Traveling Vagabond

After travelling back to Kigali from Kampala, my time there was short-lived. My group of M & E interns had a clarifying conference call with our bosses here in Rwanda and some Spark staff from the states. It was exciting to see everyone discussing the work they are doing, and while things all move a little more slowly over here, there is progress. On Thursday afternoon, Natasha (a fellow intern who did SIT in Kigali) and I went to the ATM and the market. Natasha gets dresses made within this market, and also buys her baskets and other trinkets there. She also took me to a woman she said made “statement pieces” of paper beads. When I think statement jewelry, I generally do think large and pretty, in a way that draws attention, but I wasn’t sure what to expect with paper beads. The description was definitely true! Extremely colorful, huge, chunky beads that really were quite impressive in the many paper beads available for purchase at the markets.

Street vendor selling steak on a bamboo stick out our bus window.

While I was at the market, Dennis was travelling to Kigali from Musanze and picking up our tickets for our next weekend excursion in Burundi! While the first busses were sold out, Dennis found one that was not – Yahoo express- oh the names they have for their bus lines! Our bus left at about 6:30, so we thought, and that meant we were up early! Making our way to the bus depot, grabbing a muffin or two and airtime before hopping on for the ride put us there just in time. The ride was relatively uneventful, and luckily we had been warned that a) cell phones worked in Burundi (from Rwanda) and b) that the border guard would take our passports in a semi-sketchy way as we went to pay for our visas. I stayed with the passports, and Dennis went to pay for our visas. Without two people I would have been a little more nervous, but this way it worked just fine! We had our 3 day stop-over visas and where ready to get on the bus. I thought we had made good time, but in reality, we were the last people back on the bus! We were incredibly thankful that they waited for us (not that it should have been anything other than that), but being left in no man’s land Burundi would have been a bit of a downer for a three day weekend!

driving through Burundi.

Window's a bit dirty but the views were gorgeous!

The ride into Burundi instantly brought into view a lovely river scene and a clear presence of coffee growing. While some of the coffee was going red, most was still young and green- nowhere near harvest. I had been expecting really rough roads, but they really were very manageable! We were sitting relatively near the front, but in the end, even the trip home was pleasant (although very long). Upon arriving in Bujumbura, Dennis and I took an overpriced taxi to a forex and then on to the Musee Vivante, or the living museum. This happened to be directly across the street from where my friend Christine was living for her year-long Princeton in Africa fellowship with LWF. She met us on spot took us back to her place to drop off our bags and then we headed toward one of the nearby hotels to try to spot some hippos! 

Fishermen in Bujumbura

While we had no luck at the first viewing spot, it was lovely to sit and have tea over-looking the water of Lake Tanganyika. The beach or small marshy area had been fenced off in the water to prevent the hippos getting too close to the guests! While we sat enjoying some Mukeke filets, there were fishermen out in the water throwing-out nets and smacking the water with their paddles to scare the fish into the nets. It made sense how hippos and crocs end up eating a lot of fishermen. It’s not like their style of fishing is very subtle.  With no luck seeing any hippos this time around, we headed off to a market that Christine had been raving about- full of Congolese masks!

The story goes that the masks are not made for tourists (may or may not be true). The men in some shops clearly had much newer masks, while there was one on the end with some incredibly funky, dusty, cob-webbed and shedding masks. He said that he travels to Congo with goods (food and otherwise) in order to trade for these ceremonial masks in very small and poor villages. While something tells me that there might be a certain level of ‘taking-advantage’ there also was an incredible variety of masks, many included cowrie shells, some even had some flaky bits of malachite. I did not end-up buying a mask (predominantly because it would be hard to pick somewhere to put it in our small little apartment in Charlottesville, but also cause I am pretty sure that Scott wouldn’t appreciate it glaring down from the wall at all!) There were also lots of bits of amethyst, malachite and I managed to even find some gorgeous green tourmaline! J Got to love my gemstones! Burundi is also very well known for its Batwa (or Twa) pottery/ceramic pieces. Most are very simple carrying containers for water or beans, but some are more ornate. While I also saw a lovely malachite and soapstone chess board, even the Burundians wanted to charge far more than I had to offer! He wanted some 350 dollars USD- keep dreaming….I did however find a surprise for my mom (which I therefore can’t mention here). It was definitely a success- though a bit more time consuming than planned- and we almost didn’t make it to our second hippo viewing chance by dark.

The second place we tried was a small bar (which was playing Egypt’s new president’s first address) with a patio and a pier going out into the water. The sun was set, and the light was beginning to fade pretty rapidly, but even so the grasses stood out silhouetted in the water. Then after hearing a grunt or two, Christine spotted the hippo! Just one, but it was swimming around popping its head up out of the water before diving back into it. She had described the hippo dives as being similar to a dolphin which I had a hard time believing, but in reality that was exactly what it looked like! Since they weren’t coming entirely out of the water, the hippos were far more graceful than I have ever thought they would be. I can see why they were ballerinas in Fantasia now! (well-almost!) Apparantly hippos are one of the most dangerous animals in the wild, in part because people don’t expect them to be fast or deadly, but also because they can live in such close proximity to the humans in the same area. Hippos tend to travel in the same places day after day (strict with their routines), so it means if you are not extremely cautious then you just might disturb one.

After visiting the hippo bar, we went on to eat dinner at Kiboko restaurant. It was delicious, but we were all very American and ordered pizzas all around! Even the German friend (Julia) Dennis and I had made in Kigali got one! While service is always exceptionally slow here, there is also a tipping required at the muzungu spots. Seems ironic to see such awful service mandate tips, but it is just is. While we waited for our food, there were some humorous moments watching the table of Chinese tourists (or maybe road builders) feeding the pair of cats on the premises, and then trying to turn a poor turtle on its back- our extremely disapproving looks made them turn it back over and leave it alone. The place also had a pair of crested cranes (from Uganda) that had clipped wings. I was just dying to get a picture with them, so after we finished, I got Dennis to try to take a picture for me. While I might have almost been attacked, it was definitely worth it. I definitely was a little afraid at one point.

 Haha! One of the cranes fluffed out all his feathers and as I went to walk away stuck his neck (which mind you is pretty long) and beak out toward my rear! Luckily no peck was received nor was I followed when I walked away. Hard to remind oneself not to run though, cause I am not sure if birds are like cats/dogs that chase things that run.

We headed back to Christine’s with a ride home from Julia (you are not allowed/recommended) to walk around after dark in Bujumbura, so saving us a taxi ride was much appreciated. We planned to meet-up again in the morning for a walking tour (so to speak) of the city!