Fin.

London, Ontario, Canada – Mounds of snow rest on the side of the road, blackened like smokers’ teeth. The listless wet grass mopes in faded browns as the swollen river climbs the banks.

Where is all the green? The statuesque trees cloaked in bright leaves? The rolling fields of tea, shimmering in the sunlight? The lizards, scampering under rocks, covered in moss? Where is the mashaza?

Alas, this is not Rwanda. Back in Canada, spring is yawning, but not yet awake.

I returned yesterday afternoon and spent my first day home at the Ivey Eye Clinic. Examining the results of Sunday’s crash outside Kigali, the doctors shook their heads, marvelling in amazement at just how lucky I had been. “Unbelievable.” It turns out I have a 4.2 mm laceration on my cornea that went so deep it came within a micron (a thousandth of a millimetre) of penetrating my eye, leaving me blind on the right side forever. Lucky indeed.

The current prognosis is yet unknown, but there’s hope I’ll regain at least some of my vision while the eye heals over the next six months.

It may not be green, but at least I can see something. And I still have the cold rain to remind me of Kitabi.

Day 28: Time to Bolt.

Kitabi, Rwanda – We were enveloped in a sudden flash of white and the instantaneous roar of deep, rumbling thunder shook the ground beneath us.

Having dodged raindrops the size of grapes while running from the computer lab to a waiting truck yesterday, either the vehicle itself, or the ground beside us, was struck by a large bolt of lightning. For a moment, the air was bleached; I had never been so close to one of Zeus’s arrows.

This followed a lightning strike a few minutes before that had hit the lab, sending a long spark out of the server and over our heads, alerting us that it might be wise to leave. Lightning arrestors would be a prudent investment.

The weather can change very quickly here. Given that Kitabi is located on the edge of a rainforest, it’s not surprising that sunny days can suddenly dissipate into skies of looming cloud and rains that make the hills disappear. The area accumulates approximately 2,000 millimetres of rain annually, which feeds the lush vegetation that springs from every inch of soil. I have never seen so much green.

And yet, when it is sunny, the skies seem to be painted on over rolling hills, making this one of the most beautiful areas I’ve seen in the world.

Day 24: Landslide to Kigali.

Kigali, Rwanda – The rains erased the hills as greens became greys and sharp became blurred. Each icy drop, icier at its core, pummelled the rug of crestfallen cloud that hugged the earth.

The pavement ran red as small landslides cascaded down the hills, the curled roots of grass and small plants clutching like gnarled fingers to the muddy heap. A felled tree lay sprawled across the road.

A convoy of 12 open olive green Mercedes trucks stood roadside with flimsy camouflage tarps flapping in the cold wind. Most held up to 100 standing soldiers who shivered in uniform, staring out with hardened gazes. Two of the trucks carried supplies, piles of mattresses absorbing all the skies could offer.

New clay homes shed their outer skin and windshield wipers duelled, their swordplay leaving sliced remains splattered before us. Ruddy water wove its way down mud steps, down tile roofs, down irrigation ditches. Everywhere down, small stones somersaulted in the surf. People dared the stinging onslaught to collect the water in jugs.

And yet, as the sky lightened, the explosion of green made it seem as though all had grown by twice its size in the past hour.