Sleepless Nights

Sometimes I yearn for the oddly comforting disturbances of a night at home.  In the dead silence of a Kibungo night I wish to hear those sounds that remind me there are others out there, not too far away.  Here, if I strain, I might hear the low hum of the outside light, or the buzz of the refrigerator.  Sometimes I hear the distant, low sound of a radio and, as the wind direction swings around in the rainy season, I can hear the chorus of frogs in the swamp down the road.  After about 10:30 there are scarcely any bikes, cars or other traffic going along the main road.  I find myself nostalgic for the distant squeal of the tram, the rumble of a train, the reassuring nearness of someone opening a car door, closing it and starting up the ignition.  I am clearly a bit of a town mouse.

I hope to hear the conversation of people passing by along the street and I hear the occasional whoosh of a car going by.  I lie awake waiting for the reassuring sounds of other humans.  I’ve come to be grateful for the occasional all night sessions at the local church and the belching of compression brakes on buses and trucks on the road.  I dislike the ping of the latest plague (this time grasshoppers) hitting the corrugated roof and the banging of the roof contracting and expanding.  I don’t mind the high pitched squeals of the bats, but I do mind the thud as they fly into the beams in the roof.  I hear the scurry of things in the roof space and the buzz of hundreds of insects outside.

I lie awake and listen to these sounds in the silence and I am relieved when daylight arrives and once again I can hear singing and shouts and radios and bikes and taps running and pots clanging and mortars pounding.  And then I know I am never really alone.

The End is Nigh

Now that my time in Rwanda is so very near its end, I find myself in turn being either dreadfully sentimental about the things I shall miss or so glad that there are things I will not have to go through once I am home.  A few nights ago, as I hurtled up and down the hills of Kigali on the back of a motorbike, I thought about how much I shall miss this.  It is a nice way to travel.  But I shall not miss the edge of danger that always surrounds each journey – especially having witnessed so many accidents and having experienced one myself.

I will miss the lovely climate of Rwanda.  It is nearly always t-shirt weather.  But I won’t miss the dreadful downpours of rain that make it almost impossible to get on and do anything – not even have a conversation as the sound of the rain on the tin roof is so loud.

I will not miss being called Muzungu and being stared at.  Or the children and adults who ask me for money just because I am white and considered to be rich.  I will not miss the 2 hour waits for the food I ordered in a restaurant or the lack of choice in a supermarket.  However, I won’t have the joy of walking along the street and having a small child hold onto mine as we walk along together.  Or others who run up to shake hands or hug my legs.

I will miss the ridiculous joy experienced now when I walk into a supermarket that appears to stock nice food – when in reality it may be the kind of shop I would not spend a minute in at home before choosing to leave.  I am looking forward to being able to walk into a shop and purchase a pint of fresh milk, which I can either drink or pour over a large bowl of cereal.  I will look back fondly at the time I stood in Ndoli’s supermarket and wept and laughed with joy at the fact that the chocolate aisle had once again been replenished with Cadbury’s chocolate after a six month absence of it. 

The beautiful skies, which seem so big compared to the UK – I am not sure how that is possible, but they do.  And spread out below them green and brown hills and valleys looking lush and fertile.  I will have to go back to stressing about things like money and time.  No more laid back approach if the bus breaks down, it changes destination, or the rain makes it impossible to travel down a particular route.

The interesting shop names will be another sad loss.  I am still searching for the best: Holy Best Hardware and God is Able Forex are two favourites.  Along with the New Orange Kink hardware store.

There will be no one to talk to on the bus or the tube.  All eyes will be purposely directed away from any possible eye contact and to start a conversation with a stranger will be seen as a mental defect on my part.  On the plus side I am not going to be constantly asked for my telephone number or email when I have only just met someone so that we can “make the conversation”.

I am going to miss the people who have been so kind to me whilst I am here.  The staff I have worked with in the schools who greet me with hugs and make me feel welcome.  I will miss so much, but I know I am ready to leave and I hope one day I will be back.

Living the (stereotypical) dream

There are some days when I go about my business and I feel like the environment around me is conforming to every stereotypical image we have of life in African countries.  This morning, for instance, I stepped out of the house into the sunny morning.  The birds were singing in the air around and I went out the gate to the mud-track road.  I picked my way through the dirt and fresh formed ruts after the heavy rain of the previous day, meeting a few people and exchanging greetings with them as I went.  As I turned the corner to walk up towards the main road, I could hear music coming from a nearby shop.  It was loud and cheerful and the typical soundtrack to any film that is set in Africa (and which has probably been conceived in Europe or North America).  Still, it was cheering and as I avoided the waiting moto drivers and walked along the street, I did feel it put a little spring in my step.  Why is the music so cheery?  Is it just that I don’t understand the words and meaning?  Although occasionally I can pick out “Imana” and I know the song is being sung to God.  Not at all like the dour hymns I was brought up on....

