Leisurely Flutterings

A Jaunt to Lake Mahuzi

Bird life is the dominant feature at Jambo Beach on Lake Muhazi. This small lake is a pleasant hour's drive east from Kigali, and the landscape is radically different from the west side of the capital. As you approach Tanzania, the hills are pulled much flatter and the landscape morphs into savannah scrublands. I must emphasize once more how beautiful Rwanda is from the window of car when one has a reliable driver and uncrowded roads.

After Sunday morning services in Kigali, we had just enough time to venture out, lunch on the lake, and make it home before dark. Jambo Beach is a restaurant and bar on the north shore of Lake Muhazi. It is known for its idyllic location, creative concrete sculptures, and the two Ugandan cranes that wander around while you eat. The huge birds strut slowly and deliberately until one of them spots an insect in the grass; then both of them flap their wings, open their beaks, and jump up and down until one manages to pounce on their prey. The impression they give wavers between mighty hunters and hysterical women.
While the cranes were flapping around the yard, a colony of yellow weaver birds squawked overhead. Their beautifully woven grass nests decorated a nearby oak tree like holiday ornaments. The male weaver has a rough job: he builds as many as ten nests, and his female mate chooses the one she likes best. During our visit, the males were weaving like crazy. All of them, perhaps thirty or forty birds, would fly away at the same time to find building materials, leaving behind an eerie silence. Then after a few minutes all of them would return at once, swamping our conversation with boisterous cheeping as they fluttered upside down and wove the new grass into the walls of their nests. At one point during the fuss, one nest fell to the ground behind my chair. It must have been recently built because the thickly woven walls of grasses and wildflowers were still green and fragrant. Unfortunately, that weaver didn't spend as much time fastening it to the branch as he did on its impeccable construction.

As we were leaving, the cranes injected a bit of action when, after being fed the last of our chips by a member of my party, they decided to attack her. They started pecking at her in protest when the food ran out, wings flapping in their melodramatic style. We all made it safely to the car, though, and returned to Kigali with a cautionary tale against feeding large, stupid birds.

Soccer, Waterbirds, and Mortal Men

Attending the 2005 CECAFA Soccer Finals in Kigali

Last weekend, the Rwandan soccer team - the Amavubi (Wasps) - advanced to the final round of the East African soccer championship.

For anyone who doesn't know, soccer is tremendously popular throughout Africa. During the week leading up to the finals, Rwanda's team enjoyed a winning streak in Kigali, their home city, by crushing Somalia, Tanzania, and Uganda all in a row. By the time Saturday evening rolled around, spirits were running high city and countrywide.

I was entirely unaware of the tournament until the preceding Tuesday night, when a sudden roar of people yelling and horns honking sent me running to a neighbor to enquire whether or not I should be concerned. Rwanda had just defeated Tanzania, I was informed, and had secured a place in the semi-final round of this tournament. Two days later, I was an old pro. When the entire city erupted into screams and babies started crying, I knew the Wasps had defeated the Uganda Cranes and faced a weekend battle with Ethiopia. Because I had never been to a soccer game before, I decided that this was the match to see.

Decorum at Amahoro Stadium

My catalogue of expectations included - but was not limited to - seething crowds, criminal behavior, and drunken riots. I am pleasantly shocked to report that no such madness was tolerated on this occasion. We arrived twenty minutes after the game had started - so much for "games never start on time in Africa" - and were speedily directed to front row seats with unobstructed views of the Ethiopian goal. The crowds were anything but unruly. I even saw several fans with loud horns chastised when they blew them too close to someone else's ears. No alcohol was served, so drunkenness was limited to pre-partiers and anyone with hip flasks. People cheered enthusiastically for their team and waved flags in a well mannered fashion. Good vibes in all directions.

Kigali's Amahoro Football Stadium struck me as clean, freshly painted, and organized. Contrary to other reports, the stadium has both a working scoreboard and decent PA system. The halftime marching band was excellent - except for the fact that they wore no microphones. I wish I could have heard the entire performance, but the powers that be decided to play a rave-beated dance track on the PA system as the band circled the field, so I only heard the live music when they were marching near my seat. In the center of the field, a troupe of acrobats dressed in fluttering orange robes tumbled, juggled, and made human pyramids.

