A slice of lives...
I have been wandering round the upstairs of my house naked for a
while and so I am cold when I go to leave the house. I leave
wearing Leif's jacket, a small unassuming navy blue hoodie with
a zip. I knew Leif for a about three weeks, or more accurately
i knew him for three evenings over the span of three or so weeks.
He was tall, dark haired, skinny and I was I attracted to him at
our very first, accidental meeting at Chez Lando, a hotel with a
popular bar at a busy crossroads as you head out of Kigali towards
the airport. That evening I had taken him and his colleague Coll
to an ex-pat party nearby and we continued on to Planet nightclub,
where lonely men can meet attractive women for the right price,
and bored ex-pats can dance and drink. Leif was on a mission to
get drunk. He had arrived in Rwanda a week beforehand, it was his
first time in africa and he's spent that week filming a
documentary about genocide survivors and their experience of Gacaca,
the local justice courts. As Coll had put it, he had seen more
of Rwanda and more of its nasty side, than most ex-pats see in their
whole time here. It had all been a little too much, so he drank and
when I asked him to dance he readily agreed...
As I take off Leif's jacket (its warmer than it looked outside),
I am on my way to Nyabugogo.
"The gogo" and "the rambo" that's what Nick used to called two
adjacent areas of the city in a very pronounced American accent.
Everyone else will know them Nyabugogo and Nyamirambo. I catch a
taxi-bus to get to Nyabugogo from my house in Kacyiru. When i met
him first Nick used taxi-motos to get everywhere, Only he had a
habit of calling hem boda-bodas, him having just spend time in
Uganda. Later he graduated on to taxi-voitures, "car taxis" figuring
his life was worth the few extra dollars.
I met Nick more or less randomly at some Rotary thing. He was
supposed to be just passing through, his job is to travel africa
looking for contacts for his employer, an ecominc think-tank.
I had been at the rotary thing because of Juma and Gerald, they
had a habit of getting me involved with rotary things, I think
they hoped to convert me.
Juma is a a Kenyan that i met during my first two weeks in Rwanda,
it is impossible to understand how much i feel i owe him. A brilliant
manager with a sparkling intelligence, we worked and socialised
together, enjoying both in equal measure.
Gerald is a good friend of Juma;s and my neighbour, although i first
met him when we were on an interview panel together . Juma never
mentioned that we lived literally lived four doors from each other.
We found that out ourselves one morning as i walked to the bus stop
on my way to work. Neither had he mentioned that we worked in the
same building in Muhima, near Nyabugogo.
The day is beginning to brighten as the taxi-bus, which has been
unusually slow today, finally pulls into Nyabugogo taxi park. From
here many of the faster intercity buses leave as well as taxi-buses to
all over Rwanda. The buses going to Nairobi via Kampala and maybe even
Bujumbura leave from here as well . It is always a hustle and bustle
of people, vans and vendors. I don't get as many stares and shouts as
i used to, perhaps people are becoming accustomed to the lone mzungu
who parades across the market, through the various vans going to
farflung places to get to the back of the park where her bus home is
always parked.
"Bon soir" says a kid in market, trying out his schoolboy french. He
doesn't yet know that mzungus break up their day in a different way
to Rwandans. Its around 1230pm by now and well into the Rwandan
afternoon/evening, which appears to start around 11:30 and continue
until there is no light. In french you still greet people with
'Bonjour' until about 1630. I still haven't fully mastered the
change-over time (11-1130, 1600-1700) neither in Kinyarwanda or in
french. Such precisions as 'bon matin', 'bon apres-midi' and 'bon
nuit' seem to be the reserve of leave-taking. So as not to discourage
or confuse I reply in Kinyarwanda "wiriwe". In response i receive
a vaguely confused but not altogether displeased look from the kid.
I run the gauntlet of beggars and vendors on my way out of the market
area in the taxi park, all of whom know me and all of whom pester my
every time. Mostly i don't mind. I get quite warm on my way up the
hill past the petrol station and the large covered clothes and shoes
market which runs along with the taxi park is the main feature of
Nyabugogo.
Kabuga's building is clearly visible on the left hand side as you
start to walk up the hill to Muhima and eventually to the town centre.
But my destination is on the right hand side, shortly before you reach
the Kabuga building. A couple of steps lead up to an unmarked doorway,
with lace curtains. Today the sky is covered with clouds and so the
strong sun is muted, but often as i go through the doorway to the dark
cramped interior, I am unable to see much for a minute or two until
my eyes adjust.
