The people gathered for us yet again and we sang, played drums and danced. They love to dance in Africa. The drums were amazing, that heavy ‘jungle beat’ really gets into your soul. One poignant image will stick in my mind, though, of a tiny, malnourished kid, stomach distended under a raggedy green jumper. He was holding a toy pistol.
An amazing and humbling place; I go quiet when I’m doing these kinds of visits. I find it hard to know what to say – it’s so desperate and yet so hopeful. Ewan always says it takes a couple of days to sink in, and I remember how I was at Robin House, how I was when we met those kids in Ethiopia. Sarah and Daniel, just two of twenty-five thousand stolen children. It had been a privilege to hear their stories. Leaving the camps I had one thought in my mind. The two things that will free these children are health and education.
We headed on towards the border with Rwanda. The tarmac was brand new and smooth as butter which was good because the day before had been a draining and emotional day, and the easy riding meant I had time at least to begin processing everything we’d seen.
It was wet to begin with; the rain not heavy, nothing like the torrents we’d encountered between Axum and Adigrat when the streams burst and I’d seen people frantically trying to save their homes. This was gentle Ugandan rain and in the damp conditions, the hills and valleys reminded us even more of home.
We took it easy and crashed for the night at a hotel. For some reason Dai started going on about how we should be on the road much earlier tomorrow. We took it on board and it was agreed we’d be gone by seven the following morning. Seven came around and we were all gathered…all except the good doctor. Seven became ten past, then seven-fifteen and there was still no sign of Dai.
‘He’s probably busy with Barbara the sheep,’ I muttered.
We went hunting, found his room and Russ rapped on the door. A couple of minutes later he appeared, great bear of a man that he is, all sideburns and chest hair, with a towel wrapped around him.
‘Going to Cape Town, mate,’ Russ said. ‘Thought we’d let you know. Are you up for that or are you stopping here?’
Dai worked a hand over the stubble on his chin. ‘Naw,’ he said. ‘Cape Town sounds good.’
22
Another Country
EWAN: Certain countries create certain impressions before you actually get to them: sometimes those impressions prove to be correct and sometimes they don’t. Rwanda is a prime example of one that didn’t. Thirteen years ago the country was in the grip of civil war. One million people were massacred in one hundred days while the West pretty much ignored what was happening. Bill Clinton said that not doing anything to help was one of his biggest regrets during his eight years as US president.
We were at the border in plenty of time to meet up with our fixer; our plan being to get to a lodge close to the Virunga Mountains before we stopped for the night. It took an hour of waiting before we realised we were at the wrong border.
The fixer was at another crossing eighty miles to the south.
Finding the place on the map, Charley and I set off into the mountains. As we hit the twisty stuff the good tarmac suddenly gave way to dirt. We were climbing, the road switching back on itself, and the riding was much tougher than either of us had expected. These eighty miles were going to take longer than we anticipated, but as we keep saying, it’s the interruptions that make the journey. Heading into a narrow pass, we saw a line of trucks backed up, and a little further discovered that an articulated lorry had overturned and was blocking the road both ways. It had clearly been there a while because the spilled cargo was being loaded into other trucks.
There was no way Russ and David would get through so Charley got on the phone and told them they would have to find an alternative route. The overturned truck had left the slimmest of gaps however, and we nosed the bikes between the cab and the grassy bank.
We thought the trucks would be miles behind and as they had the carnets were sure we had no chance of crossing into Rwanda that night. But then Charley heard them talking over the radio and looking down we could see them on another stretch of road hundreds of metres below us. Their detour had been quicker than the original route. We got to the trucks, grabbed the carnets and sped off again. If we could get to the border before it closed we might persuade the Rwandans to wait for the others.
It was the strangest border crossing I’ve ever seen: a single dirt track edged by terraced hillsides with no vehicles save one bus and our bikes. People were walking, carrying great loads on their heads, there was the odd bicycle stacked with wood, but that was about it and I didn’t really believe it was the right road until we actually got there. It was the crossing, though, no matter what it looked like, with a ragged looking bloke with no uniform operating the barrier.
The trucks made it and a couple of hours later we were again doing what we’d vowed we wouldn’t – riding in Africa at night. It was fantastic, I loved it; every time I crossed to another country I got the same feeling: I could never quite believe I was riding my bike there. It was such a privilege. I could smell wood smoke and eucalyptus; it reminded me of Ethiopia. I felt quite emotional riding through a country with such a terrible history of unbelievable violence, but still so beautiful. Just a couple of miles in we stopped for a moment and were immediately surrounded by adults as well as children. As I looked at their faces all I could think of was what this nation had been through. I wondered how on earth it had managed to heal itself.
CHARLEY: We were going to Virunga to see the mountain gorillas made famous by Dian Fossey.
We would have just an hour with them – more than that and any coughs, colds or infections we might be carrying could be transmitted to the animals. We stayed the night in the lodge and the next morning drove an hour and a half to a village at the edge of the rain forest. We were introduced to armed rangers who would guide us, then started out on foot. We were at eighteen hundred metres and the gorillas lived at three thousand metres. From the village we could see the mountains shrouded in a blue mist. There were lots of villages round here – it was farming country, coffee growers mostly, and one of the most densely populated areas of the country. The land was very green, the soil looked good and we walked a mud road laced with heavy stones and bordered by green hedges.
