The True Rwanda Safari

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In Rwanda, we saw a gorilla family of 12 feeding on stinging nettle and monkeys digging small potatoes out of a field in Volcanoes National Park. Then our group spent six hours in a Land Cruiser driving to Akagera National Park to search for the Big Five. 

 

But more impressive than the wildlife was the people we saw along the road as we crisscrossed the country.

 

We drove on curving two-lane roads that climbed up and then down the hills. Along the roadside, we saw a steady stream of people walking past buses, petroleum trucks, and mototaxis. Rwanda is called the Land of a Thousand Hills, but for people on foot, it must have felt like the Land of Ten Thousand Hills. 

 

Life looked hard. Buses were expensive, and few people could afford cars, so people walked to work, to school, to market, to the fields, to visit family. Women carried baskets of potatoes, firewood, or bags of ground grains. One man carried a 4-foot cube of mud bricks. Children as young as seven helped carry water.

 

Two things stayed with me most: the water and the bananas.

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At village spigots, people lined up with yellow five-gallon jugs. Full, each one weighed about 42 pounds. Men loaded several onto bicycles; sometimes it took two people to push them uphill. Young men also pushed bikes stacked with huge green banana clusters. When the load tipped, a second person had to steady it. 

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I have often heard that a trip to Africa will change you. I believe it. I will never forget the sight of a seven-year-old carrying two jugs of water weighing 15 pounds each up a long hill.

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Photos in the next blog.