There are about 8 people eating in the first room, I continue to the
back where for 400Rwf(40p or 80c) i can fill up on a plate of melange
- a Rwandan style buffet which offers plantain banana, rice, beans,
sweet potatoes, goat meat in sauce, green veg (whatever is in season)
and chips (legacy of the Belgians i would guess). this is served all
over the city at lunchtimes at wildly varying prices (400rwf to
1500rwf) depending on the hauteur of the establishment. I used to
frequent the melange place on the lower floor of the building beside
kabuga until the powers that be shut it down. I haven;t been to this
cafe often so people still stare and pass comment. Its irritating but
but i have to eat.
The few hours at work passes quickly, I've spent the morning in bed
reading a book by a Qubec author Gil Courtmanche "A sunday at the pool
in Kigali". It revolves around a cyincal old ex-pat falling in lust
with a young Rwandan waitress, shortly before the genocide. I am
reminded of Gary, a volunteer that I enjoyed spending time with before
he finished his placement and returrned to Canada to watch his father
die. He frequently bemoaned how women his own age (60's) were
completely unatractive to him and that he was completely unattractive
to younger women. The more I read, the more Gary becomes Courtmanche's
anti-hero in my imagination.
After work it has brightened up somewhat and i go to town to take some
material i found lying at the back of my wardrobe to my tailor to make
into a dress. I leave the tailor, intent on little aimless wandering
about town. I wander on a few metres to the left and cross and street,
arriving at the corner of the Bazin sellers, a wonderful waxy and
coulourful fabric from Senegal. The sellers buy in lots of plain and
patterned material and sell them as a two piece mix-and-match type
affair. I love the stuff, in fact my tailor is current making
something fairly African for my from a deep pink and cream bazin
material. I am idly looking through todays stocks, with my eye on a
deep purple thing i saw last time i can through town but feel it is
little too like the one i have already.
I notice that one of the sellers, the one who doesn't speak much
french, has a big lot of uncut chocolate brown and maroon material.
I begin to wonder if i could make a dress from just a plain coloured
material, something which wouldn't look too over the top in Europe.
From somewhere a woman approaches to help with the translation,
after some haggling and hesitation on my part i go for it. The
material is bought and the friendly translator says
"et c'est moi qui va faire le robe, n'est pas?".
She is a tailor and wants some business - her price is cheaper
than my usual tailor so i decide to take the risk, not all tailors
in Kigali are good, particularly not the ones who have time to
roam he streets looking for customers. She tells me she used to
make stuff for someone at the french embassy but that women has
left now. I just hope she made more than one thing for her! As an
added bonus she says the dress will be ready by next Wednesday,
my usual tailor has many clients and takes anything from 2-6 weeks
to finish stuff.
Now the sky is growing dark and angry looking, which in the wet
season can mean only one thing. I have about 20 minutues before the downpour.
I pass by Frulex, a fair fixed price shop where i buy, among other
things, my third kilo of sugar since i moved to Kigali 8 months ago.
I'm fairly sure i am not using all this sugar but this is one of the
hazards of having live-in domestic help! As i entered the shop i could
see the rain coming in from the valley. As i exit with my goods in a
paper bag (for plastic ones were outlawed by the govt last month) I
hope i still have time to get the bus. At this time of evening the
taxi park in the centre of town will already be becoming sluggish and
congested. The traffic elsewhere and the city and the number of people
leaving town causes a deficit in he number of buses available. If it
starts raining hard the people in the incoming buses will not want to
get off and the whole public transport system grinds to a halt.
Even though the wind is rising and I'm running out of time, i stop to buy
some bananas from a street vendor. Street boys selling plastic buys
(despite their illegal status), other vendors and passersby all begin
to crowd me. i don't like it. i am used to gathering a crowd where i
try to buy things on the road but today i am in a hurry and i have not
enough eyes to manage my (paper) shopping bag and my backpack, my
purse and the fruit the ladies are selling me.
Sure enough,as i am buying some strange local fruit which i know only
as "pruneaux japonais", even though they are nothing like prunes, a
bag seller trys too steal my purse from the pocket in my backpack
which is across my chest at the moment. I need to get out, its far too
claustrophobic and the thought of losing my purse is not comforting.
Not that i have much money on me, but that's really the least concern
in losing a purse. I get the last available, and least comfortable
seat on a bus about to leave for Kacyiru. Finally on the way down the
big hill of Nyarurenge, towards the turn off for Kimihurura and
Kacyiru is starts to rain lightly.
