22nd to 24th of February, 2018.
Hitchhiking in Rwanda: Kibuye
I am buying water and two little delicious yellow breads: one for that moment and another for next morning, when I decide to ask if the guys knew some family around who had a small farm. They are not understanding my point very well when another guy come around. He says to know a guy who could help, so he calls him and we walk to the place.
It is a Guest House plus camping site. The guy who offered to help me, who I will only call Y., looked too desperate to help me and be my friend. Until now I do not know if he paid something to his friend (who just worked at the place) or if, as he said, I was staying for free since it was only one night and I had my own tent. The problem of the food was solved buy me having dinner with the three people who worked there.
After making my camping, me and Y. talk a little, and we play some cards. He suggests that we go together to Kibuye next day. Before leaving, he says he will walk me to my tent and once in there after a hug of goodbye, he approached my face and say / ask: “A kiss?” What? No! Of course not! That is what you were expecting in exchange of a little help? Is that how you think all the people will be grateful to you? That is how you think all the not African women behave? Of course I knew he would end up doing something like that. As I said, he was too desperate to become my friend. Friend! But I also knew how to deal with it.
The food it was good: rice, beans, and my vegetables and mushrooms, which I donate to help a bit. Unfortunately there was something wrong with the mushrooms. At least to my taste. I just do not know if they were bad or if it was something on the way they cooked. I did not get sick at all at least.
Next morning, I have my second little delicious yellow bread and an orange. After that, Y.’s friend, who manage the place, invites me to have breakfast with him. A good tea and some bread with butter and honey. Perfect!
Before nine, Y. is already there and we leave soon to Kibuye. The deal is: we would hitchhiking and make camping. He would look for a camping site where he could rent a tent.
At the hitchhiking spot, after something around ten minutes, a car stops. A nice local is actually going to Kibuye, but just in the afternoon, because he had some business in another town before. This town is half way to Kibuye, so we decided to take it. In the end, because of the storm which started, he changed his plans and drove all the way to Kibuye. Lucky us! Thank you rain!
Once in there, Y. talk with a friend who own a hotel and according to him, we could stay for free in one of the bedrooms. I did not want to argue with him, so I just say it is OK. The place it is in town. We leave our bags over there, have lunch in a cheap restaurant and go for a walk around the lake.
Kibuye is interesting but contradictory. It is a town where people usually go to visit but still is small and looks like a village. I feel kind of weird over here. The view of Lake Kivu is beautiful, of course, and all the small islands. We even find a nice spot, which you can walk for a while into the lake, and chill a little bit over there, putting our feet on the water and listening some music.
Y. buys a pineapple and we eat it in a bar. Then he buy some cards and we play for a while in this small beach, where we find an abandoned boat, which used to be somebody’s house but now it is a tourist boat.
Back at the hotel, I have a quick cold shower and wash my clothes before we go for dinner at the same place we had lunch.
Trying to sleep is a nightmare. I do not know what is worse: the heat, the mosquitoes, the fact I did not have a pillow, or because Y. being a prat on saying that he “wanted to make me happy”. Laugh. I cannot even laugh because I don’t want to be a prat, but seriously, what was he thinking? What all men who say such a thing to a woman they have just met are even thinking? I just tell him he must go to sleep.
Next morning, I explain to him how upset I was and try to teach him a little bit about women, trying to make him have a slight idea of manners. Who knows.
He insists to walk with me until a place where I can hitchhike. It is not a long walk and I buy three small fried cakes to have for breakfast. Luckily, he does not stay until somebody picks me up.
Unfortunately, there are too many people (again) and a lot of them keep asking me (again) what I am doing or where I am going.
After almost one hour, a tourist guide offer to take me somewhere near Gysene but I will have to pay 300 hundred Rwandan Francs. Another guy has asked for 500 hundred, so I decide to pay. I don’t know what came over me but I regrated later.
I do not know if the tourist guide was a prat, and just changed what he had said (from three hundred to three thousand); if he said wrongly; or if I really heard wrong. In the end, I had to gave him my one thousand I was expecting to exchange.
The place where he drops me off it sucks, and for about three hours I waited by the road. Perhaps this is just not a busy route or something. Of course a lot of people kept coming all the time and asking why…
Finally, a pick-up stops and they are going to Risoro Hospital, about 50 kilometres. I do not think twice and get in.
10 Years Around the World 