A brief warning about the ticketing process from a person raised in a capitalist country. Security told us to purchase tickets from men outside the stadium who held bunches of two, five, and ten-dollar slips. Once we got in, however, it seemed like there were only two types of seats: seats on the plain concrete steps, and seats with yellow plastic cushions screwed into the concrete. I grew to suspect that the ten-dollar seats and the five-dollar seats were essentially the same, so I will clarify the issue before my next game.

The Confused Omens

Both teams were skilled, and both sides coordinated some impressive passing sequences in the first half. The ball, being chased furiously by a colorful cluster of men, rolled back and forth from goal to goal. The players on both teams were polite to each other, few yellow cards were handed out, and rivals helped each other up if anyone took a dive on the turf. No one scored in the first half, as all efforts to score were thwarted by skillful blocks.

Just after sunset, during the halftime show, two large herons flew over the stadium. Disoriented by the florescent lights, they flapped softly back and forth, completely illuminated. The crowds of people below them inhaled collectively at their presence and began to applaud. Eventually, the birds found their bearings again and disappeared back into the night. It was an omen. Everyone was excited for what the second half would bring.

Not luck for the Amavubi, as it turned out. The only goal of the game was scored very early in the second half. People were still trickling back to their seats, and the Rwandan trainers hadn't even reached their seats yet. I myself had been distracted by some children sitting next to me who had tired of waving a large Rwandan flag and slung it over the railing in a crumpled heap. Suddenly a concerned murmur rose and heads began to turn toward the Rwandan goal. The goalie looked defeated, and an Ethiopian player was running in a triumphant circle, having his back slapped by various teammates. The scoreboard flipped to 1-0 in favor of Ethiopia and remained that way until the very end.

Professional Children

I am (obviously) new to the world of professional soccer, so it was my first time seeing grown men act like babies in front of thousands of people. It was extremely entertaining, and still I am left with a desire to write satire.

Most memorably, I have never seen so many athletes collapse in agonizing pain, rolling around on the ground, only to get back up again and enthusiastically rejoin the game. This happened twice in the first half; but towards the end of the game, the Ethiopian players began collapsing more frequently and, mysteriously, without anything happening near them. One solitary player near us dropped to the ground despite the fact that the ball had been carried off down the field a good ten seconds previously. I thought he was having a heart attack. He flailed about as though he were drowning, arms wrapped around his torso in agony. The Ethiopian trainer, who did not stand over four feet tall, came flying across the field, little legs churning, with an overstuffed piece of hand luggage in his hand. Six men in red jackets carrying a red stretcher followed him. The player was placed on the stretcher, and all seven upright men tore back to the sidelines with the victim jolting along over their heads. After a ten second medical assessment wherein the trainer opened his medical kit and then closed it, the player stood up, limped twice, and then ran back out to rejoin the game. As soon as he had disappeared into the seething mass of players, though, another Ethiopian player on the other side of the field went down with what appeared to be the same affliction. The trainer and the stretcher men picked up their gear and dashed over to the new player. This cycle was repeated several times.

The good humor from the first half disappeared, almost physically; and when the clock began to run out, immaturity reigned. Every time Rwanda got a corner kick, the Ethiopian player who was supposed to be guarding the kicker suddenly transformed into a teenage bully. Instead of remaining ten paces away until the ball is kicked, as the rules delineate, he dashed forward toward the Rwandan kicker before contact with the ball was made. This happened several times; but every time the referee warned him, he just shrugged his shoulders. Finally the kicker got exasperated and pretended to rush the ball, so the Ethiopian player looked stupid for charging forward when he wasn't supposed to. The referee, however, ignored the misconduct and mildly started the play over again, without ever reprimanding the guard.

