Road Trip Rwanda by Will Ferguson

Author:Will Ferguson [Will Ferguson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Published: 2015-11-19T05:00:00+00:00

36

INKLINGS OF PROSPERITY, in the form of sheet-metal rooftops, returned as we neared the lakeside city of Kibuye (now known as Karongi). The evening sun was coming in low across the fields, limning the trees and hilltops with gold.

Driving through a small valley, we came upon a catchment of older homes that stood hollowed out amid tall grass, with scorched walls and fanned stains of charcoal rising above each darkened window. The rooftops were missing, the yards overgrown.

Tutsi homes.

Jean-Claude stopped so we could investigate the ruins. A goat was ripping up grass inside one of the shells. Small birds flitted through. These were haunted homes, left abandoned, with owners long gone and with few surviving relatives to reclaim them.

We drove on, into silence.

More and more shops began to appear. The outskirts of Kibuye clustered closer. Storefront facades once again proclaimed their cell phone company allegiances: that familiar green, red, yellow, blue. We were back on blacktop, and the sudden smoothness provided much-needed succour to my bruised tailbone and saucer-stacked spinal column.

“That was a fun road to drive,” Jean-Claude said. “But I’m glad we are through it.”

Traffic circles sent us into the centre of town, past several new office buildings perched on hillocks of land scarcely wider than they were. In the cooling breeze of evening, everybody in Kibuye seemed to be out for a stroll. Long considered a getaway for Rwanda’s moneyed set, the city had a faded charm about it: patio lights bobbing on the wind, late-night taverns and French cafés, but no sense of urgency. It was busy, but in a languid sort of way, as resort towns often are.

On the way in, we had passed Gatwaro Stadium. “I lost a friend there, in that stadium,” Jean-Claude said.

The friend’s name was Jean-Népomscène, but everyone called him Nepo.

“I met him in Kenya. He was a student. He was preparing for university, and we became good friends. He used to take me to Wimpy’s. Do you know Wimpy’s? It’s like a British fast food, very popular in Nairobi at that time. Of all the people who died, Nepo makes me the saddest, because he didn’t have to be here. He came back for his uncle’s funeral. It was dangerous, and he didn’t want to go, but his family pressured him. They told him, ‘The UN is here, don’t worry. It’s safe.’ So he went back and that was that. Two days later the president’s plane was shot down.”

Twenty thousand people died in Gatwaro Stadium. Among them, a kind-hearted student named Nepo.

Kibuye had been a Tutsi town deep inside the French “humanitarian” zone, which meant the killings here were even more thorough than usual. Indeed, the eradication of Tutsis in Kibuye and its outlying regions came very close to reaching a “final solution.”

None of this was reflected in the beauty of the town, though, which was situated among the palm trees and corrugated coves of Lake Kivu. Jean-Claude and I checked in at the Moriah Hill Resort, an older but comfortable hotel built on a bay that was dotted with islands.

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