or should I say my first christmas in africa? because at first glimpse there was not much african about my christmas; didn’t go to church, didn’t go to a wedding, didn’t spend it with africans, at least not directly. but that doesn’t really matter because it is one of the christmases I will forever remember – and that’s not because it is only the second christmas I spent away from my family not doing the usual routine we always do.
where to begin? I guess my car is as good as any place to start this story ;-)) a while ago marc, ines and I had decided that as we were practically the only ones from our circle of friends left over the christmas holidays we would pack our dogs – a notable 5 at the moment; including some friends’ dogs we’re looking after – into my car and our luggage into theirs and would set off to spend a few days on amohoro island (peace island) in the kivu lake, near kibuye. it takes a couple of hours to get there and is supposed to be beautiful; in the lake – so all about swimming, camping and enjoying some time off from kigali. we were going to leave on christmas day and stay until saturday. on christmas eve morning I drove my car out of the driveway, using my 4x4 as usual; when trying to put it back into the normal mode the 4x4 gear shift got stuck again; I’ve only just gotten my car back after 3 weeks in the garage because of exactly that problem. i wanted to cry. instead I called the garage and explained my problem; the guy told me that they were closing up for the holidays but that he would send someone to tow me. so they came, saw and towed the car – not to be repaired until the new year. fuck!
but the last thing you lose in africa is faith and so I walked to work smiling, hoping, somehow convinced that the gods would come up with a solution. I also texted my friends to warn them – an hour later i get a message from them that their car wasn’t starting… it started looking bleak for our great escape. but hope is the last one to die – and so I tried to keep up my smile and made it through my day. in the mean time marc and ines had had their battery replaced and found out that they had a leak in the break fluid pipe. to cut a long story short; they found some place which was going to weld them the leak the next morning and we decided to leave the ‘holiday dogs’ behind and squeeze ourselves and our 3 dogs into their car – after all is was only a two hour trip and therefore doable.
so the next morning I got up early, went to do some shopping for the trip and then came home to wait for them to pick me up. time ticked by and it got later and later and I had no news; so I called – ines should’ve been round to pick me up already as she had gone to the garage hours ago. another couple of hours later I called again and then finally she had just gotten home. so by about 3pm we were finally on our way – squeezed into their samurai – me in the back between piles of bags and 3 dogs and it actually wasn’t so uncomfortable. we were in good spirits and felt that we had beaten the odds and were now good to go.
on the way out of town we stopped at the petrol station to get some fuel to take us to kibuye; they would only give us about 7 litres worth… (there is a general petrol strike type thing going on – the government wants petrol stations to lower the price quite significantly and the petrol stations are refusing; so they only give out really small amounts of petrol at the time). whatever – there would be more petrol stations on the way. so we left kigali and drove through the hills towards gitarama from where we would take a turn to arrive to kibuye. simple.
about half an hour into the drive I notice that my dog’s throat is doing retching movements; I had foreseen this one – she gets car sick. so being me I had shoved one of the precious plastic bags which had arrived in my possession illegally in my pocket (plastic bags are banned in rwanda – good ey?) – and now was the time to pull it out. I held it open and dear chispa stuck her head right in it and spewed perfectly into the plastic bag. it was a work of art considering we were in a packed car and driving on serpentine roads as this was happening. ines was in stitches from watching the spectacle in the rear view mirror – and I was in stitches too because I was now holding a yellow bag full of dog sick. (I have never seen a dog being sick in a bag; but then we’re talking about a woman who lays out the plastic bag under a dogs anus in order to not have to pick up the pooh ;-)) I handed it to marc in the front seat who was dangling it out the window for the next twenty minutes or so.
we came upon a petrol station actually serving petrol and stopped. marc being on the side of the tank and the one with the money handed ines the bag full of sick to hold whilst he was negotiating with the guy to get double the normal amount of petrol. the man took an interest in the contents of the bag which made us all cry with laughter – we told him it was vomit – and he asked: ‘who’s is it?’ – when we told him it was the dog’s he just chuckled and pulled an ‘i don’t understand these people’ face –which made us laugh even more. we asked him if he had a bin somewhere so we could chuck it; he pointed towards an obelisk type thing surrounded by some grass. ines walked over with the bag but couldn’t find the bin and so came back, still holding the sick bag. he told her to just put it there – in the grass. so she walked over again and gingerly deposited the bag as though they were a bunch of flowers on grave.