AS we pull into what should be the terminus at Kacyiru Minister, for
this bus has inexplicably decided to change route and continue to
nyabugogo, the rain is still light. Some time after i am safely
indoors the downpour starts and i settle in to a cup of Rwandan tea.
while and so I am cold when I go to leave the house. I leave
wearing Leif's jacket, a small unassuming navy blue hoodie with
a zip. I knew Leif for a about three weeks, or more accurately
i knew him for three evenings over the span of three or so weeks.
He was tall, dark haired, skinny and I was I attracted to him at
our very first, accidental meeting at Chez Lando, a hotel with a
popular bar at a busy crossroads as you head out of Kigali towards
the airport. That evening I had taken him and his colleague Coll
to an ex-pat party nearby and we continued on to Planet nightclub,
where lonely men can meet attractive women for the right price,
and bored ex-pats can dance and drink. Leif was on a mission to
get drunk. He had arrived in Rwanda a week beforehand, it was his
first time in africa and he's spent that week filming a
documentary about genocide survivors and their experience of Gacaca,
the local justice courts. As Coll had put it, he had seen more
of Rwanda and more of its nasty side, than most ex-pats see in their
whole time here. It had all been a little too much, so he drank and
when I asked him to dance he readily agreed...
As I take off Leif's jacket (its warmer than it looked outside),
I am on my way to Nyabugogo.
"The gogo" and "the rambo" that's what Nick used to called two
adjacent areas of the city in a very pronounced American accent.
Everyone else will know them Nyabugogo and Nyamirambo. I catch a
taxi-bus to get to Nyabugogo from my house in Kacyiru. When i met
him first Nick used taxi-motos to get everywhere, Only he had a
habit of calling hem boda-bodas, him having just spend time in
Uganda. Later he graduated on to taxi-voitures, "car taxis" figuring
his life was worth the few extra dollars.
I met Nick more or less randomly at some Rotary thing. He was
supposed to be just passing through, his job is to travel africa
looking for contacts for his employer, an ecominc think-tank.
I had been at the rotary thing because of Juma and Gerald, they
had a habit of getting me involved with rotary things, I think
they hoped to convert me.
Juma is a a Kenyan that i met during my first two weeks in Rwanda,
it is impossible to understand how much i feel i owe him. A brilliant
manager with a sparkling intelligence, we worked and socialised
together, enjoying both in equal measure.
Gerald is a good friend of Juma;s and my neighbour, although i first
met him when we were on an interview panel together . Juma never
mentioned that we lived literally lived four doors from each other.
We found that out ourselves one morning as i walked to the bus stop
on my way to work. Neither had he mentioned that we worked in the
same building in Muhima, near Nyabugogo.
The day is beginning to brighten as the taxi-bus, which has been
unusually slow today, finally pulls into Nyabugogo taxi park. From
here many of the faster intercity buses leave as well as taxi-buses to
all over Rwanda. The buses going to Nairobi via Kampala and maybe even
Bujumbura leave from here as well . It is always a hustle and bustle
of people, vans and vendors. I don't get as many stares and shouts as
i used to, perhaps people are becoming accustomed to the lone mzungu
who parades across the market, through the various vans going to
farflung places to get to the back of the park where her bus home is
always parked.
"Bon soir" says a kid in market, trying out his schoolboy french. He
doesn't yet know that mzungus break up their day in a different way
to Rwandans. Its around 1230pm by now and well into the Rwandan
afternoon/evening, which appears to start around 11:30 and continue
until there is no light. In french you still greet people with
'Bonjour' until about 1630. I still haven't fully mastered the
change-over time (11-1130, 1600-1700) neither in Kinyarwanda or in
french. Such precisions as 'bon matin', 'bon apres-midi' and 'bon
nuit' seem to be the reserve of leave-taking. So as not to discourage
or confuse I reply in Kinyarwanda "wiriwe". In response i receive
a vaguely confused but not altogether displeased look from the kid.
I run the gauntlet of beggars and vendors on my way out of the market
area in the taxi park, all of whom know me and all of whom pester my
every time. Mostly i don't mind. I get quite warm on my way up the
hill past the petrol station and the large covered clothes and shoes
market which runs along with the taxi park is the main feature of
Nyabugogo.
Kabuga's building is clearly visible on the left hand side as you
start to walk up the hill to Muhima and eventually to the town centre.
But my destination is on the right hand side, shortly before you reach
the Kabuga building. A couple of steps lead up to an unmarked doorway,
with lace curtains. Today the sky is covered with clouds and so the
strong sun is muted, but often as i go through the doorway to the dark
cramped interior, I am unable to see much for a minute or two until
my eyes adjust.