It was tough going and the air was thin and damp, though fortunately it wasn’t raining. It was quite cold, though, and we were wearing waterproofs; once into the forest proper we’d be waist-high in foliage.
Our guide told us that poaching was still a problem, and with ongoing fighting in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo the gorillas on this side of the border had to be monitored carefully. He spoke English with a French accent – many people speak French in Rwanda because it was once a Belgian colony.
‘Ewan speaks French,’ I said. ‘Exquisite French, don’t you, Ewan?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s a particular kind of French that’s actually called “exquisite”. Not fluent, just exquisite. I don’t know many words, or French grammar or anything, but what I do know I can say very, very well. Not much use but nice to listen to.’
The guide told us the mountains were too cold for snakes so we didn’t have to watch our feet or the branches directly above our heads. He showed us elephant fruit, hard and yellow, tough skinned and very bitter. Elephants chewed them, and the people broke them open then mixed the innards with water and used the solution to wash their clothes: it was very effective apparently.
We climbed into the forest now, the villages far behind; the fields where we’d seen people tilling the soil with hand hoes. We were following a narrow path that drifted through a sea of green and every now and again we’d come to a clearing and get another view of the mountains. Then suddenly we saw movement in the trees, a smudge of black; a couple of young gorillas playing high in the branches. I couldn’t believe it; they were about twenty metres away.
As we came out of the trees there in front of us was a female lying on her side with three y
oungsters, including one new baby. Very quietly we sat down to watch them. As we looked on the baby started suckling. It was amazing to be this close – the guide had explained that if we were lucky we might get within seven metres but they were no more than a metre away.
The guide showed us how to make grunting noises that indicated we meant no harm; he also said if we blew raspberries it would get their attention – both were noises that gorillas made themselves.
Then suddenly he told us to get up and move back.
A massive silverback was striding up the slope. He walked on his knuckles, belly hanging, massive shoulders; his head was absolutely huge. We moved up the hill to let him past and he ambled slowly by, looking sideways at us from about ten feet.
EWAN: They were all around us now. The mother got up and wandered off and behind us another silverback appeared. He was even bigger than the first one, sitting there chewing on a stalk; they eat the wild celery that grows here and that sticky grass you get in Britain that clings to your clothes. The food was everywhere in abundance; they didn’t have to move very far, just reach out and grab whatever they wanted. Another smaller gorilla sauntered by, long arms and short legs. Charley blew a raspberry and it stopped and studied us.
‘She is beautiful,’ Charley said. ‘Amazing eyes, really beautiful. I think I’m falling in love.’ He paused for a moment then added. ‘Normally I prefer blondes but this one…’
‘I think it’s a young male, Charley.’
It was the most incredible hour and as we came down we saw another silverback, sitting on a mound so most of his body was visible above the foliage. He watched us, great head, huge shoulders, an air of nonchalance about him, and then he stood up and, like a king surveying his domain, gazed across the forest.
The minister of tourism had arranged the trip and we met her in the Bourbon Coffee Shop in Kigali later that day. She explained that tourism was an important way for Rwanda to establish a stable economy. In the past year thirteen thousand tourists from ninety-five different countries had visited Virunga, and 5 per cent of the revenue generated by the gorillas was reinvested among the village communities of the area. She explained that since the war ended the people were only looking forward: the whole country was determined to move on. It was all about moving forward; the genocide of 1994 was part of Rwanda’s history, it wasn’t going to decide the future.
We chatted to the owner of the Bourbon Coffee Shop, a very cool guy who served great coffee. He said that since the genocide, people would say they were no longer Hutu or Tutsi, they were simply Rwandan. He’d quit the corporate life he’d been living to open his cafe and now he dealt directly with the coffee growers, most of whom had had no idea of the value of their product or indeed had ever tasted a cup. The place was vibrant, heaving with people; NGOs, doctors, nurses, aid workers and volunteers. We spoke to a couple of American girls who told us that at the end of every month there was a day of public works where the people would do something for their country. For such a historically divided nation there was an overwhelming feeling of unity.
Before we left, the minister of tourism invited us to her brother’s wedding reception that evening. We didn’t really have the right clothes, but turned up (rather underdressed), got past security and met the president (as you do), Paul Kagame, who had raised an army in Uganda and overthrown the Hutu militia. Half an hour later the minister found us again and told us that the president had asked us to his country house at eleven the following morning.
Over dinner there was a note of caution. Charley pointed out that we knew nothing about this man at all. We’d heard different rumours about his reputation – some good, some bad – but we decided in the end that we should go and at least try to make up our own minds
While we were discussing the matter I asked our fixer, Daddy, why the West hadn’t got involved. He just shrugged and said that Rwanda was a small country and back in 1994 Nelson Mandela was being sworn in as president of South Africa. He reminded me that there had been war raging in the Balkans and a football world cup in the USA. He said that most people couldn’t find Rwanda on a map and with so much else going on, no one was that bothered. Canada had led a small peacekeeping force, but when they requested more troops and permission to intervene in the slaughter, the UN had turned them down. The French sent soldiers – not to stop the militia but to protect them from Paul Kagame’s invaders.
