Le Weekend

During the weekends, I’ve been trying to alternate between staying home in Shyorongi (first, because I like it here, and second, because I want my fellow Shyorongians to feel like I’m actually a member of their community, not just a weekday worker) and traveling throughout the rest of the country (first, because there is honestly sod all to do in Shyorongi, second, because the rest of the country is beautiful, and third, because I’ve got a great collection of fellow volunteer friends to catch up with). This last weekend was spent away, and it was one of my favorites yet.

I left Shyorongi on Thursday night, rather than Friday morning, due to an uncharacteristically trying week of classes that left me wanting to escape. Even though Shyorongi is only half an hour from the outskirts of Kigali, entering the capital feels like landing on another planet. Standing on the side of the muddy road in the rain while waiting for the bus in Shyo, being laughed at by a pack of hyenas/teenaged boys across the street while trying to deflect questions from a heartbreaking man who wants nothing more than fast-tracked United States citizenship, seems like a hazy dream while I’m sitting at Kana Khazana, an amazing Kigali Indian restaurant, having perfect lentils and chicken spooned onto my plate while chatting about novel writing with my buddies. I hated Kigali when we first arrived, and I still prefer the beautiful mountains and fresh air of Shyorongi, but I have definitely learned to appreciate the amazing convenience of the capital. As Jane says, Kigali is like Disneyland: crazy expensive and covered in a pleasant artificial lacquer of convenience and comfort.

However, just like Disneyland, Kigali makes me want to throw up after a day or two, so I was excited when Jane, Susan and I parted ways with the rest of the group on Friday and bought our tickets for the 2:30pm bus to Nyagatare, where we planned to spend the weekend with Zach and Evan. We commandeered the whole back row of the bus, which is a great victory (five seats between three people is basically akin to flying on Air Force One) and settled in for a comfy ride. We were slightly concerned when it took about an hour just to escape the borders of Kigali proper, which usually only takes about twenty minutes. The rest of the ride followed suit, and the journey that should have taken us about two and a half hours managed to take four. This is probably due to the fact that busses here just stop whenever anyone wants to get off, rather than stopping at a predetermined central location in each tiny town, so you stop to drop one guy off in front of his house, and then stop again fifty yards down the road to drop the next guy off in front of his house. This was infuriating, but here we don’t get infuriated, we just get belligerent, so to pass the time the three of us decided to sing the classics at full volume from the back of the bus. We belted out oldies like Build Me Up Buttercup, I Think We’re Alone Now, Lean On Me, and other greats, much to the delight of the locals, who often applauded our acappella efforts. We finished up with a prize-worthy version of All Shook Up just as we rolled into the Nyagatare taxi park. We tumbled off the bus, scooped up Zach and Evan from the Nelson Mandela Bar, and headed off to a great café where we ate mélanges (like a random mix of all the Rwandan favorites, including chips, mashed plantains, rice, pasta, beans, veg, etc.) and drank tea (the best tea I’ve had in Rwanda so far!) for just 900Rwf, or about $1.50 US. Afterwards we trooped back up to Nelson Mandela to relax and chat over surprisingly ice cold beers. I haven’t been able to see Z and E much at all since orientation because they live so far north, so it was a real treat to hang out with them. These guys manage to seem like opposites (Zach is pretty soft-spoken and reserved while Evan is louder and crazier) while still both being funny, uber intelligent, and excellent hosts. At around midnight, we got motos for the three-mile journey back to their house and went to bed.