with an additional 12 litres of fuel in the tank we carried on; arrived in gitarama and took the road towards kibuye. it forked again a little while later and we took the right road – I mean the road turning off towards the right. she said something like ‘this is the road, isn’t it?’ – and I said, yeah, this must be the one. as soon as I’d said it I thought – mmh, maybe we should ask. but I never said this out loud. we drove on and on through the beautiful hills of rwanda and suddenly I realised that chispa was going to be sick again. with no more plastic bags available I picked up the bowl i had brought for water and as she was retching was holding it at the ready. now – skip the next few lines if you’re squirmish.
she was in a sitting position – not ideal to be sick – and suddenly I saw this bright yellow mass rising up in her mouth – it wasn’t as simple as it had been with the bag; and so I balanced the bowl and tried to get her to be sick in it. she pushed her head backwards but somehow the sick still landed in the bowl; the rest of it was swallowed by her again… you have no idea how funny this particular situation was! and then there was nothing left in her stomach to be sick again; so the rest of the journey was stress free in that respect.
kibuye is about an hour and a half from the said turning; so when an hour and a bit later the tarmac road suddenly turned into to a dirt track we stopped and asked people. as most people out in the country side – which is where we were – don’t speak any french or english asking for the way goes like this: you stop the car, open the window, shout ‘umwa’ (meaning so much as hey, oi) to the nearest person, then you say ‘miriwe’ (good afternoon), then you point along the road in the direction you’re going and say the name of the place you’re looking for. normally people would just nod, point and say the name of the place back to you. not this time. they all looked utterly confused and as though we had just asked them the way to little diddlington on sea. it dawned on us that we had taken the wrong road. shit.
by that time it was a) 5pm and b) we were getting tired. we stopped next to a field to get out, stretch our legs, let the dogs take a leak and a short run around before driving back half the way to kigali and then take the right road. the dogs got out, we did too and were just stretching our legs and laughing about how this simple trip was one big obstacle course; the gods really didn’t want us to get some peace on amohoro island ;-)) but luckily we could laugh about it and weren’t going to get all wound up and cranky about it – I guess we have learnt some patience here already; and what else can you do than to accept the situation?
it was at that point that we realised our dogs had taken off in a flight to check out the two goats tied up in a field about a hundred metres from our car. at first ines took pictures because it was so cute and funny. then the dogs seemed to start attacking the goat. we stood there screaming their names but of course they were in their world and didn’t pay us any attention. shit again. I started running through the field trying to get to them before they got to the goat’s throat. the field was interlaced with water channels and they were full of water; I dashed through the mud in my birkenstocks; nearly falling at times – shouting the dogs’ names and generally panicking. by that time the owner of the goats – a woman – had approached the scene with a machete – I was terrified! the people here do not understand the concept of domestic dogs and I was worried she was going to slash them. eventually the dogs disengaged from their goat feast and came back. as I was hauling chispa back through the fields I came upon ines who was disciplining her big white dog – it was lying in a pool of mud. i just stammered: ‘ines – she’s lying in a pool of mud…’ (thinking about myself who would have to sit next to and partly underneath the now muddy threesome of dogs). we took them on the leash and I went back to the car with them and waited with marc whilst ines walked across the field to examine the goat. just what we needed – our dogs attacking and injuring a goat on christmas day; but I guess that would mean meat for the village at least.
we could see ines and a woman from the village examining the goat, discussing. all the while marc and I were by the car with the dogs getting more and more surrounded by curious villagers. they were all pressed in around the car and were looking at the dogs and at us. a matatu passed and stopped at the sight of a car surrounded by a village but then realised there was not much happening and drove on. eventually a man came forward and asked us what the problem was. we explained and he asked whether we had already negotiated with the villagers; I told him that my friend was doing that and that they were just coming back – no problem. the goat owner detached the goat and dragged it across the field; the rope was fastened around one leg and so it was limping. at first we thought it was seriously injured, but phew, it wasn’t.
