It seems almost unfair to make a point of it, but crossing from Uganda into Rwanda at Cyanika is like moving from one century into the next.
We were told that the Horizon bus left Kisoro at “about 6am”, so we got up in the dark and staggered beneath our gigantic rucksacks to the office. There’s something quite intimidating about Uganda in darkness, with no street lights and very few people – except for the young guys who guard the banks, shops etc. Did I mention that the young guys have guns? Anyway, it’s pretty intimidating, especially when the bus office is deserted and there is no sign of any bus.
The ramshackle but somehow comforting Horizon coach (comforting because it’s (a) not a taxi crammed with 7 people (b) not a boda-boda and (c) not the Bismarck bus, spoken of in hushed and worried tones even by Ugandans) arrived at about 7.30, and we set off through some of the most poverty-stricken countryside we’d yet seen. There was a “guesthouse” that also seemed to serve as an army camp. The road deteriorated from gravel, to mud, to virtually off road. We hit one pothole so hard that Jess’s head hit the roof, much to the amusement of our fellow passengers. At one point the left-hand side of the bus dropped so sharply that I thought we were going to roll. And so we slid and slithered our way on the short journey to the border.
The crossing itself was simple enough, with both Ugandan and Rwandan authorities seeming happy to see us and not particularly bothered about formalities. UK citizens don’t need a visa to visit Rwanda so there were no problems there (just the usual conundrum of what to write in the “occupation” box so that it doesn’t say “journalist”), and even changing money, though said to be a risky business, went very smoothly – and at a better rate than the Forex bureaux were offering in Kigali, as it turned out.
What was most astonishing was that the dirt and mud road on one side of the checkpoint became, on the other side, a wide, open, Tarmac’d highway. There was a white line down the middle. There were road signs. It all seemed rather decadent, to be honest.
As an aside, we had a great conversation with the Horizon conductor while we waited to get back on the bus after passing immigration. A real Ugandan country boy, some kind of illness or absence from another conductor meant that this was the first time he’d crossed the border. He pointed out the nearby volcano and said that he’d been told it was the highest mountain in the world. He told us that the mountain gorillas lived there, but asked us whether gorillas eat people (they don’t) and whether the mountain had to be fenced off to stop the gorillas escaping and pillaging the countryside. A nearby Congolese (the bus terminated at Gisenyi on the Rwanda/Congo border) rolled his eyes at the conductor’s every word.
The hour’s drive from Cyanika to Ruhengeri was simply stunning. It was the most incredible scenery yet. Rwanda is known as the “land of a thousand hills” and it’s obvious why. The country also has one of the highest population densities anywhere in Africa, and so the hills are terraced, heavily cultivated with maize, bananas, tea and all things green from their tops to the lush valleys below.
Everything about northern Rwanda feels different from southern Uganda, even though so much – the topology and climate, for example – are actually very similar. But Rwanda at present feels like it has purpose. There is less of a sense of wasted hours here, fewer clusters of men standing by the roadsides just watching and waiting for something to happen. There are fewer children working when they should be at school, fewer crowds of kids running alongside the buses shouting and waving. There aren’t rows and rows of shops selling identical groceries, airtime, rotting fruit… there is a feeling that commerce here is generated not just by supply, but also by demand.
The reasons for the optimism are numerous, and it’s something we’re still learning about. There’s certainly a sense that, after the genocide in 94, the worst is over, and that this is a country now on the up. Of course there’s the vast amount of foreign aid that has flowed in since the world so failed in its responsibilities to stop the atrocities of those 100 days – and the effects of that aid are magnified by the fact that this is such a small country. But there’s also the fact that, under the leadership of Paul Kagame, Rwandans for the moment feel that change, and advance, really are possible.
But I say “for the moment” because the sense of optimism doesn’t disguise the fact that, as in Uganda, power here doesn’t reside with the people. This is effectively a one-party state, with very limited freedom of press and very limited accountability at the top. For the moment the leadership is benevolent, and let us hope that it stays that way. History shows that undiluted power can corrupt even the most idealistic leaders, given sufficient time.
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