As I saunter along the street weaving between bikes and people and animals, I pass the Feel Okey pub and see the Never Give Up business consultancy, the Blessed Hope hardware store and the God Bless You Stationery store.  The names still bring a smile to my face.  I pass new houses which are beautifully finished and look grand, but sandwiched in between them are small shacks and crumbling old houses.  People shout and call to each other and the bus toots as it crawls along the street.  The conductor shouts out the destination in an attempt to get more passengers on board.  Every moto that passes slows when they reach me and call “To go?”  I decline their offer and continue walking to my destination, narrowly missing a drop into the deep drain along the edge of the road as I try to swerve and avoid a fast approaching man with a chain of supermarket trolleys (where is the supermarket to which these trolleys belong?).

All around are people and cars and bustle.  There are people in modern clothing and some women are in brightly coloured outfits beautifully tailored from local cloth.  Children scurry along in their uniforms or play clothes.  MTN and Tigo sellers approach and call out “Airtime?”  I shake my head and decline and pass along the street to be met by sellers of Airtel airtime.  Taxi drivers stop and shout “Taxi?”  I shake my head.  I continue walking; trying hard to keep on the path now that I am near the market and the volume of people has significantly increased.  And then I am safely at my destination and I call into the office where I have come to discuss some work.  I slip in off the street to the calm and quiet corridors of an office block and enjoy the quiet for a while.

Bike Dramas

Recently, I set off in the bright sunshine at 6:45.  It is always so uplifting to be out in the sun and it always makes the journey seem that much prettier.  We were on our way to the land of far, far away.  About an hour into the journey, going over some particularly bad roads, we stopped and checked the back tyre which was really flat.  We were in the middle of nowhere, of course.  Safari set off back towards the nearest village and I walked along behind surrounded by a group of children who were on their way to school (even though it was about 20mins after the day should have started!).  We exchanged a few words, but my limited Kinyarwanda and their limited English made this tricky.  At the top of the next hill, Safari had found someone to help.  Words were exchanged and various things occurred and then he disappeared off in the direction of the village.  I began chatting to the children again.

To try and fill the silences, I pulled a story book out of my bag and started to show it to the children.  We began reading it together.  They seemed to quite enjoy it.  And we had soon gathered quite a crowd.  We had adults as well as children, and everyone was joining in with the repetitive sections and all laughing at my voices and animal noises.  This story over, we read another story about a very popular elephant character.  At about this time, a moto arrived with a guy on the back who jumped off with a pump and some glue and some basic tools and he proceeded to set to work on the bike.  They loved the next story – especially all the pictures of elephants and we spent some time looking at all the other wild animals he was friends with.  Again, the crowd consisted of many, many children, but also several adults who were on their way in one direction or the other.  They pulled up with piles of beans on their heads, or their bicycles loaded with bananas and jerry cans and there were small children strapped to the backs of mothers.  We then had some more conversation and the children and adults who were more confident in English practised on me.  Then, someone had gone to a nearby house and brought out a stool for me to sit on.  As they did this, Safari returned from the village and instructed me to “sit, Alice!”

We continued to make conversation for the next 20mins or so.  At this point we had been there for about 45mins.  It made me think back to when I first arrived.  I would have been very stressed by such a delay on my way to one of my schools.  I may even have been foolish enough to demand a replacement moto be found to take me on my way.  Now, I just smile, say “no problem” and wait until we are ready to go again.  I know the Head Teacher and Teachers will understand.

After an hour, the tyre was repaired and we were good to go.  I walked over to the house where the stool had come from to thank them for the loan.  I realised as I approached the women that one of them was cradling a very small baby.  It was tiny and cannot have been more than a couple of days old.  I was offered a cuddle and spent a few moments congratulating the new mother and admiring her beautiful new baby.  I then hopped on the back of the moto and everyone exchanged goodbyes and waves and off we went laughing and smiling.