There are about 8 people eating in the first room, I continue to the
back where for 400Rwf(40p or 80c) i can fill up on a plate of melange
- a Rwandan style buffet which offers plantain banana, rice, beans,
sweet potatoes, goat meat in sauce, green veg (whatever is in season)
and chips (legacy of the Belgians i would guess). this is served all
over the city at lunchtimes at wildly varying prices (400rwf to
1500rwf) depending on the hauteur of the establishment. I used to
frequent the melange place on the lower floor of the building beside
kabuga until the powers that be shut it down. I haven;t been to this
cafe often so people still stare and pass comment. Its irritating but
but i have to eat.
The few hours at work passes quickly, I've spent the morning in bed
reading a book by a Qubec author Gil Courtmanche "A sunday at the pool
in Kigali". It revolves around a cyincal old ex-pat falling in lust
with a young Rwandan waitress, shortly before the genocide. I am
reminded of Gary, a volunteer that I enjoyed spending time with before
he finished his placement and returrned to Canada to watch his father
die. He frequently bemoaned how women his own age (60's) were
completely unatractive to him and that he was completely unattractive
to younger women. The more I read, the more Gary becomes Courtmanche's
anti-hero in my imagination.
After work it has brightened up somewhat and i go to town to take some
material i found lying at the back of my wardrobe to my tailor to make
into a dress. I leave the tailor, intent on little aimless wandering
about town. I wander on a few metres to the left and cross and street,
arriving at the corner of the Bazin sellers, a wonderful waxy and
coulourful fabric from Senegal. The sellers buy in lots of plain and
patterned material and sell them as a two piece mix-and-match type
affair. I love the stuff, in fact my tailor is current making
something fairly African for my from a deep pink and cream bazin
material. I am idly looking through todays stocks, with my eye on a
deep purple thing i saw last time i can through town but feel it is
little too like the one i have already.
I notice that one of the sellers, the one who doesn't speak much
french, has a big lot of uncut chocolate brown and maroon material.
I begin to wonder if i could make a dress from just a plain coloured
material, something which wouldn't look too over the top in Europe.
From somewhere a woman approaches to help with the translation,
after some haggling and hesitation on my part i go for it. The
material is bought and the friendly translator says
"et c'est moi qui va faire le robe, n'est pas?".
She is a tailor and wants some business - her price is cheaper
than my usual tailor so i decide to take the risk, not all tailors
in Kigali are good, particularly not the ones who have time to
roam he streets looking for customers. She tells me she used to
make stuff for someone at the french embassy but that women has
left now. I just hope she made more than one thing for her! As an
added bonus she says the dress will be ready by next Wednesday,
my usual tailor has many clients and takes anything from 2-6 weeks
to finish stuff.
Now the sky is growing dark and angry looking, which in the wet
season can mean only one thing. I have about 20 minutues before the downpour.
I pass by Frulex, a fair fixed price shop where i buy, among other
things, my third kilo of sugar since i moved to Kigali 8 months ago.
I'm fairly sure i am not using all this sugar but this is one of the
hazards of having live-in domestic help! As i entered the shop i could
see the rain coming in from the valley. As i exit with my goods in a
paper bag (for plastic ones were outlawed by the govt last month) I
hope i still have time to get the bus. At this time of evening the
taxi park in the centre of town will already be becoming sluggish and
congested. The traffic elsewhere and the city and the number of people
leaving town causes a deficit in he number of buses available. If it
starts raining hard the people in the incoming buses will not want to
get off and the whole public transport system grinds to a halt.
Even though the wind is rising and I'm running out of time, i stop to buy
some bananas from a street vendor. Street boys selling plastic buys
(despite their illegal status), other vendors and passersby all begin
to crowd me. i don't like it. i am used to gathering a crowd where i
try to buy things on the road but today i am in a hurry and i have not
enough eyes to manage my (paper) shopping bag and my backpack, my
purse and the fruit the ladies are selling me.
Sure enough,as i am buying some strange local fruit which i know only
as "pruneaux japonais", even though they are nothing like prunes, a
bag seller trys too steal my purse from the pocket in my backpack
which is across my chest at the moment. I need to get out, its far too
claustrophobic and the thought of losing my purse is not comforting.
Not that i have much money on me, but that's really the least concern
in losing a purse. I get the last available, and least comfortable
seat on a bus about to leave for Kacyiru. Finally on the way down the
big hill of Nyarurenge, towards the turn off for Kimihurura and
Kacyiru is starts to rain lightly.
AS we pull into what should be the terminus at Kacyiru Minister, for
this bus has inexplicably decided to change route and continue to
nyabugogo, the rain is still light. Some time after i am safely
indoors the downpour starts and i settle in to a cup of Rwandan tea.
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