The Adventure is In the Journey

Back from Christmas, I’ve resettled into my normal flow. Pouring hours into my research during the week and taking time on the weekends to get some time outside the city. Honestly, I do not have too too much time left in Rwanda, so I have some packed weekends ahead trying to fit in as much as I can. I realize that, to this point, I haven’t really given any research updates. That is intentional. I plan to dedicate some space to communicating my processes, challenges, and results toward the end of my time here. My work spans some sensitive subjects. That means an open, online forum doesn’t quite reach the levels of discretion I want to maintain in discussing my in-progress findings. But if you are interested in a briefing now, I am happy to take a phone call! 

The past two weekends, I travelled into the north of Rwanda – I think I have decided that is my favorite province. And while I loved both my weekend destinations, I almost preferred the journeys themselves. Last weekend, two friends and I drove from Kigali up to Lake Burera, one of two twin lakes in the north of Rwanda. The drive is pretty easy – there is a well-paved road between Kigali and Musanze, the main northern city. But instead, we decided to drive around a more rough track in order to pass directly between the two lakes and catch a legendary view. It stormed heavily the evening prior. So while we were still on the main road, there was a point where some trees had fallen across the path. Cars and trucks were at a standstill in both directions, and a few men with axes ran into the road to try to split the trunk and clear the logs. They were not making too progress all that quickly and the trucks started to get impatient. So an onlooking woman with a no-nonsense look on her face jumped up onto the road, told the men off, grabbed the tree by a branch, and dragged the whole thing off the side of the cliff. Everyone cheered. 

I think watching that scene at about 6:30 in the morning just reinforced for me a reality of living in a country like Rwanda. If a tree is on a major road, there no company is coming to clear it. There aren’t any – and if there were, there would not enough time to get one out anyway. At that spot in the road, you can go forwards and backward. But unless you want to drive all the way back to the closest major city, there is no other way to get to your destination. People rely on that road. And so the woman cleared the tree. It did not matter that the road has almost nothing to do with her village and farm to the side of it. She grows most of what she eats. Someone had to do it quickly and she was there. 

The remainder of the drive was incredible – albeit very very bumpy. We stopped en-route for tea at a lodge that occupies a prime overlook of the Volcanoes National Park. And then continued on to our final destination, an island called Cyuza in the middle of lake Burera. Burera sits in the shadow of the volcanoes national park, with one of the taller volcanoes, Muhubura, dominating the skyline. Camping and kayaking with the volcano brooding over us is a feeling that I cannot really describe. From our distance, we could barely see the top of the mountain. And yet, I do not really think I got a true idea of its size.

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This past weekend, I took a day trip to visit another friend who lives about an hour north of Kigali. A while back, we planned to visit the sorwathe tea factory. This weekend was the first chance we got. So I jumped on an early bus from the Kigali Bus park to meet her at her village site. On the bus, I sat next to a fascinating older gentleman. For anonymity sake, I will not provide any further details, but we had what proved to be one of the most interesting and yet unnerving conversations of my time in Rwanda. As we drove from from Kigali on the hour ride, he explained the role various sites along the way played in the 1994 genocide. One anecdote that stuck with me was a school house he showed me to about three quarters of the way to my destination. There, he said, soldiers asked the secondary students to separate themselves into their tribal affiliations. They refused, he told me, saying, “we are all one.” So the soldiers killed them all. It strikes me how recent the history soaks the ground. It is so easy to walk around Kigali or rattle on a bus through the hills without seeing the ghosts that float past the window. For just one hour, the veil fell a bit for me. And I am not sure it will ever quite go back on. 

I will write about the conversation more eventually at a future time and in a different medium. But I want to emphasize how unusual this is. Identifying with a tribe in Rwanda is illegal. Stories are told to mostly through museums and books. People who experienced the violence very rarely talk about it. Rarer still is to have that conversation in a public place. And even more rare is for a Rwandan person to discuss it with an outsider. The entire time, despite the genuineness of our discussion, I was keenly aware that it was not a conversation I was supposed to be having. This gentleman had spent a number of years living and studying in the US, and so that is how our conversation began. But I certainly know enough not to ask probing questions about politics or history in this context, so I am not sure how or why he decided to trust me with his story. But he did. And I will not be able to forget it easily.

I got off the bus at Base (Ba-Say), the closest market town to where my friend Sarah is posted for her job. From there, we hailed some moto cars and took about a 45 minute ride up a mountain to the tea plantation. There, we took a tour of the factory and learned all about the gathering, wilting, rolling, cutting, fermenting, and drying process that tea leaves undergo to make it into the market. We also go the chance to taste all their different types of tea! The plantation is on the top of a mountain, so the views of the tea fields were incredible. I don’t know that I will ever be satisfied with the scenery in any other country ever again. Everywhere I go in Rwanda has such an incredibly scene. 

Anyway, I wrote this a day ago but my wifi wasn’t strong enough to connect to my blog site. So I’m going to make sure I take advantage of my current connection and end this here before its too late. I have some research travel down to the south in the middle of my week. And then this coming weekend, Im off to Uganda to see some more lakes! Enjoy these pictures posted below. And know that I am always happy to receive your emails and calls! 

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