Belgian Connections

It is very unlikely, indeed, to go by even one day in either Rwanda or Congo without hearing something about the Belgian colonial past, and the Belgian this and Belgian that. It is all hitting a pretty personal chord with me (yes, you all know why), so I have developed quite a sensitive reaction to all this. Mostly, of course, I hear negative stuff, but there's one sweet component to it all - and I shall begin by mentioning exactly that.

Belgian chocolate NEVER tasted better than last week, when I found it in a Delhaize-type 'supermarket' in Goma, after months of deprivation (NO, there is no chocolate available on regular basis). I just rushed to the shelf and grabbed all the Cote D'Or available (cruelly overpriced, of course), and for two days I literally JUST ate chocolate, like a maniac (which I would NEVER do in 'real life'.) OK, chocolate and beer. I left the Hoegaarden and Leffe aside and I stuck to the local bottles, whose labels... celebrate 50 years since the independence from the Belgians. (Chocolate and beer, btw, seems to be quite the diet I am required to follow in order to 'expand' - as I have been instructed to do by all Africans I speak to.)






A few days later, in Butembo, we stayed for one night at this absolutely picturesque, romantic hotel - "Auberge Butembo". It lies high on a hill, above the mad city, surrounded by large, quiet gardens. When I inquired about its history, I found out that it was built by the... Belgians, and then bought by a very rich Congolese (one of the few things that the colonialists didn't manage to rip out of Congo...) The Dutch guy who was giving me the background info had to go one step further and make this comment: "It's like you're in Belgium. It even smells like the Belgians." Okay...

Otherwise - pretty much tales of horror and grotesque, of what the Belgians did and didn't do, and how these countries fell apart after they left Africa. On the other hand, they are acknowledged for coming back as part of the international efforts to, somehow, stabilize Eastern DRC. There is, however, no love-loss there. And the day when we'll get some sort of good news from Congo is still a loooong way away...

The Flying Circus In the Jungle

It has been quite a remarkable last three days. On Sunday morning, I was picked up in Musanze by a caravan of safari vehicles, carrying VIPs from Disney and Turner Studios (indeed, I seem to meet la crème de la crème of America in Africa, rather than during all those years in NYC…) We drove to the border, crossed into the DRC (yes, the same adventure, always), and then the next day we took over the Goma airport: 11 people and some 35 pieces of HUMONGOUS luggage, all onto this tiny Tupolev plane direction Butembo. We were certainly the new flying circus taking over Congolese airspace, finding our small path through otherwise very busy UN helicopter and plane routes…

Once we landed, the Butembo “airport” (i.e. barrack) chief wanted to have a chat. He totally remembered me from the previous time, as the “only Romanian ever” around there. I also remembered him for a funny conversation:

He: So, do you have parks in Romania?
I: Yes, we do.
He: Do you have gorillas?
I: No, we don’t.
He: Do you have elephants?
I: No, we don’t.
He: Do you have rhinos?
I: No, we don’t.
He: So what the hell kind of park is THAT???

(And, as you do NOT want to piss off a Congolese, let alone one in some position of power, you have to just put on a naughty smile, be really humble, and admit that your parks really SUCK…I could not have won the argument either way, since he had no clue what our wolves and bears were anyhow…)

But yes, we chatted as very old buddies, Ceausescu and Mobutu included in the conversation, and off we went. The make-shift caravan was really impressive: all those roof-racks loaded beyond capacity, on some INCREDIBLY bumpy road, jumping up and down for some 5 hours. Luckily it is still the dry season, so we didn’t really have any problems getting stuck (just swerving like overweight ballerinas on the verge of scary ravines). We were ceremoniously led by Mwami Stuka and Mwami Mukosasenge– the paramount chiefs that own MASSIVE territories in Eastern Congo - so everyone in every village that we passed through was out greeting us with singing and dancing. QUITE SURREAL. When we finally reached Kasugho late afternoon, an amazing two-hour-show was staged. Everyone was present: the soldiers in a military parade; “the romantic children” who vowed to preserve nature; the women who lost their husbands in war and the women who had been raped by rebels, ready to show us around their “revival association”, etc, etc.