The conduct of the Wasps did not rise above the antics of the Ethiopian team. In my opinion, it was a Rwandan player who was responsible for the rock bottom moment of the game. At one point, Rwanda gained control of the ball about twenty yards away from the Ethiopian goal. The referee placed the ball on the ground on the precise spot where the designated Rwandan player was supposed to begin play. Then he turned his back and walked closer to the goal, where the other players had gathered. While he was striding away, the Rwandan player picked up the ball and tip-toed forward with it. He had time to move the ball forward several yards before he dropped it and straightened back up. When the referee turned around, he was greeted with the sight of the Rwandan - a goofy grin on his face - ten feet closer than he should have been. It reminded me of watching cartoons. The referee yelled a bit and put the ball back in its original position. No yellow cards. No red cards. No player substitutions. Just the ref chiding a little boy for his mischief. (All the while, the clock was running.)

This Rwandan player did not cheat when no one was looking - a stadium full of home team supporters witnessed his act. As he snuck forward with the ball in his hands, thousands of people collectively gasped in disbelief.

Did I mention that the President of Rwanda was attending the game? Oh, he cheated in front of his president.

Post-Game Exit Strategy

Once the match was over, 1-0 Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian team began spraying each other with fizzy liquids, the audience began shuffling towards the exit. On the stadium's outer rim, however, security guards blocked the stairs and prevented everyone from leaving. Some people complained, and we were told that we all had to wait for the president to leave.

Uncomfortably but successfully, we managed to swim against the stream back to the seating area. We waited for another fifteen minutes, watching the Ethiopians celebrate in the middle of the field. The trophy was bigger than a toddler and was unfortunately flanked with big gauzy bows, one per handle. The players passed it around and sang, presumably about Ethiopia. One player lit a red emergency flare, waved it gleefully, realized that no one was really watching him, set it down on the ground, and trotted off in search of another attention-getting device. After a pause, another player doused the flame with the remainder of his water bottle. Eventually we began the trek to the exit again, and this time we made it outside successfully.

A First Sketch of Kibuye

The Kibuye Genocide Memorials

There are two genocide memorials in Kibuye. The first, a mass grave squeezed between the Pentecostal church and the soccer stadium, holds the remains of 40,000 victims. It is a simple plot - a walled in rectangle of grass - only distinguished from the neighboring stretches of green by a sign that explains its existence. Children play in the adjacent church playground; their laughter prevents too solemn a reflection on the significance of the site. The street is bustling with vendors, goats, sweepers, and hospital patients, so it is possible to walk by the grave without even noticing it.

The Kibuye church, on the other hand, is hard to miss. It was the site of a substantial massacre in 1994 but has since been restored into a functioning place of worship. The brooding stone structure perches high on a cliff that overlooks the main road into town. Circles of stained glass, blown out by grenades and later replaced, depict abstract designs of yellow, red, and blue that contrast severely with the dark brown stones of the walls. The church can be busy; but if you can time it so that you have a moment alone, the quiet will give you a moment to reflect on what this sanctuary has witnessed.

The road up to the church carves into the side of a small mountain, and one side plummets down to the lake. Gravestones line the steep hill close to the church, balanced perpendicularly to the slope. Some of the bodies rest in low crypts, but others must have been inserted into the hill from the side because I don't know how else it is possible to dig into such a steep grade. Very long last names, like Nyarmitaranka and Murikawegata, are painted on the stones in tall white letters.

There was a flurry of activity as I approached the church. In the front lot, children had set up slalom courses of empty USA Vegetable Oil cans for young men on motorcycles to navigate. The loud motor revving was periodically followed by metallic crunches as cans crumpled under the tires of an imprecise driver. Dodging the swerving vehicles, I scampered across the dusty gravel and up the front steps. Because it was Saturday evening, men and women were gathered for a choral rehearsal on the porch. They all stared at me for a moment without saying anything, so I heaved open the large wooden door and continued inside.

The sanctuary was absolutely silent. Light spilled through the stained glass and splashed across the dark stone walls in a colored chiaroscuro. Strings of plastic flags stretched across the ceiling, like someone had decorated for a party. Rows of short benches lined the floor, and a mural of the stages of the crucifixion was painted onto the wall behind the altar. Thousands of people, believing that a church would be protected, had sought shelter in this room.

