First photo's of Rwanda

Despite the fact that I’m in Africa at the moment, time flies by; the end of my third fieldwork-week is near. Its Thursday afternoon and I just got home from my one-hour walk from Umurera village, where I do my research.
Tomorrow afternoon it will be time to travel back to Butare, where I can upload these words. Here in the rural area, my home is a kind of parish, with a bunch of French speaking, very curious, and burping, catholic nuns. They say I have to stay, because I don’t have a fiancé anyway. We’ll see : )

Doing my fieldwork is more, means more, than I can ever explain with words; I’m combining the very best of many things. Being outside most of day, in rural Africa, while smelling cows, walking through the small steep fields with red earth, ready for planting, while enjoying the beautiful, friendly Rwandan people as well as the tropical biology; birds, plants, insects, reptiles. One of the best things is that I even get the time and opportunity to use my camera quite a bit…

It is literally true when I say that in the past few weeks I’ve already eaten more fruit, than I did during the first 8 months of this year. (Don’t know if that tells you more about my life at home, or about my life here ;) Avocado on my bread in the morning, a whole avocado for lunch, and some more avocado to flavour the rice at night; its my personal guess that currently it is avocado-season. Of course there are also tons of bananas, passion fruits, papaya and something called a tree tomato. Still need to try pineapple. What I like is that almost everything I consume does not travel very far. The fruit that some people in the village offer me travels about 100 m from the tree to my mouth, and yesterday the family-cow was milked just so Moussa (my translator) and me, could drink something…

Jeej!

Some pictures from my travels; Kampala, Arusha, and one taken from the bus on the way back up to Nairobi. Sorry, but you guys have to get used to the small picture-size; to upload just these, the African internet took all my patience. Will travel to the field again tomorrow, so pictures from Rwanda will have to wait till next weekend.

Arrival.

Wow. I have arrived at the place I will be calling home for the coming months; yesterday I arrived in Butare, Rwanda. Land of a thousand hills.

Left Arusha on Wednesday afternoon, my seat located exactly above one of the bus tires. Luvely. Had forgotten that bumpy roads can actually hurt your body from both the in- and outside. The night, while we drove through Kenya, was very cold. Speed differences were major. At some points, we crawled forward like some cripple caterpillar, because 3 bumps immediately after each other are not unusual here. And, when official speed bumps were absent, we still drove on African roads… During other moments, when the night outside could not possibly become any darker, and the road allowed us, we speeded like we were on a crazy rollercoaster ride. Kind of scary, especially for local people who use the road; it truly is a miracle not more accidents happen. At dusk, I found myself at the border of Uganda, which turned out to be a very green country, with a lot of small-scale agriculture. At the beginning of the afternoon I arrived in Kampala, where I had to wait 10 hours, for a next bus, to take me to Rwanda. Walked through a very crowded part of the city, to find toothpaste, see something, and to get myself some food. Mhmm, that hot chapatti from a street-cart tasted better than ever! When I had seen enough, I got on a motor-taxi, on which the driver took me back to the bus station, zig-zagging between the traffic of countless minibuses, pedestrians, motors, trucks, etc. I must have been smiling all the time.

After I had all the time in the world to finish my book, we left the city only 45 minutes late, on our way south. Again lots of dark hours without seeing much, but I was tired enough to sleep a little. And than, this morning, I walked into Rwanda! I wish you could see it yourself; it is beautiful and so very colourful. But it might be my perception, because I’ve been looking forward to it so much. I guess pictures will need to give an answer in the future. Today, the bus struggled to climb up the mountains, but dropped into a free fall each time after having reached the highest point. Even more scary for other people on the road this time, because of all the curves and bends.

Since I've been passing all those borders, my passport has become a lot more interesting, and if anyone ever wants to enrol in the course 'How to cross African borders', please let me know. Another new skill is that I can tell you my passport number, anytime you want. How useful.

Guess where I stranded..

Mhm. Minibuses. Dust. Black people. Faith. Horrible roads.

Guess I must be in Africa..