We are now on the third morning here. It is hard to keep up with remembering all faces, and especially all names, but they are all so very friendly, so a smile and a ‘jambo’ go a long way (my Swahili IS actually drastically improving here. My 10-word vocabulary became tenfold lately…)

We are here to stay through Friday, and then a drive down, a flight back, a border crossing, and another weekend in the field (this time in Rwanda) are on the schedule. I am literally EXHAUSTED, but soo-soo full of adrenaline at the same time.

Every evening, after 1-liter beers whose labels celebrate the 50th anniversary of DRC independence from Belgium, I also improve my British culture here. My best friend in Africa, Sandy, with whom I am now rooming, must be the best 2010 Amazon client. She has HUNDREDS of DVDs, many of which are British TV series that I have never heard of, but which are indeed HILARIOUS (and, luckily, have subtitles, because some of those people speak anything but English…) After indulging in “Benidorm” (about Brits on vacation in Spain (YUCKKKK!!!), which was so real to me after having seen them in Ibiza a couple of years ago), I have passed through “Early Doors” and am now onto “Gavin and Stacey”. The mornings after, I go for real-life references to Sandy (who is from Liverpool, but is ANYTHING but your typical Brit), so here’s how a Romanian is enriching her UK knowledge all the way into the Congolese jungle. I guess that speaks for globalization in the most direct, uncompromising way :-)

Paka analala

After two months and several dozen dollars, today I finally felt that my Swahili classes had been worth it: I learnt how to describe the most acute reality of our Musanze life. PAKA ANALALA. The cat is sleeping. BECAUSE, we have this cat, an emigrant from the DRC, called Goma, who just must be the laziest cat on the face of the earth. And the most possessive one. OK, also the most adorable one. The very moment you sit down, she takes over. It does not matter whether you wax your hiking boots or try to learn some Swahili. Goma will ALWAYS be there, on your lap. And try to remove her, because you simply cannot. Another housemate must come by, so that she change laps (although, I suspect she kind of likes me in particular ;)) So, if I have a devoted rafiki (friend) around here, then surely Goma is the one.

My First Vocalizations

Remember that scene in "Gorillas in the Mist" when the hot National Geographic photographer enters Dian Fossey's cabin for the first time and finds her on the floor, imitating gorilla postures and sounds? I think about that EVERY time I am in the field and hear the trekkers do appeasing vocalizations around the animals, but until today I found it rather ridiculous to do it myself. However, this morning I gathered all my courage and gorilla-prone talent and started speaking to them. I didn't get very far, though - the two silverbacks I was supposed to photograph today (for nose-prints) were very reclusive, hiding deeply in the thick bush during the hottest hours. When we followed one a bit in the open, he actually TOLD US OFF (!!!) (luckily I recognized his vocal intent), so we had to back away (something I am not very used to - generally speaking, in life...) So I was left with the young ones instead - and they are beyond CUTE! However, I'd better practice gorilla-language from now on - I'm sure I'll be better at it than at any other African language I've tried so far!

Congo Iniesta-Look-Alike

Does anyone else think this cute boy looks like Iniesta? (DO NOT ASK WHO INIESTA IS!!!). I have no idea of his real name, but I found him in the Congolese wilderness, by the nickname of "Carlos". He always comes out running of his hut to come shake mzungus' hands when we go by. On Sunday, he was wearing this very impressive suit, while his shoes were left on the right foot and vice-versa...

Bigger IS Better

I forgot to give this sound piece of advice on Uganda: take BIG dollar notes with you when you travel there (and forget euros, they don't count). Maybe it's the same all over Africa (except Congo, where they actually use $US as regular currency), but I can only speak for Uganda so far: I had some $US50, $US100 and then smaller $US bills, thinking that it's easier to manipulate them. WRONG. At the bank, where I wanted to change shillings, the rate they give you is absolute CRAP for "small notes" such as 20, 10, 5 ($US 1 is not even recognized). So yes, bank on those hundreds to get you a good shilling return. Otherwise - cheap country (compared to Rwanda anything will be cheap, I guess), so enjoy your travels!!!

