East African Business Week (Kampala)
Walter Isenged
23 July 2007
column
My trip traversing two countries in East Africa helped to bust a few myths. That the majority of Rwandans are light skinned and tall, that Rwanda and Burundi are largely flat with a few hilly areas, that the hills in Rwanda and Burundi are lush and green, that most of the trunk road network is poor, that due to the record population density, the people of Rwanda and Burundi are so abundant and visible and that there are more than a dozen gun totting personnel every couple of hundred meters.
It has been said that the difference in countries can be seen from the entry point vis the border crossing. I have always taken this statement with a pinch of salt, but my crossing at the Katuna border post into Rwanda changed all that. Not only was the area cleaner, the lines were more orderly and there was less noise! I had been rather frantic, with people pushing and shoving to get their papers cleared on the Uganda side. This was a welcome relief. The officials were polite, if a bit aloof, and I remember only seeing one armed soldier in the entire road trip across Rwanda. Not so in Burundi, however, where there are still numerous military roadblocks and several armed foot patrolmen every couple of kilometers.
The road was rather narrow, given the number of twists and turns. I was shocked at the number of corners one had to negotiate. I believe this calls for an entry in the Guinness book of records. Rwanda and Burundi combined have the most number of corners per kilometer for the entire stretch of road from Katuna to Burundi. I can bet on that. You have to turn a corner at least every 100 meters! Not only are the corners sharp, they are blatantly hazardous.
The bends are so "S" that you are likely to do five times the journey you would have done had you to go as a bird flies straight.You actually turn so that you get to see if you look out the window, where you were five minutes ago! One of us on the trip joked that if one was to attempt a count of the corners, one would not finish! Then a thought occurred to me, if an astute entrepreneur were to start a spare parts trade, the easiest killing would be found in dealing steering boxes, clutch and brake parts! For those who love a speedy ride and those susceptible to motion sickness, I do not recommend a road trip.
Being an out-and-out plains man, I could not believe a trip of this magnitude had to be undertaken exclusively amid hills and valleys.
The entire Rwanda and Burundi is either on a hill top, on a slope or in the bottom of a valley! How on earth can it be that you do not get a decent 400 meter stretch of road to floor your gas pedal on? Something cataclysmic must have occurred in this area millions of years ago that caused the grounds to contort to such proportions. But this also created one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places on earth. Again, I had always felt that the hills of Eldoret in Kenya, Sebei and Kigezi in Uganda, and Arusha in Tanzania were quite remarkable. I can wage that Rwanda and Burundi are the hilliest places in Africa, if not the whole world. If you are like me, you reach for your camera every awe-inspiring moment to take an unforgettable photo to capture the magic of the moment. Then another such moment comes up in a few seconds and just when you are about to snap away, this treescape or a passing truck blocks your path and you believe you have missed it, then you see another amazing scene and you click away. Soon, however, you realise that there are way too many instances such splendid panorama.
The culture of driving on the wrong side of the road also unnerved me. You could not see ahead if you wished to overtake and when you eventually did, you had missed your chance because the corner was already upon you.
Then there was this curiosity of mileage done. I have this habit of keeping tabs on the distance covered and the miles to go. Just after the border post in Katuna, I saw a signpost that said "KM 5." I assumed we were five kilometers away from some town. However, when I saw the next milestone, it read "KM6." Thinking this was a mistake, I keenly checked the next one and it was "KM7!" What is this all about? I thought. Is one not supposed to be told how far one has to go as opposed to how far one has already traveled??
I happened to look on the back end of the milestone as I passed it and realised those numbers kept receding. This is when I realised they had it all backwards.
Also, they have the milestones reading number of kilometers from the border post to the capital city. They do not care to tell you how far it is to the next town! The story in Burundi was different at the border post; at first, I did not see the milestones, but later, I saw PK1 and below it 15.
I assumed we had done 15km and once again were going to count upwards to the destination. Instead, the distance kept increasing. On the reverse side, the calculation was going the other way in other words, Bujumbura was the zero mileage. I put my confusion down to the winding and twirling of the road.
Do not try to ask for directions if you are lost. You will either be given polite nods and grunts which you will take to mean yes, even to answers that prefer explanations or you will gather that the distance is only 5km away.
This will prove to be somewhere nearer to 40km! The language barrier was felt more acutely in Rwanda where the lingua franca is mainly Kinyarwanda. It will do you good to travel with at least a Munyankore who can grasp a smattering of the language. I was impressed, however by the Rwanda border post guards, who could communicate perfectly in English.
Even the border guards on the Burundi side and some policemen in Bujumbura could comprehend English!
Try communicating with a Uganda policeman in French. The best you will get is "yogera O'luganda!" Translated to mean' speak luganda' one of the Uganda dialects.
Many hotel personnel in Bujumbura were also able to communicate in English. It is exasperating, however, if you have to decipher a menu made out purely in French. Poison? You exclaim. Who on earth wants to commit suicide!? Poulet? What the heck does physics have to do with a meal? Pulleys my foot! Just give me plain Steak and rice! She stares at you stupefied. So you try the little Lunyankore you know. "Ninyenda omukyere ne Enyama! Oh, she seems to get you, but she does not know what else you wish for, apart from meat!! So you try sign language and soon realise there is no way you are going to gesture that you wish to have rice. What do you do to explain rice? How do you elucidate the swampy origins to the white unshelled grains? You realize you are making a fool of yourself and you point at anything in the menu and hope it is not crabs or raw clams!! You are better off traveling with a French-to-English dictionary
Animals! I love animals, especially the four legged ones that go "mooo!" and yield milk, hides and beef! I marveled at the long horns in Mbarara and was flabbergasted by the hill climbing genus in Ntungamo.
At first I thought it was a herd of goats, and then we came closer. That is impossible! I thought. Did you just see that? Are cows not supposed to be roaming the plains? I wondered how long it must have taken the owner to teach the cows to climb up the steep rocky escarpments! I looked out for them in Rwanda, but was rather disappointed. Where do people here get their beef and milk? I thought. In Burundi, it was even worse. I quickly blamed the hills for driving cattle out of this beautiful land, then I remembered Ngungamo and concluded the Rwandans and Barundi must be poor mountain climbing teachers.
In Rwanda and Burundi, I did not see many butchers on the roadside, so I assumed not many people eat beef. Then we came upon an open air one and then I saw a group of people crowding the seller. One car that had overtaken us had stopped to get hands on this delicacy.
It also occurred to me, as we drove along, that all the way from Dar es Salaam, through Nairobi Kampala, Kigali and Bujumbura-East Africa is one big roadside shop. If you were lucky, you could actually do all your shopping as you drove along. Merchandise from building materials, foodstuff, livestock and fruit can actually be purchased and conveniently carried along with you.
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