Uganda, Rwanda - the last hurrah of PC travels

My last trip of PC included a hop skip and a jump to Uganda (read: 14 hour bus ride from Arusha to Mwanza, 9 hour overnight ferry across Lake Victoria and 6 hour bus ride from Bukoba into the lovely Ugandan capital city of Kampala), from where we eased south into Rwanda and then back again to Arusha. I traveled with my friend Alice, who’s been working for the last year with Mkombozi, local organziation assisting street kids, and teaching yoga on the side. Needless to say, she was an ideal travel partner and we were ecstatic to explore our East African neighbors pamoja.

Drawn to Rwanda, I was intrigued by the country’s history (genocide and colonization by the Belgians and French), its ensuing European flavor, and its location between Tanzania and the Congo. The intrigue has only been enhanced. I am taken by this little country of only 6 million people (Tanzania’s population is nearly 40 million to provide perspective).


*With Tony and Alice in Mwanza on rocks above Lake Victoria*

But let me start from the very beginning, a very good place to start. Uganda. Kampala really amazed me with its metropolitanism. Practically every corner boasted a bank. Men and women strolled the sidewalks (yes, I said sidewalks) in sharp business attire. I felt like I should be rushing off to a meeting, but instead, opted for a café au lait (which soon became a theme in this trip – I guess we’re coffee-repressed) and people watching. Watching people rush off to meetings is more fun anyway. It’s almost as fun as meeting friends from long ago, like Stanley Musoni, with whom I taught back in Kenya at Mt. Kenya Academy in 2003. It was great being with this wise man and Ugandan native again. When we were neighbors in Kenya, I called him my African father. Nothing seems to have changed.

Alice and I then ventured out of the big city of K’town to Jinja to experience the great Nile and the great outdoors. We spent a whole day merely biking around Jinja, a very laid-back town, reminiscent of Njombe in the TZ Southern Highlands. Fueled by freshly ground peanut butter we’d bought at the central market, we finished our adventure by biking into the campsite where we had booked our own cabin overlooking the Nile.

*Couldn't resist a little 'Tupo Pamoja-ing' along our bike ride in Jinja, though Swahili was not spoken much here*

We splurged on a nice fish dinner that evening in celebration of my 29th birthday. 29. Wow, that sounds old huh? I took it in stride and we toasted to another year of wonder. It only gets better from here right, my dear elders? My 30th will have to top the Nile – and that’ll be a challenge.

The following day, on my actual birthday, I ventured solo to Sipi Falls, a series of magnificent waterfalls about 3 hours Northeast of Jinja, near the town of Mbale. I love how being solo attracts interaction with local people. Being alone, we emit vulnerability, a greater openness to conversation, exchange of ideas, or even the sharing of corn, as it was on my bus ride there. The mother sitting next to me bought a grilled corn out the window and split it into 3 parts – 1 for her child, 1 for me, a stranger, and took the last, for herself. She then softly whispered, “eat.” It embodied the beauty, the goodness of Africa and its people.

My day only got sweeter. I received phone calls from a returned Peace Corps friend (Thanks Stevu!), my brother and mom (And thanks to all my friends for the fun text messages that day). I then sat with an older gentleman on the next mode of transport, a smaller van heading up into the mountains of Sipi, who spoke fluent Swahili (ahhh relief). He had been taught by a Peace Corps volunteer many moons ago and cherished his time with his teacher, David. “Do you know David from Montana,” he asked. I chuckled, as I embraced the déjà vu (you can imagine – this is quite commonplace for American travelers in African countries). “No, I don’t, but I’m sure he was great,” I responded. He proceeded to tell me David stories for the next hour, which could have been unnerving, but instead, I found them and him adorable. I can only hope my Tanzanian friends’ll remember me as fondly.

I felt loved arriving to Sipi Falls, to the Crow’s Nest, a hostel instituted by PCVs. Happy to be alive, I ran above the cabin where I was staying on the cliffs to marvel at the 360 degree view. The distant sounds of water crashing, the smells of embers crackling below fueling what was soon to be my bathing water, my cozy bunk bed waiting below – all reminded me of Merrie-Woode, where I spent my summers growing up. It was the perfect place to spend a birthday.

From Sipi, Alice and I reunited and moved on quickly through Kampala and managed to score seats (the last – and the last row) that night on the 1 am bus into Kigali. Rwanda here we come! And arrive we did, the following morning, groggy, sleepy-eyed and worn from the overnight ride, we were awakened by the newness of Rwanda’s capital city, nestled in the hills. From the rolling, fecund hills to the boulangeries and signs posted en français to the warm people to the crisp, cool mountain air, I was instantly taken by the place and hungry to know more from locals’ perspectives.

We were embraced by my PC Health Supervisor’s sister (“Nilimbeba mgongoni kabisaaa,” said Mama Virginia), Adelaide. She treated us like family; we so appreciated her generosity and guidance. We even shared a typicial lunch with her, consisting of cassava leaves – like Tanzanian kisomvi - rice, potatoes, peas and chicken in tomato sauce, at her home after visiting Gisozi, the main genocide memorial.

When I walked into the memorial, braced to be overwhelmed, I first noticed this quote, which summarizes it all well:

“This is about our past and our future;
Our nightmares and dreams;
Our fear and our hope:
Which is why we begin where we end…with the country we love.”

While the memorial (and similarly, most history books) claimed Hutus and Tutsis had lived in peace (even some claim they had history of intermarriage) prior to colonization and the enforcement by the Belgians’ of socioeconomic classifications via cards (classification depended on # cows owned, etc.), I heard differently later at L’Esperance, from our friend, Victor.