The chorus outside began to sing. Although this was not a big church, the stone and concrete amplified the sound of the voices. Female sopranos weaved in and out of the men's low humming.

I have delayed this posting because I still cannot figure out how to describe what it felt like to hear that singing. My trip to Kibuye was ripe with hassle, but it is impossible to explain how beautiful, and alarming, this moment was.

Transport Keeps Getting Crazier

Touring the Lakeside Town of Kibuye

Two posts ago, I described the bus ride to Butare - compared to riding mini-taxis in Kigali - as hair-raising. I had the foresight (or perhaps the pessimism) to qualify my fear by finishing the paragraph with this sentence:

But I haven't even been to the north at this time, so I'm sure driving on the sides of volcanoes will rearrange my perspective yet again.

I still haven't been to the north, but I have now been out west. As prophesied, the rides on public transport just get crazier as the elevation increases.

The town of Kibuye is on Lake Kivu, the large body of water that separates Rwanda from the DRC. The entire country of Rwanda gets higher as you move west, so the elevation of Kibuye is about 1000 feet higher than Kigali. That means a trip through the mountains to get there.


There is no such thing as a straight line on the Kibuye road. It follows the most curvaceous route possible, winding up and down through the mountains. The road was built by Chinese laborers in the 1990s and is described in our guidebook as "a marvel of engineering." There are positive aspects, I agree: the road is evenly paved tarmac; there are some rock walls to protect against rockslides; and it is complete. But it is only two lanes, which encourages the practice of overtaking around blind curves. Also, the drainage ditches are really deep, which is great in theory - except that they run right next to the road for the duration, so there is rarely more than six inches of shoulder.

In the US, mountain roads have metal guardrails running beside cliff edges. Whether or not they will prevent a car from rolling over the edge is debatable, but they definitely have a degree of protective value. Some Rwandan roads have similar metal rails beside the high stretches, and some have rows of concrete blocks around extremely tight curves. The Kibuye road has neither. A line of skinny white poles, each about 8 feet away from its neighbor, occasionally appears to point out severe bends. A few were ripped in half, which suggests they are plastic. These poles have a warning function only. If they were more tightly packed, they would do more good, but a car could run right between them if it lost control.

The Kibuye road is absolutely adequate for conscientious drivers. We didn't have one on our first trip.

Enough To Make a Nun Pray

Budget travelers in Africa are often confronted with the internal conflict that comes with taking public transport. On one hand, it is dirt-cheap, usually 1 to 3 dollars. On the other, the ride can range from uncomfortable to dangerous if the driver is not reliable. We chose to take an Okapi Tours and Travel mini-taxi from Kigali to Kibuye and have no desire to repeat the experience (see BLOG). The driver drove much too fast for the conditions, especially when it began to rain. He drove on the wrong side of the road around blind curves, overtook when it was too risky, and generally disregarded all passenger comfort in his quest to get us there in two hours.

I was not the only nervous person this time. Some of the Rwandan passengers were nervous, too. The first hour was comfortable, but about 30 km past Gitarama it started to rain. The temperature dropped ten degrees, and the road began to snake upwards into the clouds. On Rwandan roads, mini-vans always struggle to the top of hills, and then coast down to the bottom in order to build speed for the next uphill stretch. I expect these bursts of speed because they make it easier on the vans to crawl up to the peaks. But our driver hit the accelerator as soon as the downhill sprints started, and the vehicle began to take the curves at breakneck speed. Remember that there are no straight lines on this road, so we were tossed back and forth relentlessly.

Several women stopped their conversations, leaned forward, and closed their eyes. The nun sitting in front of me began to pray. I removed my headphones and sat up. The whole vibe in the bus had changed from jovial to tense. The volcanoes loomed in the distance, and a chilled wind whipped in through the open windows. One woman had to ask to pull over so she could be sick.