Uganda - A Different Africa

Ever since I got to green, mountainous, chilly Western Rwanda, I have hoped for an opportunity to travel around and see “the other Africa” – the plains, the savannas, the scorching heat, the large mammals running around (yes, that cliché images we all have engrained from Animal Planet, etc). So I certainly jumped to the opportunity of a long weekend here (elections time, another post for that). We, mzungus, have been warned to either keep a low profile or leave the country altogether. Knowing myself, I could only go for the second option.

After fishing around, I went onboard a splendid travel idea: go to Uganda (the border is just 25 kilometers from where I live) together with my colleague Joseph and his roommate Innocent. Both of them were born and grew up in the Mbarara region, as children of Rwandan Tutsi emigrants from the 1960s (when the “first genocide” occurred here). So yes, savannas in their backyards, and history in the making. Plus the promise of loots of cold beers and amazing clubbing scene. Sounded very promising, right?

And it certainly was a crazy weekend – from the roads, to the driving, to the music. Now that I am an expert in African matters, I can certainly draw comparisons.

I have been warned, to begin with, that I would be shocked at the sight of dust in south-western Uganda. I didn’t want to quite believe it, since I had seen “the worst” in Congo, but I was soon rebuked in my beliefs (NEVER take anything for granted in Africa!!!) Basically, the road for most part is this pot-holed red-sandy soil, which, given the dry season, is constantly changing consistency. When a car (and even worse, a truck) bypasses you, you really feel like you’re being pushed off the course, whilst trying to make some sense of direction in this HUGE dusty cloud that hangs over for minutes. Since I was in the passenger’s seat on a left-wheel-car in a country where they also drive on the left, the image of these trucks coming directly at me and overtaking like crazy (NO RULE is the rule) was actually quite scary. Add to that the POUNDING music in the car (we had this one CD with Ugandan hip-hop and house music that we played for three days straight, at top volume), and yes, it was INTENSE.

The guys took turns at driving (I refrained, thank you very much), and drinking, and for most part they also remembered which side of the road the traffic was on (not always, though, which was OK, apparently because everyone else was driving as they pleased, crossing each other from all directions, cutting lanes, overtaking FREELY.) The heat unbearable, we would stop every hour or so to get cold beers and wash the dust off – and yes, even to see Chelsea-Manchester in a road-restaurant, at some weird afternoon hour. I was warned from the very beginning that corruption being so high in Uganda (unlike in orderly Rwanda), traffic police would be the least of our worries.

We did have an eventful encounter, though, on Saturday morning, on this actually good road that goes to Kampala. We stopped at some random village corner and picked up this guy, whom I later understood was Joseph’s brother. All I knew of him was that he owns large cattle herds and is a feared poacher at the side (funny family, Joseph the ultimate conservationist, his brother the ultimate poacher). The guy (also Innocent), takes the wheel and starts off very confidently, on this road along which all of a sudden zebras and antelopes started showing up (yes, I know, WOW!). What also showed up was this very professional-looking Ugandan traffic-police-patrol: three very black guys dressed in very white, shiny uniforms. They pull us over, and come towards the driver in a frenzy. They order him to stop the engine, give away the keys, and show his driving license – which he cannot produce, since he doesn’t have any! At that point, I am thinking, does this guy do anything legal in life?! Not that much, of course, since everyone rushes out-of-the-car and start bribing the police, to let us go. Nothing THAT weird for me, as a Romanian. What I found funny, though, was that we left, some half-an-hour-later, with the same Innocent driving, in full-police view (his claim was that if he now bribed the men, he also earned his right to keep driving without a license?!?).

He was a completely amazing guide, though. For the rest of the day, he drove us through only-God-known savanna paths, in the middle of wildlife herds. I simply could not believe what I was seeing – vast, desolate, scorched lands, without any mzungu tourist interference. Just incredible, wild animals, mingling with farmers’ even-more-amazing Ankole-Watusi cattle. The treat of the night would be at Innocent’s very remote house: the BEST goat meat I have ever had, grilled under a huge cactus tree. Innocent’s wife was just beyond herself at the sight of a white person (she said she didn’t even know how to imagine one.) She held my hand and felt my skin all evening long. With my other hand I became quite good at maneuvering the famed poaching knife. Next time, I can see some illegal hunting going on (ha!).