Anyway, most stories go like this: all was relatively 'well' in Rwanda until the colonizers (Germans 1895-1916; Belgians from 1923 until independence was finally won in 1962) arrived and forced division between the 2 tribal groups; colonial rule made Hutu and Tutsi distinctions racial, especially with the introduction of the racial identity card in 1932 (note: Tutsis were originally known as elite, especially after 1860, when Rwabugiri, a Tutsi, ascended the Rwanda thrown and expanded and consolidated his dominion close in size to current Republic). In creating these distinctions, the colonial power idenitified anyone with 10 cows or more as a Tutsi and with less, as a Hutu (and this applied to descendents); the country was 15% Tutsi, 84% Hutu and 1% Twa. Moreover, the Catholic influnce exacerbated the racism by emphasizing Hamitic idealogy ("Am I my brother's keeper?", asked Cain as he literally got away with murder; also touches on the blood-revenge model of justice), in order to convey Tutsis as superior. Scientists were actually dispatched to Rwanda to measure protuberance of noses and to analize cranial capacities; "sure enough, scientists had found what they believed all along - tutsis had 'nobler', more naturally 'aristoticratic' demensions than the 'bestial' Hutus" (Gourevitch). The consecration of Rwanda to Christ in 1946 enabled Belgian authorities to reshape society to European and church values and to continue to increase Tutsi elitism. In 1959, Hutus switched to majority and received preferential treatment from the Belgians in control. This was a repressive state, during which ethnic cleansings of Tutsis commenced. In 1973, Major Habyarimana led a coup d’etat, ensued by the establishment of the Interhamwe, the Hutu youth militia group; their mission: spreading (err forcing) Hutu power and Hutu-ness at the expense of Tutsi lives. The fire was just beginning.

"Whatever Hutu and Tutsi identity may have stood for in the precolonial state no longer mattered; the Belgians had made 'ethnicity' the defining feature of Rwanda existence...with every schoolchild reared in the doctrine of racial superiority and inferiority, the idea of a collective national identity as steadily laid to waste, and on either side of the Hutu-Tutsi divide there developed mutually exclusionary discourses based on the competing claims of entitlement and injury." (Gourevitch)

Philip Gourevitch's book, entitled "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with out families" provided great enlightenment on the genocide's unraveling. The title is just a snippet of an actual letter written to a priest by Tutsis in his (the priest's) own congregation prior to their imminent murder.

Our dear leader, Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana,
How are you! We wish to be strong in all these problems we are facing. We wish to inform you that we have heard tomorrow we will be killed with our families. We therefore request you to intervene on our behalf and talk with the Mayor. We believe that, with the help of God who entrusted you the leadership of this flock, which is going to be destroyed, your intervention will be highly appreciated, the same way as the Jews were saved by Esther.
We give honor to you.

There was no intervention.

And as you can glean from the title, this book is heavy. What's even heavier is that I saw this church (look below on the hill top)

I was completely unaware that it was the church where this letter was written until after I'd been admiring the church on the hill for three days. "Oh what a perfectly perched church that is over there," I said over breakfast our first morning at L'Esperance. "So beautiful," I thought, the next day. And therein lies the dichotomy of Rwanda - I continued to perceive beauty and terror simultaneously. The scenery surrounding Kibuye, a quaint town on Lake Kivu, was first breathtaking; and then I learned 11,600 people had been hacked to death in their town's main church. The Sans-Famille church we stayed in (now offering beds in the back like a hostel) had been a haven for refugees during the genocide; I then learned the Father there is known to have openly collaborated with militia groups and facilitated many mass killings. I enjoyed driving through the tree-lined streets of central Kigali with Adelaide; and later, I saw the same streets in "Sometime in April," a powerful documentary on the Genocide...blood-stained. How could this be? How could there be such good and such evil in one place?, I asked myself.

And then I realized, isn't that the story for all of us - as human beings, as citizens in our respective countries?


*Church in Kibuye where 11,600 Tutsis were murdered. See skulls in window*


*Again, the irony - gorgeous Lake Kivu sits calmly behind the same church's graves*

I couldn't help but be submerged by a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, especially when hearing figures like: over 1 million people died during the genocide, over 300,000 orphans resulted (including 85,000 child-headed households), as well as thousands of widows. "Many survivors are young and will carry the trauma of their childhood through the rest of their lives - and probably the lives of their descendants," one plaque read. The most emotional for me was the top floor, which displayed pictures of and described young children whose lives were taken during the genocide:

Name: Fillette Uwase
Age: 2
Favorite toy: Doll
Favorite food: Rice and chips
Favorite friend: Her dad
Behavior: A good girl
Cause of death: Smashed against a wall

Name: Thierry Ishimiwe
Age: 9 months
Favorite drink: Mother's milk
Behavior: Cried a lot
Characteristics: Small and weak
Cause of death: Machete in his mother's arms

Thanks to Alice, we became connected with UBUNTU, a center dedicated to widow empowerment and community engagement post-genocide. While visiting their center, Pierre brought me hope. Who is Pierre? Pierre is a blind masseuse, a full-time staff member at UBUNTU, committed to healing widows of the genocide with his hands. Those women who may be struggling from resulting physical disabilites, or just needing human touch are welcome to make an appointment with this angel.


*Pierre receiving a massage for a change*

A part of Rwanda died, but it's coming back to LIFE with people like Pierre.

"Qui sauve une suele vie sauve le monde entier."


*With Victor, the inspired Director of L'esperance (meaning Hope en francais),an orphan center above Kibuye and Lake Kivu*


*Giving butterfly kisses at L'esperance*