After 20 more kilometers of being thrown around, we finally decided to speak up since no one else was. We yelled over the hum of the rain for the driver to slow down, startling many people out of their private reveries. After much confusion, one passenger decided that we were worried about getting a speeding ticket. "I believe you are afraid of the police!" he giggled. Suddenly, the ice was broken. The whole bus erupted in conversation about us, and our request was forgotten as we zoomed along. My only solace came when the nun stopped praying and took a cell phone call.

Alighting in Kibuye was pure joy. I muttered maledictions under my breath, hauled my pack onto my back, and trounced off down the muddy road to find a hotel.

The Buzz on the Bethanie

The budget Catholic guesthouse was full that night because of a conference. On foot, tired, and stressed from the ride, we hiked for another rainy hour until we found a room at the secluded Bethanie Episcopal Centre. Luckily, Kibuye is beautiful:


dripping pine forests and blue-green lake on all sides. The hills all slid right down into the water, and the only sounds came from bleating goats and cheeping birds. As evening crept in, we settled into the solitude of the forest - the budget rooms were set down the drive from the rest of the hotel - ate dinner, and went to bed.

As I sleepily fumbled with my toothbrush, I noticed the dull throb of buzzing insects somewhere over my head. A large swarm of insects, from the sound of it. I knew there was a fluorescent lamp right outside the front door, and I figured the sound was coming from noisy beetles it must be attracting. There were screens on the windows, so I was not concerned.

At five the next morning the call to prayer from a nearby mosque jarred us awake, so we decided to get an early start on exploring. The same humming noise continued as we got ready, but when we opened the door to leave, there were no bugs flying around. I shined my headlamp on the outside light. It was crawling with honeybees. Dead bees littered the concrete porch, and more were drunkenly attached to the door. Hastily, I locked it and made a mad dash to the drive. They must have been up all night, which struck me as highly unnatural. The reception attendant sounded defeated when we told her that the rooms in the budget wing of the hotel were infested with crazy bees. "You cannot make them leave," she sighed, and offered us a choice of several other rooms that had smaller hives in their ceilings. We checked out.

Walking Around Kibuye

Early morning was my favorite time in Kibuye. A new hiking trail has been cleared around the Bethanie Centre peninsula, and it is perfect for watching all the fishermen return from a long night of fishing out on the lake. As they row across the still water in their wooden canoes, their songs carry for miles. The singing is beautiful; it reminded me of the kind of crying that results from genuine relief.

Most visitors to Kibuye attend conferences or church gatherings, and the town does not really cater to the casual visitor. There is no taxi service except for motorcycle and bicycle rides, and each of the three hotels is a substantial walk away from each other. We walked for hours each day, and we soon discovered that the rain on the first afternoon afforded us a privacy that we never had again. Kibuye is a small town, and small towns everywhere have quirky attitudes towards outsiders. Westerners are not nearly as common there as they are in Kigali, and they do not normally walk around on foot. The local people were definitely surprised to see us as we wandered around. We were not unwelcome, but we did attract a lot of attention. This did not always make for the most relaxing of strolls.

The children of Kibuye provided an x-factor worth mentioning. There are always unsupervised kids wandering around in Rwanda, but I noticed many more of them in Kibuye than in other places. Some exhibited a sweet, friendly curiosity. More than one performed an impromptu song and dissolved into shy giggles as we walked by. But some - usually gathered into groups of six or eight - were poorly behaved around strangers. We were occasionally mobbed by these diminutive gangs, and when that happened one child always felt emboldened enough by the hubbub to show off by touching the white woman. One even grabbed my arm and shoved a half-eaten apple into my face, yelling at me to eat it. I soon found myself tensing up whenever I spotted children beside the road, as their reactions varied from politely wishing me a "bonjour" to physically accosting me.

The Home St. Jean

After the Bethanie bee incident, we walked all the way back up through town to the budget Home St. Jean to see if they had any vacancies. This guesthouse has a split personality. It is the cheapest place to stay in Kibuye, boasts wonderful views, and is convenient to town, sitting up on a wooded hill adjacent to the Genocide Memorial Church. It also has what a guidebook would call 'local flavor.' As we approached, we watched men repairing cars in side lots and boys herding goats down the back driveway. A large troupe of schoolchildren paraded by, singing.

