Ruhengeri

Ruhengeri... or Musanze as it is now called has changed so much in the last ten years.  I barely recognise the main street - so many more buildings, shops, people, motos, traffic...its almost like I remember Kigali (the capital) being 10 years ago.  I dread to think how busy Kigali now is, no doubt I'll find out at some point!  The market is the only thing that has stayed the same... I tried to take some covert photos yesterday when Justus and I went shopping.  There was a power cut so it was completely dark inside the middle of the market, but I got some photos on the periphery.  I just love the vibrant colour of the fruit and vegetables, not to mentiont the taste.  Avocados and tomatoes are so good here.  And I have found I can eat the little, slightly bigger than finger-length bananas here which is brilliant! I find English bananas difficult to digest, but these ones are part of my staple diet!

Pam's house

This is Pam's house from the front.  After breakfast I was too excited to wait for everyone to get dressed and ready, so I went for a wander around the local area.  Theoretically I aimed to walk in a square, and thus not get lost.  Those of you who know me well will be suspecting you know the end of this story... but wait!  

Here are some photos of my little trip out:

You can see it was still cloudy, but the sun is coming and going.  The rainy season started literally a few days before I arrived, so we are dodging the rain somewhat, but I can tell you that whenever it is sunny I am outside!!



I found what I thought was Tubakunde House...luckily I didn't hang around too long trying to look in the window, as I found out later I had misjudged it by one, and was looking at the house next door!!  I am planning to go back soon and find Kazu - he has been the guard ever since 2007 when I was first here, and althought he spoke no English beyond "Hello Emma" we somehow found plenty of ways to communicate, and he taught me lots of Kinyarwandan by pointing at things and repeating the word slowly for me!

OK, ok... the end of the story. I did get lost.  I was just thinking that it would have been sensible to have noted the name of the school opposite Pam's house, and possibly even her address in case of emergency, but I had done neither of those things.  I was about to get my phone out and attempt to explain to Pam where I was (those of you who have followed this story from the beginning will know that she is deaf, and really needs to be able to lip read to understand easily...so a phone description from me telling her I didn't know where I was would not have been the most straight-forward thing!!!)  Just as I was about to dial, I found myself back at the house!  Haha...the magic of Africa.

A veranda in Rwanda

I was so incredibly excited to wake up on Saturday morning... More so even than Christmas morning! It was early - about 6am England time but I couldn't stay in bed any longer, I wanted to see Rwanda!! Of course it was dark when I got off the plane, so I saw very little out of the car window, and although we sat on the veranda for half an hour when we got home, it was pitch black but for the lights from our phones as Pam and I caught up on the last ten years of change in Ruhengeri.

The question I suppose you're asking is why did we sit on the veranda in the pitch black being nibbled by mosquitoes at 11.30pm when I was up at 3am. And it's a good question. We arrived home to find that Pam's house girl had locked the door with a random padlock and hidden the key as requested under a wooden plank. Much searching under said concrete block heralded no key, the house girl wasn't answering her phone so Justus (Pam's Rwandan 'son') and Gregory, the guard, went off in the car to find where she lived...she had moved recently so this was also not simple! Anyway, they woke her up to discover that she had buried the key in some soil, under said wooden plank. You would never know that the house had a double locked gates, 4 high walls round it and a guard... I think under the doormat might have worked just as well...

So... From the veranda in Rwanda at night, to the veranda in Rwanda by day... I have been looking forward to having breakfast in the sun on his veranda since Pam told me about it 3 years ago...and it didn't disappoint! (though with it being the rainy season there wasn't much sun.) I'm very excited by the array of birds including kites which just mosey about with the frequency of English pigeons.  If you're interested, these are the kind of things http://wildlifewoods.net/blog/2017/3/17/birds-of-kigali   (the variable sunbird on this list is a thing of absolute beauty... I thought it was a hummingbird as it was drinking nectar but apparently you only get hummingbirds in the Americas.  My plan is to camp out in the garden every morning until they get used to me and come close!

And in the front garden, I found these...

                

Travelling alone

One of the nice things about travelling alone are the people you meet; those who might want a chat because they are also travelling alone. A few minutes, or a few hours spent with people you know you will most likely never see again can seem pointless, but on the other hand it is about connecting with humanity and doing it gives you a sense of belonging to a race of friendly supportive people, something I think we can lose sight of in the current political climate.

From the woman with a husband and two young children on her way to Thailand, who envied my travelling alone, to the 17 year old travelling alone for the first time to America, who I befriended so that when she left her mother she had someone to talk to, to the Ugandan lady I sat next to on the plane who now lives in London and is visiting her family for the first time in 3 years. I only found out their names as we parted, but it doesn't matter, the stories we shared and the connections we made were valuable even if we never see each other again. Three very different lives all continuing unaware of the others.

I find myself wondering if they got where they were going. Particularly the Ugandan who travelled for 10 hours yesterday when the plane turned round half way and she ended up back in Brussels as they were denied entrance into the airspace poverty the Sudan. Today we are going round this airspace so the journey is a little longer than predicted... But nothing compared to what she went through yesterday! I am writing this in the air, and I don't want to jinx it, but so far my journey has been way more easy than hers!

Brussels

I'm now in Brussels... Only an hour till the next flight leaves. Surrounded by Africans, I feel like I'm going to my spritual home ... Pretty sure I am an African born into the wrong skin!

I really wanted to jump out of the window and land in those fluffy clouds... They really looked like you could romp through them. I didn't.

Beginning to feel like I've been up since 3am which is hardly surprising. Got a few mins sleep on the last leg, but the next one lasts 8 and a half hours (I think .. Haven't quite worked out the time difference!) so there must be some sleep age soon. Wondering how many meals they give us too....

Liquids

3am is an ungodly hour to be woken by a hotel phone call. Luckily/unluckily I was not asleep at the time!! The day got off to a slightly wet start when I tipped half a bottle of water over myself in the shuttle to the airport... Had to explain to the driver that, though me and the seat were rather wet, it was only water and I hadn't wet myself. I then had the same conversation when I was pat-searched at security. Here's something to consider... I actually took a lot more than the allowable amount of liquids through as it was soaked into my jeans!

Now waiting at the gate, can't believe it's still only 5am... Not sure when I'll next have Internet after this, so I'll check in with you when I can. So far, so good!

Meant to be...?

Recently I did a personality profile which suggested I might have the potential to be impulsive. I examined this idea and decided it just didn't really fit. In the same week the following occurred...

I haven't been to Rwanda for ten years, and it is twelve years since I lived there for 6 months. Talking to my friend, Pam, who lives out there, I discovered she was going to take some time off work over Easter.  As my own Easter plans had fallen through I had a brief look at flights - normally dismissed as way out of my price range, but on this occasion half the amount they usually are. Within 24 hours of formulating the idea, my flights were booked, I'd ordered my anti-malarials and started the process of booster injection booking. Everything fell into place incredibly easily...sometimes the universe just seems to agree with a decision! This was a couple of weeks ago and I travel on Friday!

So, if you're interested in reading about more Rwanda adventures, keep an eye on this blog for the next couple of weeks...

Still musing on the idea that I'm impulsive....!