A weekend away

I became very adventurous this weekend and I ventured out of the village for the first time to go to Christine’s birthday party in Butare across the other side of the country. The first thing I had to do was to take my first ever moto (motorbike taxi) ride. First of all I had to put on my horrible white vso standard issue helmet which makes me look like the white robot Eve from the film Wall-e. I was a bit scared at first but after a few minutes I found it quite fun. Its a lovely way to see the countryside whizzing past. Then I had to find a bus that went to Kigali, which I achieved after a few minutes of wandering around looking lost.

I had to change bus again when I got to Kigali. I had a bit of a disaster when the bus arrived in Butare because I didn’t know I had arrived. Some people stayed on the bus so I assumed we were going to a more central location. But as the buildings thinned out I had a feeling something was wrong. Apparently the bus was headed towards Bujumbura in Burundi! Fortunately I realised very quickly, got off and found a moto. He didn’t seem to know where the cathedral was and took me to the wrong place...eventually I managed to get him to understand where I wanted to go but I arrived feeling very dishevelled! Still I guess I have learned a lot of lessons.

It was lovely to catch up with volunteers old and new in Butare, and catch up with everyone about their first few days. I’m glad I made the effort as I think its going to be important to have regular face to face contact with people. Fortunately the journey back was considerably less eventful, and I even found a moto driver who had heard of the village where I lived! So all’s well that ends well as they say.