But the Home is also very shabby and has inadequate service. The water heaters were all unplugged, so there was no hot water. The shared bathrooms were grim, and the rooms were on the musty side. Most importantly, though, there was rarely any staff to be found; a child always had to go run and find the receptionist if you needed anything. There is no restaurant, and kitchen staff was scarce. Ironically, the place is always bustling with people, but very few of them are actual guests. I think church officials live in a rear building, and that might be why the staff never manned their front posts. I definitely got the impression that local people were catered to more than customers.

The first sight that greets you upon arrival is a burned out Toyota Land Cruiser.

The story we heard from Catholic Relief Services employees in Kigali is that this truck belonged to one of their employees who was staying at the guesthouse. Supposedly, one of the watchmen carefully siphoned the vehicle's gasoline out into a plastic bag in the middle of the night. Because it was so dark, though, he dropped the bag and spilled the gas everywhere. Without thinking, he lit a match and held it underneath the body so he could see what happened. The truck promptly blew up.

In the evening, we were told that the kitchen was open for business but that we would have to wait to be served. After some sleuthing, I spied a group of church people dining in the rear, so I surmised they were being served first. That would have been a tolerable arrangement, except that the dinner guests turned their children loose to run around the hotel while they enjoyed their meal. Naturally, the herd of little barbarians made a show of provoking the mzungu who were waiting on the patio to eat. They would creep around the corner, sidle up to our table, yell all kinds of greetings, touch my arm, and then run away. This routine was repeated every ten minutes. As service is not top priority at St. Jean, we endured their attentions for over an hour. The only way to make them leave was to completely ignore them; and, needless to say, it is difficult to ignore a group of ten kids all yelling "Good Morning!!" in your ear at eight in the evening. After what seemed like an eternity, the adults began to emerge from the back house after their supper, and the aggravating scamps magically transformed back into angels as soon as the authorities appeared.

Dinner was delicious when it finally arrived: rice, beans, celery soup, plantains, and lots of peace and quiet.

Riding Home

We got a ride in a private car back to Kigali. Compared to riding with Okapi, it was night and day. Now I understand why so many authors have written about the pleasures of driving in Rwanda: they were not taking public transportation. Having a patient driver makes all the difference in the world. When you secure a stress-free ride, it is impossible not to marvel at the Rwandan countryside.

Using T-Shirts to Communicate

In Africa, divine forces use t-shirts to participate in earthly dialogues.

If you mention Ohio in casual conversation, you may find yourself sitting next to a girl wearing a "University of Cincinnati" t-shirt on your next mini-taxi ride. And it is likely that you will pass a child wearing a "Dallas, Texas" t-shirt following a discussion about the myth of the American cowboy.

A morbid but common expatriate nickname for t-shirts is 'dead white men's clothes.' They are donated in bulk to Africa by Western charities, shipped overseas, bundled into huge cubes bound by thick cable, and trucked out of ports to local markets all over the continent. They are a common sight in both cities and rural areas and may be the most ubiquitous article of clothing in Africa.

What is written on them is not important. Literal meaning takes a backseat to color, design appeal, and the status of possession. Most of the shirts I see refer to obscure facets of local American culture: local high school track teams, local art festivals, local concerts, local colleges, local cheerleading conferences. Such grass roots fashion commemorations have little significance in neighboring states, much less other continents. By the time these donations reach their new homes, they are nothing more than an ornate collection of threads, devoid of reference and meaning.

Very few of the proud new owners know what kind of statement they are displaying as they walk around town; but for expatriates, random glimpses of home pop out at oddly appropriate moments. Many of these coincidences seem engineered by a larger intelligence.

One afternoon, for example, I felt suddenly homesick. I was jammed onto a crowded central street, wading my way through honking traffic, rowdy vendors, and clouds of diesel fumes. Suddenly a child flashed by, draped in a shirt bearing the logo of a community college in the town where I grew up. It was a genuine shock to see something so specific, so familiar, and over 7000 miles away from its origin. Many travelers tell stories about the sudden appearance of logos, town names, and other reminders of a past life. An Occidental College t-shirt appears on a child in a remote village. A student parades the t-shirt of a rival Maine high school sports team. A Pearl Jam t-shirt is worn by the driver of a passing pick-up truck.