When I woke up at 6am on Saturday, I fell in love with Z and E’s little patch of Nyagatare. The area just beyond their back porch is covered in lush trees that house more bird species than I thought existed in Rwanda, and there’s no traffic noise anywhere to compete with them. Zach (the other early riser in the group) showed me their garden, which was planted last year by the students using another volunteer’s seeds. They’ve planted way too many seeds for the small plot, so Zach is hard at work strategizing how to thin things out, but for now they’ve got basil coming in through the window, and some cucumbers will be ready soon. [As soon as the torrential rains calm down in Shyo for five minutes at a stretch, I hope to do a bit of gardening myself.] When the others woke up, we had a breakfast of corn muffins with blueberry jam (from a farmers’ market in Georgia) and cheese (from Kigali, courtesy of Susan) with cups of tea, which ranks among the best meals I’ve had so far in Rwanda. We hung around reading until it was time to start the walk into town for lunch. The walk in takes about an hour and is gorgeous. It had been hot all morning, so we were in short sleeves and had little (Evan and Jane) to no (me and Zach) rain gear, which is probably why the gods above looked down at the arrogant muzungus thinking they could predict Rwandan weather hours in advance and decided to send the most torrential downpour of softball-sized raindrops to gush upon us. At points, the rain was so strong that I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and by the time we got to town, we could easily have canoed down the ditches at the side of the road. We were as wet as if we had just climbed out of swimming pools, and in this totally presentable state we parked ourselves at the café for another mélange, this time with double portions of tea. Thankfully, my friends are Huckleberry Finn-esque in their capacity to appreciate adventure and find the humor in things, so all of us loved every minute of it and had no complaints. After lunch, we treated ourselves to moto rides back home, piling two per moto to lower the cost. Slipping and sliding along the mud roads in the pouring rain on a moto with Jane was terrifying, unforgettable, excellent. Back at home, we dried off, changed clothes and hunkered down in our sleeping bags for a marathon of the third season of Dexter, while the rain raged heavy outside. Sheer bliss.

The rain calmed down and fully stopped by late afternoon, so we set off to accomplish our one solid goal of the day: to see a monkey. Evan had heard that monkeys come out to play in the trees around the Akagera River at dusk, so we headed out at around 5:30pm for the two-mile trek to the river. After the day’s rain, the walk down the mud path was fully ridiculous. At one point, the path devolved into a knee-deep lake, which we had to wade through, steadfastly not thinking about what heinous diseases and creeping things were probably swirling around our bare ankles. We were heading towards the gorgeous orange sunset the whole time though, so had no real complaints. We eventually reached the serene river, and after about fifteen minutes of tree-scanning, we saw our prize: a lone monkey hanging out in the upper branches of a tree on the opposite bank, stretching out his long limbs just enough for us to see his monkey-ish silhouette against the sunset. Sweet success. We retraced our steps, this time in the dark, and the only really hairy part of the walk home was when we realized we were being pursued by a pack of longhorns, traveling just a little faster than us up the path. We thankfully lost them at an intersection. The electricity was on when we reached home, and Zach whipped up delicious spaghetti with fresh basil, garlic, and onions for us, after which we lapped up some more Dexter and finally slept.

The next morning, after more corn muffins and jam, I got the welcome news that the next day, Monday, was a holiday off from school. Getting news like that is an interesting process here; no one from my school mentioned anything about it to me, even though I talked to many teachers and students about a test I was planning to give on Monday and told all of the students that I would see them on Monday and that they had assignments due on Monday, etc. I heard a vague rumor from some of my friends that their schools had a Monday holiday, and once the rumor was confirmed for more than half of them, I finally sent a message to my Dean of Studies about it. I got a reply back right away, telling me that there was no school. So while I’m pleased for the extra day off, I wouldn’t have been averse to hearing about it ahead of time. It seems like you can get any information you want here if you ask the right questions, but it’s only through blind luck that you discover the right questions to ask. Anyway, the longer weekend took off the pressure for getting any work done on Sunday, so we didn’t have to rush home. The ride back to Kigali was pleasant (another conquering of the whole back seat of the bus) and fast (just three hours!), and after a late lunch in town I was back in Shyorongi before evening. I’m always happy to be home after a long weekend away, to come back to my own space and my routine. So now it’s Monday morning, and it’s raining to end the world outside but I’m warm and happy in here; I’ve got a cup of tea and bananas for breakfast, and plenty of time to work, and plans to visit my friends up the road in the afternoon. Happy for weekends like this, where I end up appreciating the whole country more, even my little spec of it.