turns out the dogs had only been licking it and the goat was not injured at all. well – at least there was some good news. but as I said, people here are not used to dogs and so they claimed that even though the goat did not have any injuries it could still die in a few days as a result of the incident. we explained that they were domestic dogs and that it was virtually impossible that they had inflicted any internal injuries to the goat and that because they were vaccinated not even their saliva would infect the goat with some weird disease. they still wanted us to buy the goat. (now – just so you get the picture: a small car, surrounded by at least 40 people forming a half circle around one side of the car, one person sitting in the car with the door open, one person standing next to the door holding two dogs; and about 5 feet away the woman holding the goat – the dogs obviously agitated at the renewed sight of a goat – in all of this ines negotiating with the man who spoke some french). we showed them the interior of the car and explained that there was no way in hell that we could take a goat; quite apart from the fact that the goat was perfectly fine. it was quite clear that they basically wanted amafaranga (money) – as usual. we offered to pay them something for the trouble and asked how much would be appropriate. the guy asked us how much we would give; we said 2000 amafaranga (about 2 quid) – just to put that into perspective: a goat costs 5000. he was not happy. he asked for 5000. we said no – that was how much a goat cost and that since the goat was fine we didn’t see why we needed to pay for it. again, the bollocks about how the goat might still die. we said 2000 was more than enough (and believe me – for rural people that is a lot of money; people working in the city earn like 35,000 a month – and life in the city is a lot more expensive) – then he said, but in order for us to part on good terms, make it 3000. we’d had enough; got in the car, gave them the 2000 and drove off; back towards gitarama where we would finally take the right road for kibuye.
and during all this journey the man with the boat who was going to take us to the island kept calling me to check up on where we were and when we would be arriving – from an initial prediction of about 2pm we had now gone to more like 8.30 – I don’t even want to know what he must have been thinking about us ;-)) it is generally not advisable to drive after dark outside the cities and i was getting a bit nervous. but somehow driving home to kigali just wasn’t an option. we got to the turning and finally made it onto the right road. by that time night had fallen and luckily the road was deserted. we drove onwards and upwards through the hills, through dark villages which have no electricity and through thick fog which was coming down the road in big clouds. it was like one of those horror movies where people get caught in mysterious fogs somewhere in a forest in canada. at least it was still relatively warm and because I’d never seen a horror film set in africa I wasn’t scared. but we could barely see the road at times and all in all the journey got more and more exhausting. a silence fell in the car and everyone in it had resigned to the fact that this was a lot more strenuous than anticipated. the dogs were all sleeping by that time, occasionally opening one eye to see what was happening – groggy. also, by the time we took the right road the petrol indicator was going down fast; we didn’t go back into gitarama because we couldn’t be bothered to do one single extra mile – having already done and additional 40 or so.
and since all we kept driving through were deserted villages with no light we all started thinking the same… what if we run out in the middle of nowhere? we couldn’t handle another obstacle today. we finally got to a place which had a petrol station; but they had run out of petrol. but this is africa and some guy turned up telling us he could sell us some, but for an extra high price. we negotiated and ended up paying double of what it would have normally cost us. what the heck; at least we would now safely make it through the remaining sixteen kilometres.
as we were approaching kibuye there suddenly was a funny smell in the car; burnt rubber or something – and we wondered where it was coming from – thinking, probably outside. we finally got to the hotel where the boat was waiting and pulled up. we switched off the engine and got out of the car. I called the guy and he said to drive down to the dock – so we get back in the car – and – yes – it wouldn’t start! it had broken down on us; at least it had waited until our arrival at destination.
no problem, the guy came to meet us and helped us carry the luggage through the hotel and its bar down some stairs and onto the boat. ines was talking with her family on the phone and had the dogs – so she had to go round the outside; walking down the road for a bit and then turn left to where the boat was. when after 10 minutes she hadn’t turned up we started wondering. jean-baptiste, the boat man, walked down the road to see if she’d missed the turning; shouting her name. I tried to call her in the meantime – busy. in the end she was found by jean-baptiste and apart from falling over with the dogs whilst talking to her family she was fine and in one piece.
and so – after a 7 hour journey which should’ve taken us 2 and a half we were finally on the boat with our dogs and belongings and headed for peace island. it was surreal to drive through the pitch black night on the pitch black and rocky lake (it was raining and thundering by then) – occasionally seeing islands and trees and lights here and there, wondering whether we were going to run aground or hit a rock – but we didn’t. we got to the island and the lake was rocking with waves. we tried to dock to the landing and whilst the boat was wildly shaking up and down and to and fro we threw our bags and our dogs on the jetty and finally made it onto safe land ourselves.
the greeting was warm and uncomplicated. we sat down, were served some beers whilst we waited for our food which we had ordered by mobile phone from the boat. we were sat in a wooden house which served as a dry spot for the restaurant; and in the end they just pitched up our ‘double tent’ – more like a deluxe suite – right inside this house. and after the best chicken I’ve ever eaten in rwanda and a whisky and coke on ice we fell into our beds and finally got some peace.
some pictures of the peaceful part of our christmas break:
waiting for our christmas dinner
chillin' before breakfast
the love of my life!
swimming with the kids
sunset stroll
everyone's relaxing
sunrise
pre-breakfast swim in the lake...
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