for a year and has one more left.  Despite the difficulties, she has done an excellent job and really seems to be a part of the community.  I now realise just how lucky I am to have electricity and water (most of the time) and tarmac roads for some of my journeys!