Theft in Rwanda

My last couple days at Joey’s post followed a similar routine. I woke up around when he left for school, and went out and grabbed some tea and a piece of fried bread. I read for a while at his place, cleaned up a bit so as to be a good guest,  had lunch with him, and then read more once he left to go back to class. On Wednesday I played some basketball with the high school students again and had a lot of fun again. Joey was at a school meeting this time, though, so I was on my own with about 20 Rwandan kids who spoke little to no English. It was a fun experience and I had a great time, especially when they asked how I liked Rwanda and the village.  That night we made a Mexican dish of a pork stew, refried beans and Spanish rice. It was incredible. We then watched a TV series and hit the hey.

On Thursday I did much of the same except when Joey got out of teaching we walked about 45 minutes to some natural hot springs. The cement factory in town had developed them into an actual nice place to relax and soak. The big pool/pond was informally separated into a men’s, women’s, and women/children’s section and in typical Rwandan fashion (said Joey) the men had the best spot. We got there a little before sunset and then walked back towards town in the dark. It was so tranquil and calm, it was really difficult to imagine the horror that happened on these very hills during the genocide in ’94. It was something I kept reminding myself of throughout my trip. Well, we stopped by a bar in town and ordered some Akwa Benz, which was basically a platter of grilled pork and onions. It was by far the best Rwandan food I had there. We had a couple beers with the meal and then headed home.

The next morning Joey had off from teaching so he and I hitchhiked to Kamembe, the district capital. We first grabbed a ride with a big cement truck and then with a couple Ugandans in a mini van. The Ugandans didn’t speak much English or Kinyarwanda and I think they thought we were French because as a last ditch attempt we tried to speak to them in French. Well, it seemed they almost solely spoke Swahili so our conversations were mostly restricted to our respective travelling companions. When they dropped us off they asked for some cash, which seemed a bit sketchy because we were hitchhiking and they hadn’t told us they wanted money at the start, the first rule of trying to charge somebody for a ride. We reluctantly gave them a couple bucks and they were on their way.

We checked into a Catholic guesthouse near the border to Bukavu, Congo, and Joey went to run a few errands in town while I went to a different hotel and used the wifi while having some lunch. After a bit Joey came and met up with me at this hotel, which overlooked the border crossing and straight into the Congo. We muted the possibility of seeing if we could go into Bukavu and check out the market or have a beer—mostly so we could say we’d been to Congo. We decided it probably wasn’t worth the hassle and bribes we’d have to pay (without visas) so we hung out for a while and Joey told me about this new game he’d wanted to play called “NGO Bingo” where you sit at this hotel and have a bingo card of 4x4 (or maybe even 5x5) with different NGO names on it and check off the boxes when you a land rover with that NGO’s logo on it pass through either to or from Bukavu. Because of the conflict(s) in the Congo, a lot of NGOs base their operations in Rwanda and commute over to the areas in Congo where they work.

We eventually left that hotel, dropped our stuff off at the hotel, and made our way to a bar on the river south of the border crossing and were literally a stone’s throw away from Bukavu. We played some cards and taught a curious Rwandan kid (looked to be about high schoo level) the game we were playing and then eventually found our way back to the hotel as their wasn’t a whole lot of nightlife going on.

The next day, we woke up and made our way to the bus station. Joey boarded one bus back to his village and I hopped on one to Kigali. We said our farewells, unsure of when we’d see each other next. I got to Kigali and made my way to a guesthouse in Nyamirombo, the Muslim/West African neighborhood. When I showed up at the guesthouse I realized that a small travel folder which I’d kept a bunch of cash, my credit card and my yellow fever vaccination card was missing. It’s a long, dull, and somewhat disheartening story so I won’t go too much into too much detail but I’m pretty sure what happened was that either somebody went into our room at the hotel the previous night and took it or I left it in the room by accident and the hotel denied any knowledge and promptly hung up on me while I was trying to speak to her in French and then she did the same to Joey when he tried to call her and speak in Kinyirwanda. The bus company was incredibly helpful and I do firmly believe that I didn’t leave it on the bus and the last time I really remember seeing the black folder was in the hotel room before we went out that night. The only lucky thing about the situation is that my passport wasn’t in it at the moment. I hoped that whoever ended up in possession of my travel folder used the money inside to help their families and educate their children (if they had any) rather than just spend it frivolously.

Losing the cash and not having a credit card for the rest of the trip sucked but the thing I was most worried about was not having my yellow fever card for when I flew to China the next day. Supposedly it was required to have proof of a yellow fever vaccination when entering China from a yellow fever prevalent zone and I was worried I might get rejected entrance at the Beijing airport or even in Dubai which I had to fly through. I went through a bunch of ideas of what to do, and bounced some of them off my parents between frantic phone calls back and forth. But in the end I did nothing. I grabbed some pizza with a volunteer I'd me the previous weekend and I boarded the plane the next day to Dubai and simply hoped for the best. 

I guess now is when I should make some statements about how I found Rwanda overall. I usually hate these sweeping generalizations but I do have a few about Rwanda I'd like to share, even with how conflicted I felt about the country. Rwanda is the cleanest, least corrupt, and most promising developing country I've ever been to. The youth seem hopeful, the police seem well disciplined and capable, and the country seems from at least an economic and developmental point of view to be taking some massive steps in the right direction. I'm not going to go into any of the political issues surrounding the president and the conflict in Congo because, quite frankly, I don't understand it enough. I know what I saw and heard but as a visitor for only two weeks I can only say that the country looks very promising to me. 

On the flip side, Rwanda wasn't a great place to go as a traveller. It wasn't terribly expensive and it was easy to get around but there wasn't much flavor, both in the sites and food. Kigali is a clean, nice, boring city and most places outside the capitol didn't have a whole lot of excitement to offer. I'm sure the gorillas were great to see but the prices to enter the national parks were way, way to high for me to afford. The legacy of the genocide was ever present, even if it was easy to ignore because the country is advancing and trying to get past it. The genocide memorial in Kigali was one of the highlights of my trip because it challenged me to not only see but accept the terrible things human beings can do to each other. In the end, though, I had an amazing time seeing my good friend Joey and it was good for me to see and experience another African country, to gain another perspective about the continent. Unlike most places I've visited, I don't foresee myself returning to Rwanda any time soon but I am immensely happy I went and it was a learning experience for me. Travel isn't always enjoyable but Rwanda certainly posed a learning experience for me and I'm glad I went and spent a bit of time there.