51. Burundi: Bujumbura to Kigali, Rwanda

Bujumbura, Burundi--Kigali, Rwanda, Thursday, 19 May, 1983

(DAN) Early rising has not been difficult for us here since we have the breakfast table view to look forward to. This morning we were ready, and Neil got us going on his way to work.

He dropped us off down town at the main street that turns into the Kigali highway, and we struck out on foot. He was certainly another big lesson in hospitality. His response to our thanks: “Just do it for someone else someday.”

Our timing was lousy as we hit the work-school rush hour both on the road and walking on the shoulder. One is rather vulnerable at such times with the big packs and even larger packs of small children running along yelling “touriste”! They say this with an air of great discovery, and it seems they expect us to turn around and hug them for their perceptiveness and understanding.  All one can do is keep walking, and by 0815 we found a shady but exposed place, ideal for hitching a ride.

Hitching on a paved road has at least one great advantage over the dirt-gravel counterpart: if the vehicle roars by with nary a sign of stopping, at least it does not leave one in a cloud of dust. Here the traffic, mostly bicycles, kept us entertained. We were well out in the country, but there seemed to be another town or subdivision farther on, and there was a continual parade of cyclists with heavy loads of ice blocks, fish crates, and boxes of bagged milk.

There was a steady stream of pedestrians as well. Many stopped to tell us we could not get a ride there, we would have to go into town to the taxi park. Two men, obviously fascinated, settled down on their haunches in the shade of a tree across the road. They were with us until we got our ride an hour later.

About 0930 a black Peugeot 504 station wagon went by and stopped. Yes, the man was going as far as Kayaza, the town 19 km. from the border with Rwanda. A most pleasant ride; not only was there plenty of room for our baggage and for us, but he turned out to be a Dutch agronomist, and we conversed the entire way. He works with the tea industry here and has worked 16 years in Tanzania, South Africa (Transkei), Rwanda, and Burundi. Starting in 1978 he worked for 3 years in Peru “not far from Cuzco”. We started out in Spanish (his Spanish, a month away from French, would be quite good) then switched to English almost without an accent: e.g. “I live 10 kms. from here as the crow flies.” He speaks in addition French, German, and Swahili.

We learned quite a bit about tea growing. It grows from 700 m to 2400 m, and the quality improves the higher one goes. On the world market the most sought after tea is Kenyan followed by Rwandan, Ceylon, China, etc., with South American tea at the very bottom. Part is altitude, but mostly it is the technique of processing after the harvest. He said he almost could not drink the Peruvian tea, Te Huiro.

We asked him where he preferred to work. He said he was much more accustomed to working in Africa and preferred it for working, but for general living and holidays, South America is “incomparable.” He said that Africans in general do not question author­ity, which has its problems. However, he said in Peru the tendency was to go too far in the other direction. This is in keeping with opinions that we have been forming.

He is married and has two children, and the way they have been educated is unique in our experience. For grade school they would go back to Holland once a year and start the two children in school. Then they would get all the books and finish out the year here with their mother. In high school they simply do Dutch correspondence courses.

The scenery was incredible. Perhaps 5 Kms. out of town we started into the mount­ains and did not leave them the rest of the day. The road was excellent, the best high­way we have been on since the best ones in Nigeria. It is the principal supply route from the sea and is supposed to be paved all the way around to Mombasa, Kenya. The mountains themselves are fairly unique. They are between 800 m. and 2400 m. They are completely cultivated except for the summits with corn, coffee, tea, manioc, potatoes, guinea corn, infinite bananas, vegetable gardens, chirimoyas, guayabas.

We saw, easily, more people working in the fields in one day, than in all 8 months of the rest of our trip put together. The density of population is incredibly high, 5 - 6 million inhabitants each for Burundi and Rwanda, each with an area of around 20,000 km². That compares with 1,100,000 km² in Bolivia for the same population. Add to that that outside the two capi­tals of 200,000, there are no big towns, and that is a high rural population. One big difference with the rest of Africa that we have seen is that here they do not live in villages but completely spread out. We have heard from several sources that there are very few land holdings over 10 Ha (or about 25 acres) and none larger than 20 Ha., and that there is no tradition of latifundia (large land holdings).

The farming gives one the feeling of good care. With fields 45º and more, we saw no gullies except those that had been started with road building. Some of the land is bench terraces, but almost all the rest has ditches on the contour about every 50 feet which does a lot to shorten the slope length.

Burundi farming on every inch of space.