An audience with the president and we had nothing to wear. We’d already turned up at one function underdressed and didn’t want to do so again. So we bought suits and shirts; the trousers too long and held up with gaffer tape. I found a pair of white pointed shoes that made me laugh. Suitably dressed we set off on the bikes for the Rwandan President’s residence.
CHARLEY: We left tarmac for dirt road and finally a track that was fenced on either side with fields stretching away and cattle grazing beyond. The house was big but not too big, understated, maybe, compared to what you’d expect in Europe. It nestled among some trees like a big old ranch house only made of brick. Inside we were shown to a meeting room with an absolutely enormous round table. An array of spears decorated one wall.
We stepped onto the veranda, the back of the house overlooking pastures where black cattle with gigantic horns were grazing. The president kept them for milk and later we tried some. It tasted like natural yoghurt and was delicious. Beyond the pastures there was a lake surrounded by hills; beyond that was the Tanzanian border – our next destination. It was very beautiful, tranquil, and it was only then I thought about how clean Rwanda felt and noticed that livestock were fenced off from the road. Though we saw plenty of people walking, some carrying huge loads on their heads, there were no donkeys, sheep or cattle on the streets.
The president arrived and we shook hands again. We discussed the challenges he had faced, and asked him what motivated him.
He explained that war was part of Rwandan history, both before independence from Belgium and certainly since. He and his family had fled to Uganda when he was three and he grew up in a refugee camp. He’d spent twenty-five years there and needed no motivation other than that. He formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front, raised an army and invaded. After he became president he asked the people a question: ‘Why did we lose a million people in less than a hundred days?’ He made them think about it, the everyday Rwandan.
The answer was bad politics, bad leadership and extremism. Kagame said that he was determined not to see that repeated and pointed out that investment follows if a country can show it is both secure and stable.
Paul Kagame has many critics as well as supporters, and neither Ewan nor I could claim to be experts on Rwandan politics. But we both sensed, riding through Rwanda, that this is a country full of hope and optimism. The progress in thirteen years seems incredible. The Rwandans have succeeded where others maybe have failed – perhaps in part because they never forget what happened, and are so determined to make sure it never happens again. Genocide is part of their history but it isn’t going to decide their future.
When this unexpected visit was over, we visited the Eglise Natarama, a Catholic church where five thousand people hid from the Hutu Interahamwe militia in 1994. They’d fled from villages and taken refuge in the old brick church with its concrete pews and dirt yard, the huts of wattle and daub. The militia arrived and lobbed grenades through the windows. The ones who survived ran outside and were bludgeoned to death with hammers and machetes or decapitated with pangas, a native tool poachers use. Others were herded into the outbuildings and burned alive: five thousand people in one day.
Their bones lie on shelves in the old church; thousands of skulls, some still impaled with spear shafts, others smashed where hammers hit them. From floor to ceiling, thousands and thousands of skulls. The clothes of the victims hang in a macabre collage, torn, burned, blood-stained. It was one of the most disturbing sights I’ve ever seen. It brought home old newscasts and TV pictures, and felt so at odds with the Bourbon Coffee Shop, the bustling streets, th
e sense of progress in the country.
Time and again we had seen the effects of war and brutality on this trip, just as we had ridden along the Road of Bones in Russia. We had spoken to mine victims in Ethiopia, child soldiers in Uganda. Now here again we were in a country that had been ripped apart by war; the genocide of a million civilians that, as Kagame said, had achieved absolutely nothing. But in each of these countries we also found hope for the future.
I’d recommend anyone to visit Rwanda and if the people can go on rebuilding, continue to heal, then who knows, perhaps one day the bones at Natarama can be laid to rest.
23
Destination: ‘Transit’
CHARLEY: We’d allowed ourselves five days in Tanzania, but Eve was on her way and would be meeting us at the border with Malawi, and I knew Ewan would be itching to get there. Still, it would take as long as it took and the roads looked pretty…interesting. Virtually all of Rwanda had been tarmac. Now we were in Tanzania it would be mostly dirt.
Once again, there was a huge change as we crossed the border. Rwanda was vibrant, very clean. Crossing into Tanzania we were back on the veldt, the great savannah; the world drier and dustier, yellow grass and grey dirt, a horizon marked only by the distant mountains.
We stopped for fuel at a petrol station that was no more than a collection of tented huts. There was one pump and it said: ‘diesel’ but the guy dishing it into jerricans assured me it was petrol.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘It says diesel right there.’ I tapped the pump with my glove that had been missing the thumb and index fingertips since before Ethiopia.
‘No, no, petrol, petrol.’
I can’t tell the difference between the smell of petrol and diesel, so I had no choice but to trust him. The bike didn’t conk out, though, and once Ewan was fuelled up we were off again.
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