Friendly Africa

In a few days I will hit my six month mark here in Africa. Although I thought I was taking a job in Uganda, I’m still in Rwanda currently, and I've spent just over half of my time here. One stereotype of Africa that continues to amaze me in its correctness is the incredibly friendliness of Africans. I don’t think I am generalizing too much at this 

The road to Bumbogo is paved with dirt

Church building ceremony

point having been to Senegal, Uganda, Cameroon, Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda. There are points along this spectrum though – in Cameroon, perhaps the friendliest place I've ever been to on earth, if you even make eye contact with someone on more than two separate occasions, you have a significant chance of being invited over for dinner. In Rwanda people can be more reserved but I still meet random people all the time who want my phone number after barely meeting me. They actually do call sometimes (just to say “hi,” it’s very strange) so assuming you aren't giving them a fake number (I don’t judge people who do, it can get tiring here), you actually have to save their number. I have so many “random Jon,” “random Alex,” and “random George’s” in my phone I can’t even count; which all leads me to a story from last weekend.

Random Bosco had been calling me for months. I had met him several months back deep in the village on a work trip and he was persistent in his follow up.  Specifically, he wanted me to come to some ceremony in the village and each time I told him I couldn't come he would tell me how disappointed the whole village was…so I said to myself, “what the hell? I've got nothing going on this Saturday, might be interesting and different, why not?” Well it certainly was different…

Two buses, a one long moto ride, and about two hours later, I arrived in the thriving metropolis of Bumgogo. When Bosco said ceremony he wasn't joking, there were hundreds and hundreds of people, including local politicians and well-known public leaders. What Bosco didn't tell me was that the ceremony was for building a new huge church in town and they were undergoing a huge fundraising effort. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the singing, dancing, and not understanding 4 hours (that was all that I could take, the ceremony was not over) of Kinyarwanda speeches, but I also got put in a very uncomfortable position. First, I was expected to give a speech in French in front of this huge crowd of people (about what, I have no idea). Why; because I’m a small white Jewish kid with a shitty beard? Next, I was declared by the project leader to be the white ambassador to the village and this project (wait what, I agreed to that?). And Finally, I was expected to announce my financial commitment in front of everyone, after hearing two politicians who committed $770 and $384 (I had been contemplating whether I could get away with $10 before hearing that). I’m not even a Christian for CHRIST’S SAKE!!!

I extracted myself from the situation by saying I would talk to friends in Kigali see, what we could come up with, and that I’d get back them (figuring in the back of my head that maybe I could pawn this off on some Christian NGO who helps people in Africa build churches).

I felt pretty stupid for not having clarified about what this ceremony was or not questioning why Bosco was so zealous about recruiting me. People assume because you are white here you have money. To some extent that may be true given the standard-of-living differences, but being a student, volunteer, or low-wage worker doesn’t seem to factor into the equation ever. And I’m obviously too trustworthy. Africans may be friendlier than other people, but sometimes there’s something behind it.

Gettin' Around

Traveling in East Africa is remarkably fairly easy. While inter-African flights in most places are still expensive, buses get you most places if you have the time. Rwanda and Burundi are so small that getting around within and between the countries usually involves less than 6 hours going most places. The prices are super cheap generally speaking and the list of cool places is relatively known (at least among the Ex-Pat community). Visas are usually not too bad (except Tanzania where they gouge you for $100) and I've heard as a Resident you can get a multi-country pass for cheap. The East African Community is smart in forming a union and increasing economic inter-activity in a way I didn't see in West Africa.

I love "other important town" of which there are like 8 in Rwanda

Getting on a plane here is often like this where you are randomly in front of a bunch of planes with no direction and could easily end up in the completely wrong place

For travel here, you just have to put up with very tight spaces on buses, blaringly loud radio in a language you don’t understand (or if you are less lucky terribly dubbed movies), and usually uncomfortably hot temperatures with incredibly frustrating people reaching over your shoulder every time you try to open a window. Seriously, this happens every trip, it’s like Africans are immune to cold (and when I say cold I mean 65 F and above with a nice cool breeze). Roads are not surprisingly horrible and bumpy, unless you are in Rwanda, which is an exceptional East African country for a variety of reasons.

Two weeks ago I traveled to Bujumbura, one of my top 5 favorite sounding African capital names (slightly behind Ouagadougou, pronounced “wagudugu,” Antananarivo and Yamoussoukro, but slightly ahead of Tripoli, Windhoek, and Djibouti –the Capital of none other than Djibouti), in Burundi, to visit the famous beaches of Lake Tanganyika. They do not let down, the lake seems like an ocean it’s so big, the beaches are sandy and the water is warm. It’s amazing to see the beach culture also transported there with pick-up volleyball games happening and I even saw someone kite boarding.

Mount Meru in the foreground, Kilimanjaro in the background

Lucy the crazy female chimp at our hotel in Bujumbura

My Kiwi friend and roommate Johanna plays with Lucy

Some Burundian friends and Rwandans that went down as well for the weekend

Nightfalls on Bujumbura (downtown in the background)

It was also amazing getting a hug from Lucy the enormous and aggressive female chimpanzee the owner keeps at Pinnacle 19, the hotel I stayed at. But the highlight of the trip might have been on the way there on the bus. Next to me sat an African man continuously chowing down samosa’s (later we reportedly heard people were keeping tabs and it was more than 10)! When you enter Burundi from Rwanda the road gets super windy and mountain-e. It didn't help that the bus driver was driving like a mad man (you can guess where this is going by now). I feel so fortunate that this passenger turned to his right (and not me on his left) to projectile vomit everywhere hitting no fewer than three people. The reaction was my favorite part: the bus did not stop, no one yelled (as they would for sure in the States), and besides a few sighs, the people covered in this man’s vomit mostly just laughed; as in: “look how many samosa’s you ate, you idiot, you vomited, hahahahaha.” They wiped themselves down the best they could as the man continued to vomit and went on with life. It wasn't just that these passengers were all remarkably calm, I would go as far as saying this incident was an ice breaker and stimulated good conversation. TIA – This Is Africa, as they say…

Insect with crazy natural wholes in it's wings at Mt. Kabuye, the tallest mountain (doesn't include volcanoes which are much higher) in rwanda, about 2700 meters

Our unofficial African child soldier entourage that came to meet us at the top of the mountain 

Walking right through your village to get down, "excuse us, don't mind us, coming through"

Finally last week, a trip to Lake Kivu to Gisenyi (bordering Goma of the DRC but much more peaceful)