The End of My Rwanderings

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my time in Rwanda over the past few days as my departure creeps closer and closer. I’ve found myself taking notice of the little things I’m going to miss the most about this bizarre little corner of the world and I was reminded of a passage in We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. When I read it four months ago the things he described were just abstract images in my mind – I didn’t feel any real connection to the words I was reading. Now, as I go back over the text, it’s all I can do to try to hold back an all consuming wave of nostalgia. Rwanda has become a second home for me and it is going to be impossibly hard to leave. SO, in order to prevent myself from drowning in that wave of nostalgia, I’ve been forcing myself to take notice of the little things I’m NOT going to miss so much about life in Rwanda. I’m including Gourevitch’s text below and then a little summary of the highlights of my Rwanderings over the past four months.

“When I got depressed in Rwanda, which was often, I liked to go driving. On the road, the country resolved itself in rugged glory, and you could imagine, as the scenes rushed past and the car filled with smells of earth and eucalyptus and charcoal, that the people and their landscape – the people in their landscape – were as they had always been, undisturbed. In the fields people tilled, in the markets they marketed, in schoolyards the girls in bright blue dresses and boys in khaki shorts and safari shirts played and squabbled like children anywhere. Across sweeping valleys, and through high mountain passes, the roadside presented the familiar African parade: brightly clad women with babies bound to their backs and enormous loads on their heads; strapping young men in jeans and Chicago Bulls T-shirts ambling along empty-handed – save, perhaps, for a small radio; elderly gents in suits weaving down red-dirt lanes on ancient bicycles; a girl chasing a chicken, a boy struggling to balance the bloody head of a goat on his shoulder; tiny tots in ragged smocks whacking cows out of your way with long sticks.
Life.
You knew, by the statistics, that most of the people you saw were Hutu, but you had no idea who was who; whether that girl who stared blankly at your oncoming car and at the last minute winked and broke into a wide grin, was a massacre survivor, or whether she was a killer, or both, or what. If you stopped to buy a cold drink and a brochette of grilled goat, or to ask directions, a small crowd gathered to stare and offer commentary, reminding you of your exoticism. If you drove around in the northwest, and pulled over to admire the volcanoes, peasants came out of their fields to express approval that you had no greater purpose, in that moment, than to regard their place with pleasure. If you traveled southwest through the Nyungwe rain forest preserve and got out to watch the colobus monkeys, people in passing minibuses waved and cheered.” P.178-9

I’m going to miss the sound of the bats cackling in the trees along the streets of Kiyovu… I won’t miss the occasional bat excrement that has found its way onto my feet now and then.

I’m going to miss the amazing smiles and waves of the children along the road… I won’t miss the kids yelling “Agachupa, agachupa… Muzungu, give me my money!”

I’m going to miss being called Ruchas (L’s and R’s are interchangeable here and K’s are pronounced as CH)… I won’t miss being called Muzungu as though it were my name.

I’m going to miss the smell (and taste) of freshly cut passion fruit… I won’t miss the smell of burning garbage that sometimes seeps into the house at night.

I’m going to miss the incredible bonds I’ve made with Joseph, Candida, Seraphine and Josee (I am so privileged to have had such amazing people looking after me for the past four months)… I’m not going to miss the incredibly stressful working relationship between me and Eugene.

I’m going to miss being surrounded by amazing artwork, handicrafts and fabrics on a daily basis (though I am bringing plenty home with me)… I won’t miss having to bargain down from the “special Muzungu price” of double what things should cost.

I’m going to miss the guys on the street that try to sell me two mismatched shoes that are different sizes or the “latest” edition of the Economist from 2005… I won’t miss having to say “Oya, sinshaka” about 10 times on my way to work.

I’m going to miss the lush greenery, the rolling hills and strikingly beautiful countryside … I won’t miss the nauseating bus rides on windy bumpy roads with incomprehensible music blaring in my ears.

I’m going to miss seeing the creatively decorated Matatus driving around town (T-Pain is definitely my favorite)… I’m not going to miss being cramped into a seat that is meant for 3 people but miraculously has the capacity for 7.

I’m going to miss the feeling of cruising downhill on a moto... I’m not going to miss walking in the street and suddenly feeling a gush of air past my face as a moto comes within millimeters of hitting me when the entire road is empty (I’m convinced they must get extra points for sideswiping a Muzungu).

I’m going to miss my morning yoga practice with Gail (not to mention how much I’ll miss Gail)… I’m not going to miss being shown up by Joseph on a daily basis!

I’M GOING TO MISS RWANDA.