Rwanda - land of a thousand weirdness

National borders are artificial constructs, and no more so than the colonial hangover that is Africa, however sometimes they do mark real and noticeable change. As we approached the Rwandan border from Uganda even the weather seemed to change, as five huge volcanoes reared up in front of use, indicating the border between these two East African nations.
Once we entered Rwanda everything seemed to change; the landscape changed from small treeless terraced and over-farmed rolling hills, to wild, thickly forested jutting hills, sculptured lakes winding between the hills with wispy layers of cloud settling in for the evening in the valleys; the people had the same appearance as Ugandans but they looked different, they looked more nervous, as though they were on edge, that kind of look that desperately poor people have - resigned yet still enjoying the misery of life; and of course we butted head with a new language barrier, pushing me to rack my brain for any French that remained.
We boarded the next to leave Hiace van taxi, and almost at once everybody began asking us for money, even the woman sitting on the seat in front of me. Perhaps the most well known phrase in English has now changed from "OK" or "coca-cola" to "Give me money". A couple of women sat next to me on the bus, the one immediately to my left had a small baby strapped to her back. I peered over to look at the baby, and as soon as it saw my face it began to bawl, scared at the very sight of a mzungu (the universally used Swahili word for whitey/honky) All of the women in the bus began to laugh at the either the frightened baby, the embarrassed mzungu or both. The woman sitting behind covered the babies head in a shawl but even that wasn't enough to stop the tears. The mother took the baby off her back and started feeding it - which proved to be a far quieter activity than mzungu spotting. However for the next hour on the trip every time the baby saw my face, it bawled, and everyone surrounding me broke in to raucous laughter, both at the baby and my feigned attempts to hide my face to prevent a further crying episode.
After the usual wait, as the twilight began to fade we set off heading towards Ruhengeri, gorilla tracking capital of the world. As soon as we started moving I noticed another difference, there were people everywhere, walking on both sides of the road, and often down the middle. Women were dressed in bright kanga (sarongs) seemingly all carrying small children on their backs, and making everything seem a little brighter and alive than even Uganda. The stops on the thirty kilometre trip we fairly frequent, dropping people off and picking people up. Every time we stopped a crowd gathered, the usual pointing and shouting Mzungu !!!, with the added twist of Give me money !! There was a strange divide between those who seemed surprised and petrified to see mzungu in their mist - usually shown by kids who spotted us and then bolted, or the passengers refusing to sit next to Damien in the front seat; or surprised and curious -usually shown by people pointing at us, coming up to shake hands, or yelling at us in a mix of Kinyarwanda, Kiswahili, French and English and then rolling around with side spitting laughter at almost anything we said to them.

When we finally reach Ruhengeri, darkness is setting in, so it is difficult to form any coherent impression of the place. The streets are unlit, so other than a few shop fronts throwing dim light on to the wide streets, and the odd car, it is difficult to make out anything in the darkness. We drive past a big touristy, hotel and then trickle in to the centre of town. The Hiace drops us off just behind a mobile cell phone promotional car, 3 foot high speakers sitting in the back blaring out music at full volume. There is a crowd surrounding the car, and the young kids on the outskirts are shaking their booty like they just don't care. Normally this would be most unsettling, the perfect conditions for a robbery, and we expect touts to come running at us, but instead Damien finds himself dancing with the kids, who are clearly appreciative of his interest in them, and start as Damien so aptly describes, smiling with their entire bodies. Not long after the car drives off and the kids, and everyone else disappear in to the night. We both look at each other and almost simultaneously say, "how weird is this ?"


Rwanda is infamous for what most consider to be the last real genocide of the 20th century, and with it being so recent, I expect things to be a little different. However, the general level of weirdness still arises with disturbing frequency as we wander around the streets.