Perhaps the most interesting phenomenon is that even in the bottom of the valleys where rivers normally run there are wall to wall gardens and fields. The soil looks very wet there, but they have raised beds and canals for drainage. The Dutchman said the rain falls nearly all year here and never very harshly which is the ideal climate for farming in the hills. He says they normally get three harvests a year.

There is virtually no tall grass almost no palm trees, and consequently the houses are built of adobe and have tiled roofs which does much to lend an air of Andean valleys to the entire scene. Not to mention many eucalyptus and evergreen trees that often line the roads.

Before I wax too enthusiastic, we were pretty nervous about the driving. We were going very fast for one thing, the suspension was not the greatest, and he would brake into the curves. Each curve was an armrest clutcher.  “Careening” is a fine description. We covered the 100 kms. to Kayanza in 1.3 hours, mountain road all the way.

He took us all the way through Kayanza before dropping us off, so we only walked a km. or so before finding the best possible hitching spot. He warned us that the border would be closed from 1200 to 1400 so not to expect many rides during that time. We did not have to wait an hour and a half. During that time the Catholic school up on the hill was let out, and hundreds of kids went by. They appeared to be very healthy, running up­hill at a comfortable pace. To a kid they dropped to a walk, then stopped and stared for a while. Then when they got too embarrassed, they took off running again. One group of older girls, ten to fourteen years old stopped to talk. “Is she your woman?” they asked right off. “No, she is my sister.” “C’est belle” one of them breathed, and after a while they all took off trotting.

The ideal hitchhiking spot in Burundi

While we were sitting in our perfect spot for hitching (on a little ridge under shady eucalyptus or pine trees) our Dutch friend came back after his tea plantation inspection and asked if we did not want to go back home with him and spend the night, Mighty nice of him, and we were tempted, but we decided we had better be on our way, He had already gone some 10 Kms out of his way for us! His home is a good ways back toward Bujumbura, but he would have driven back to Kayenza again tomorrow, As it turned out, it was a good thing we did not yield to temptation because our excellent ride to Kigali came by some 10 minutes later.

After about 8 huge fuel trucks going the wrong way, a sleek, new, red Peugeot 505 slid by and stopped. This time it was a German “playboy”, starting to bald, shirt unbut­toned and hairy of chest. After agreeing to take us (all the way to Kigali it turned out) he seemed rather reticent. We did have to do a lot of arranging to get Santa Barbara and Helena’s pack in the trunk. What decadence --plenty of room, soft, clean upholstery, and good though fast driver. Here the word is “rocketing”; however he had five sleek gears to play with and geared down before entering the curve, accelerating out of it, so it was all pure pleasure. We had an hour’s delay at the border while the officials siestaed. Once they got going, the Burundi side was most cursory and we were soon on our way.

The Rwanda side was much slower. There were two Japanese and a middle-aged British couple in line to be processed. Just before the British couple got to the window, the chef shut it and disappeared for 20 minutes (to get a radio it turned out) however this allowed us to change money and talk with the couple without any hurry. They left England in January and came down the eastern route. They were most friendly and even gave us the name of a place, “Home St. Jean”, on Lake Kivu “for a good rest.” When they were processed, they walked over to their vehicle and got in the back. The Japanese dude woke up from his nap and drove the jeep away. The British couple was hitching!. I would put her at 45 and him at 50. Just goes to show. They were giving themselves a year to get to South Africa. Wish we could have talked longer.

As I mentioned, our ride with the playboy was enjoyable. We talked a fair amount, but he did not want to talk about his work. All we know is that he had been in Africa 6 years and Helena saw him give the border guard a pen so he would not search the car_. The car was registered in Mombasa, but has a German plate.

Our travels in Eastern Zaire, Burundi, Rwanda and WesternTanzania.  Pink - air, blue - lake steamer, and hitchhiking - yellow.

We drove into Kigali late in the afternoon, and he dropped us in the center of town, “Geoff” (our guide book) mentioned several possibilities, including the Anglican, Catholic, and Presbyterian missions. The first seemed the most likely, so I “parked” Helena at 1655 hrs and set out, Geoff has not actually been here, so the directions were vague. It took me an hour to find the place, but on the way I saw the USAID office, U. S. Embassy residence, etc. So we are on our way to being oriented for tomorrow. The woman at the Anglican mission said it was against the law to camp in Rwanda, but they have plenty of accommodations at 400 RwFr or 4$ apiece.  A bit steep, but a place to lean our packs none the less.  I walked back to Helena, around 5 km.  After a short rest we shouldered our packs and headed back again.  By this time it was completely dark, but we arrived OK.  I was not good for much but a bit of nourishment after all that, so we got to bed early.

Total cost in Burundi.... US$ 3.59 per person per day