Bike dramas feature every now and then and the latest was yet another example of the bizarre reaction I still get from people in the more rural parts of the district.  It had been a busy morning at school and I set off with Safari to return to Kibungo.  This particular journey is about 30mins and although the roads are all dirt roads, they are generally very wide and in relatively good condition.  We were about half way and about to start on an incline, so had slowed a bit.  Safari had nudged right over to the side of the road and we were extremely close to the ditch.  Safari is an excellent driver and I usually drop into some kind of day-dream on the moto, which is exactly what I was doing at this point in our journey.  However, something did not seem right, so I looked up and I could see a young man on a push bike hurtling down the hill we were about to head up.  As he travelled down, he was veering over to our side of the road.  Now, this is not unusual, as some parts of the road are quite gullied, but this guy could see us.  He was looking at us.  Yet he continued to head straight for us.  Things happened in slow motion and seemed unreal.  He came closer and closer, and we got closer and closer to the ditch and the next thing that happened, was I felt him crash into the side of the moto, near the back.  Just about where my left foot was resting on the foot plate.  The moto was sent flying by the impact and I remember a short flight through the air and landing with a bit of a bump and then the moto landed on top of that.  Thankfully, someone had recently cultivated the field at the side of the road, so I had a very soft landing in a new potato crop.  As I was near the back of the bike, I did not have too much of it sat on me.  I was stunned for all of about 3 seconds, and then I sat up.  Safari did too, and I could see the cyclist was stirring.  Not too bad so far.  I had lost a shoe and was covered in dirt, but seemed to have full range of movement.  Safari was soon up and shouting.  A crowd gathered and they began shouting too.  The poor guy from the push bike tried shouting back.  I think he was trying to claim it was our fault.  From the gesticulations and shouting, everyone appeared to be telling him it was clearly not our fault as you could see from the position of the vehicles we were as far over our side of the road as we could possibly be.

More people began to gather around us.  Some were joining in the shouting and gesticulating and others formed a private circle around me and stared.  Sometimes smiling; sometimes not.  The motorbike was picked up and there had been a spill of petrol as the tank got knocked and some small damage had occurred around the footplate where the bike had hit.  The push bike was mangled.  The guy who had been on the bike was badly cut.  I felt pangs of sympathy.  He was cut and he had wrecked his bike.  Everyone was shouting at him.  This was a bad day for him.  It makes you think about insurance – who pays when something like this happens here?  People could have their entire livelihood affected.

As the crowd of curious on-lookers gathered, I was directed by Safari to follow him.  I was led up to a nearby house and the owner appeared from around the back with a bench.  She placed it under the shade of a tree and smiled at me and pointed and told me to sit.  I did as I was told, thanking her.  Safari handed me my shoe, which had got buried under the moto.  I had a few seconds alone before my crowd reappeared, so I assessed the damage.  I felt ok, but my foot hurt.  Taking off my sock, I could see that my toenail had been forced into my flesh and that was causing me some pain. The other source of the pain, was the site of impact and my big toe was quite bruised.  But I could move it.  Other than a few more small cuts and bruises from where the bike had landed on the inside of my opposite leg, all seemed well.  I was just a little shaky.

My crowd gathered again.  Many of them were children on their way to the afternoon school session.  The nearest school was one that I visited each fortnight, so some of the children were proudly telling other on-lookers what my name was and what job I did.  Being able to follow the conversation, I joined in to agree with what they were saying.  This provoked laughter from my audience and shouts of “She speaks Kinyarwanda!” and “Nice Girl!”  I made small talk with some children and some of them were bold enough to respond.  Many of them squealed with laughter, turned and ran away.  One small boy came and sat next to me and introduced himself as Sharif.  We exchanged pleasantries.  Adults also joined the crowd and peered over the heads of the children.  Smiling and waving at me and asking how I was.  A small boy toddled to the front of the circle, took one look at me and burst into tears.  He had to be sushed by his mother but continued to cry every time he caught a glimpse of me.

Safari had disappeared.  The bicycle had been carried off by some men and Safari had gone somewhere on his moto with the cyclist.  They returned about 45mins later and I can only assume that they had been to the Police Station to report what had happened.  It was quite frustrating to have no clear idea of what was happening and makes you realise the importance of being able to communicate.

Eventually, Safari returned with the cyclist and the adults began shoo-ing the children away to school so that they would not be late.  Safari called me over and we prepared to continue on the journey.  We said our goodbyes and departed for home.  It was with huge relief we arrived back in town and I was so glad to be back.  Safari was terribly apologetic, but, as I pointed out, it really wasn’t his fault at all.