Checkered Hills and Silent Hawks
Wheels Down in Kigali
Shortly after departure, the sun rose for the third time in two days.
The flight from Entebbe to Kigali, our final leg, left at five in the morning. I had left home on Sunday; and, after two days of plane rides, it was now technically Wednesday.
Many people have seen the sun rise: pilots, prom night sweethearts, soldiers, night-shift employees. It is an experience often promoted as pleasant, even thrilling. On that flight, I was not in the kind of mood that is easily roused to admiration; and therefore when I say that the immensity of sky lit up, I mean that even in my state I noticed it. I am used to tri-colored sunrises, pink, orange, purple, stretched thin by the distance of the horizon line. This one was miles higher and included, in addition to the usual colors, indigo, yellow, and green stripes at the very top of the sky, almost beyond my sight.
The cloud cover loosened to reveal, at first in patches and then completely, why Rwanda is nicknamed the 'Land of a Thousand Hills.' I have never been anywhere that looks like here, was my first thought. These are not exactly hills, was my second. They were much bigger, more like small mountains, and they never stopped coming. Red soil peeked out from under green vegetation cover like other places in Africa, but a unique landscape became apparent. Squares of various shades of green cascaded down the sides of the hills, separating all the plots of earth devoted to cultivating a variety of crops. It was dizzying to swoop in and out of the tops of these hills in a plane. Below, the rolling countryside was tightly regulated and controlled, parceled out to farmers in tiny bits.
Rwanda's Hawks Lay Out the Red Carpet
The plane touched down. I heard a massive flapping and turned once more to the window. Hundreds of hawks had been flushed from their rest by the plane's landing, and they now swarmed around it in a huge flock. As we taxied over to the terminal, they soared by, flapping, diving, swerving. They really didn't settle down again, even as we stepped down the stairs and onto the runway. Every few seconds, you'd hear a flutter behind you, and if you turned quickly enough, a large brown bird would glide by at eye level and give you a hard look. It was a feeling of air; there was no noise. A nearness, and then far again, as the birds made bold to approach you and then, with a turn of the wing, depart again.
Shortly after departure, the sun rose for the third time in two days.
The flight from Entebbe to Kigali, our final leg, left at five in the morning. I had left home on Sunday; and, after two days of plane rides, it was now technically Wednesday.
Many people have seen the sun rise: pilots, prom night sweethearts, soldiers, night-shift employees. It is an experience often promoted as pleasant, even thrilling. On that flight, I was not in the kind of mood that is easily roused to admiration; and therefore when I say that the immensity of sky lit up, I mean that even in my state I noticed it. I am used to tri-colored sunrises, pink, orange, purple, stretched thin by the distance of the horizon line. This one was miles higher and included, in addition to the usual colors, indigo, yellow, and green stripes at the very top of the sky, almost beyond my sight.
The cloud cover loosened to reveal, at first in patches and then completely, why Rwanda is nicknamed the 'Land of a Thousand Hills.' I have never been anywhere that looks like here, was my first thought. These are not exactly hills, was my second. They were much bigger, more like small mountains, and they never stopped coming. Red soil peeked out from under green vegetation cover like other places in Africa, but a unique landscape became apparent. Squares of various shades of green cascaded down the sides of the hills, separating all the plots of earth devoted to cultivating a variety of crops. It was dizzying to swoop in and out of the tops of these hills in a plane. Below, the rolling countryside was tightly regulated and controlled, parceled out to farmers in tiny bits.
Rwanda's Hawks Lay Out the Red Carpet
The plane touched down. I heard a massive flapping and turned once more to the window. Hundreds of hawks had been flushed from their rest by the plane's landing, and they now swarmed around it in a huge flock. As we taxied over to the terminal, they soared by, flapping, diving, swerving. They really didn't settle down again, even as we stepped down the stairs and onto the runway. Every few seconds, you'd hear a flutter behind you, and if you turned quickly enough, a large brown bird would glide by at eye level and give you a hard look. It was a feeling of air; there was no noise. A nearness, and then far again, as the birds made bold to approach you and then, with a turn of the wing, depart again.
posted by LookingGlassLand.com at 1:37 AM
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