The majority of American t-shirts are printed up to display clannish pride, worn to the point of boredom, tossed in a bag, and delivered to the Salvation Army - most likely during a major holiday when people feel extremely generous and/or ready for a wardrobe change. It's reassuring to know that they have a useful second life: not only do they clothe needy Africans, but they also provide omens for needy Westerners.

The Intellectual Heart of Rwanda

A Visit to the National Museum in Butare

Driving in Kigali was wild and exciting until I took my first bus ride out of town. Add elevation and subtract guardrails: no competition. (And I haven't even been to the north at this time, so I'm sure driving on the sides of volcanoes will rearrange my perspective yet again.)

It was time to get out and see some countryside, so we began with a visit to Butare, the intellectual heart of Rwanda. Both the National Museum and the National University of Rwanda are situated in this southern city. We booked a round trip ticket with the Volcano Express, an inexpensive private bus service (see BLOG).

The Hills Never End...and Neither Does the Dance Beat


Every row of hills was followed by another, and the drive resembled a three-hour roller coaster ride. I was the only one with white knuckles, of course; everyone else dozed off or chatted happily on cell phones. The young man sitting next to me was dressed in a snappy three-piece suit with a pink shirt, and he text-messaged the entire ride. I couldn't believe I was the only one gripping the safety bars around each curve: the other passengers just slid back and forth, squeezing against each other, as unconcerned as waves in an ocean.

Inch by inch upward progress, suspenseful and achingly slow, suddenly gave way to swift downhill slaloms around cargo trucks and decrepit mini-buses. A new obstacle waited around every bend: a goat, a tree, a stopped car, a broken down semi labeled PETROL, DANGER, and/or FLAMMABLE. The driver laughed nervously and glanced back at me after swerving around the latter. It was very nearly a satisfying gesture, except that he almost ran off the road when he did it.

The Butare road is high quality, with narry a bump to be found. Its serpentine of black tarmac winds around the green waves of hills, rising to impressive heights before every inevitable dive back down into the next valley. Banana trees explode on the slopes in clusters of leafy fireworks.

The first glance from the top of a guardrail-less cliff distracted me enough to tune out the Kinyarwanda talk radio station that was blaring at 100 decibels in the background. One hour later, when for the hundredth time the bus did not free fall off the edge of a hill, worrying had fatigued me to the brink of boredom. Gradually, I began to realize with surprise that the droning radio conversation was set to a tinny dance beat. The speculation about its purpose kept me occupied for some time: was the drabness of talk radio being jazzed up by a DJ for a wider, or a younger, audience? Were the men discussing music? Did the beat signal a change of broadcast? Another thirty minutes passed, however, and the rattle of cymbals was unrelenting. I returned to assessing the likelihood of a plunge into the abyss, struggling in vain to tune out again; but some things cannot be unnoticed. I don't know which was more uncomfortable: contemplating a fiery end, or enduring that half-rave, half-news show racket for the remainder of the ride.

Rwanda From the Window

Watching a developing country through the window of a moving vehicle is a true joy. It is a luxury to absorb foreign scenery without being interrupted by solicitations or conversations. There is comfort in temporarily replacing the awkwardness of stilted language barriers with the universality of gestures. Everyone understands the smile, the nod, and the wave.

In some ways, rural East Africa resembles the countryside of the southern African regions. Red clay is pocked with spots of savannah scrub; groups of people sit watch buses flash by like they are watching TV; gleeful children run around in torn t-shirts; babies wrapped in elaborate fabric slings droop from their mothers' backs. But every country can be distinguished from the generic. One can tell Rwanda from its neighbors

most obviously by the checkerboard terracing, the mountainous terrain, and the beautiful longhorn cattle that dot the landscape. Some of the animals munch the cropped roadside grass contentedly, while others are fortunate enough to graze in the shade of the banana groves. They have an aristocratic appearance, stately and wrinkled, and place each hoof deliberately when they decide to move. Their silver and copper coats glow softly in the sunlight.

