Cyangugu, Rwanda – Given the amount of time we spent driving from Kigali to Butare to Gikorongo to Kitabi to Cyangugu today, I’ve broken the trip down into a few smaller vignettes. In many ways, it was an ultimate road trip that offered spectacular sights that may be a precursor to similar trips we are planning to other areas over the coming weeks, including up to Volcanoes National Park in the north-west and Akagera National Park in the north-east, home to the country’s only savannah lands.
We passed a constant stream of people walking and bicycling along the roadways. There were children with large jerry cans of water on their head, others with school notebooks and small slates, and a half-dozen seven-year-old girls in school uniforms helping a man push his bicycle, laden with two large sacks, up one of the many steep hills. A young boy kicked an improvised soccer ball made from a stuffed chip bag, while another used a stick to push a tire down the hill. Classic improvised toys.
As dinner was prepared, smoke seeped through tiles atop mud houses that were surrounded by bamboo fences. Elsewhere, inmates in pink jumpsuits dotted rice paddies like flamingos. Given how many of them would have been incarcerated for vicious attacks with implements such as these during the genocide, I found it ironic to see them lugging around heavy pickaxes and hoes.
The drive throughout was gorgeous, with great views of the mountains, bustling towns and changing vegetation. There were forests of eucalyptus, which shimmered blue-silver in the light and filled the air with menthol, and others with exotic pine trees. Crops of sunflowers sparkled like stars in a sky of green banana trees. From tea plantations to chalk walls and clay soil, there is so much ecological diversity here.
We passed a constant stream of people walking and bicycling along the roadways. There were children with large jerry cans of water on their head, others with school notebooks and small slates, and a half-dozen seven-year-old girls in school uniforms helping a man push his bicycle, laden with two large sacks, up one of the many steep hills. A young boy kicked an improvised soccer ball made from a stuffed chip bag, while another used a stick to push a tire down the hill. Classic improvised toys.
As dinner was prepared, smoke seeped through tiles atop mud houses that were surrounded by bamboo fences. Elsewhere, inmates in pink jumpsuits dotted rice paddies like flamingos. Given how many of them would have been incarcerated for vicious attacks with implements such as these during the genocide, I found it ironic to see them lugging around heavy pickaxes and hoes.
The drive throughout was gorgeous, with great views of the mountains, bustling towns and changing vegetation. There were forests of eucalyptus, which shimmered blue-silver in the light and filled the air with menthol, and others with exotic pine trees. Crops of sunflowers sparkled like stars in a sky of green banana trees. From tea plantations to chalk walls and clay soil, there is so much ecological diversity here.
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