En route to Butare, it is common to see pigs shuffling along the shoulders of the road, directed by little boys who chase them with what appears to be no more than grass flyswatters. The pigs' ears flop violently with the bobbing of their heads as they try to outrun the incessant tapping of the flimsy instrument.

In any region of Rwanda, you will see groups of men dressed in bright pink jumpsuits bent double tilling the soil, planting baby banana trees in tight rows, or hanging from construction site scaffolding. These are genocide prisoners who have been sentenced to community service along with their prison time. There are also genocide memorials: clusters of flower-strewn headstones, mass gravesites, lists of names, and large signs proclaiming "The Genocide - Never Forget!" in large white letters.

Inside the Museum

We were dropped off at the National Museum, just north of Butare proper. The building is wooden with lots of windows, a stark contrast to the predominantly concrete towns. It is a pleasant place for a day trip. Not only does it have a light, airy design, the flow of its content is well structured and easy to follow. The collection was begun in 1945, which demonstrates an unusual degree of forward thinking by both the colonial and local powers. The exhibits range from climate and geography to family structure and divination.

The only problem for us Yanks was that the information is displayed in Kinyarwanda and French. We would have lost 75 percent of the information, i.e. all of the non-cognate words, had we not asked for an English-speaking guide. He turned out to be a valuable resource, patiently plodding through our barrage of questions and giving us elaborate insights that captions alone would not have yielded. He also had one eye.

Two whole rooms were devoted to objects made from weaving grass, like hobbles to prevent animals from wandering off, stretchers for carrying royalty, and wall hangings. The second room brimmed with baskets of all sizes. Some towered over my head, and some were tiny enough to sit in a teacup. All bore the same shape, rounded bottoms and

conical tops, a silhouette that has a lot of personality. The baskets sat in orderly rows on the shelves, ready for action. The tiny ones were mischievous, ready to scamper away like the dancing Chinese mushrooms in Fantasia. The big ones seemed gangly and adolescent, too big for their bodies, and leaned weakly to one side.

An assortment of curiosities was on display. A huge replica of a native grass hut brooded in one room, filling the museum with a sweet meadow smell. Broken pottery was piled
into a nearby glass case, and we were informed that only one in twenty pots survives the firing process practiced by the Twa, Rwanda's smallest tribe. We read through a step-by-step guide to brewing banana beer and marveled at bright wooden tiles that are colored using red, white, and black paint and cow dung.

Photographs taken by European colonists during the 1940s and 1950s dotted each room, capturing high jumping competitions, herds of wild animals, and the fat children of the mwamis, Rwanda's kings. The latter were obese compared to the rest of the population because they drank prodigious amounts of milk, according to the guide.

The Exchange

While we were learning about divination amulets and witchcraft, I recognized the young man who sat next to me on the bus, the one in the fancy suit. He was strolling down the opposite side of the room with an equally dressy girl. She was wearing high heels and a summery blue dress. A few minutes later, they made their way around to where we were standing, and we all nodded at each other in recognition. As we turned to enter the next room, he suddenly broke from his partner.

"Wait!" he cried, walking quickly toward us as we halted and turned around. He reached into his pocket and handed us a small pin in the shape of the Rwandan flag. We accepted, tentatively pleased at the gesture, and thanked him for the gift. "Maybe we will meet again back in Kigali," he replied, and then he returned to his date. They both waved and continued ahead of us into the next room.

The guide smiled at us. "Do you want to be Rwandan?" he asked me.

"Well, okay..." I broke into one of those smiles that attempts to compensate for complete confusion and paused to see if he would explain the situation any further. He didn't. We pinned the flag onto our bag and continued the tour, mystified.

I turned the hypothetical over in my head on the bus ride back to Kigali. Should we have accepted the offer of symbolic citizenship? Two radically different cultures can't really walk around in those proverbial shoes for long, can they? But then, as we careened around trucks and over mountains, I found myself dozing off.