As for the clubbing scene – I left it mostly to the guys. At 2 a.m., when they were ready to head out, I was kind of ready to turn in. Unluckily, my mosquito net did have some holes in it (which I tried the best I could to mend, but since power was out and everything was pitch black, I didn’t do that good a job). I am now counting some 5 bites (granted, some of them are ‘my fault”, since on the third night I forgot to put repellent on), so yes, testing times ahead… But who cares, right, when I had the most amazing experiences, in the savanna, and then at beautiful Lake Bunyonyi (the resort is manicured just like a Swiss resort).

On the way back, I did push it a bit as well. Some two weeks ago, I had heard this phenomenal story from an American guy: he was coming down from Uganda to Rwanda, but his taxi-driver made a mistake and dropped him off instead at the Congolese border. Unaware of what he was doing, he started crossing on foot, until he saw a sign “Welcome to ZAIRE!” (!!!!) and realized he was not going to the right country. When he eventually showed up in Musanze and told me this story, I was SOOO taken with the idea of the “ZAIRE” sign that yesterday I also wanted to cross that border ‘by mistake” as well. So we drove off some 30 kilometers, through banana fields and dust clouds, just to come to this other side of Uganda. Of course I got into trouble – first of all on their side, where I lied that I just needed to go across for five minutes and collect some paper from a guy ‘waiting for me’ in Zaire (ha!). They didn’t quite understand, but they did let me go, closely scrutinized by this guard. The Congolese, though, were very unfriendly (even if I do have a DRC visa), and kind of wanted money, until a Rwandan came to my rescue and “understood” I had made a border mistake. Unluckily, I could not see any ZAIRE signs, so now I am thinking that either the American lied (kind of hard to imagine you’d come up with such a crazy story out-of-nowhere), or I actually did go to the wrong-wrong border crossing. Or, who knows, the Congolese will have realized in the last two weeks that their country name had changed some 13 years ago?!

But yes, now that I am back to peaceful Rwanda (AND THAT IS A FACT), with Ugandan house music all over my brain, I am ready for “normal life” again: forest, gorillas, GREEN!!!

Black vs. White Beauty (And What We Do In Order To Achieve It)…

How many of you, mzungus, have ever listed “beautiful skin” among your top three things you are attracted to in a person of the opposite sex? I mean, think about it: we may go for beautiful hair, eyes, hands, big breasts, toned abs, long legs, etc, but not so much for beautiful skin, right?!

Well, not the same in the black world. I had, of course, noticed beautiful, shiny, flawless skin in black people before, but it was never a focus of my observation. Until, a couple of weeks ago, I started this seemingly never-ending conversation with Joseph, a colleague from work. I was trying to say to him that I have found many beautiful people in Rwanda, and he was asking me to point to some of them, but then he would just dismiss all my choices. One of his arguments was that their skin was not perfect.

OK, so I started focusing on the skin. And OH MY GOD!!! I can only dream of shiny skin ever since (forget it, mzungus, we’ll never be there, despite all the sun tanning and all the oils we may apply). And in so focusing my attention, it also dawned on me that this people have absolutely no hair on their bodies (I mean none even on the face or on the arms). OK, so I went back to Bernadette, a female colleague, and asked her where I can wax in Rwanda. She went “what is waxing?” I tried explaining, and she was completely stunned. There she was, this 25-year-old-beauty, who never had to remove one hair from her body. EVER.

OK, I still didn’t quite want to accept my predicament, so I kept searching. In a very strange twist of events, Joseph was the one to enlighten me, again. On Friday night, we went to this massive beach party at Lake Kivu (on a different note, HOW SURREAL it is for me to dance until dawn to Ugandan beats on the border between Rwanda and the DRC!!!!) It was something like the biggest, poshest event of the year, so all the cool people in Central Africa were there. Among them – yes, those beauties, in sparkling clothes, and with that perfect skin (and I, in jeans and fleece…) For those of you who know my obsession with beautiful Beyonce – well, there were several dozens around, and then some. Of course, those African curves are not really my thing, but who cares, I was all into skin by then.

Before hitting the dance floor (i.e. the sand), Joseph started telling me that on his recent trip to the US (the first he ever took outside Africa) he had heard two women talk about shaving their legs. “So?,” I said? “So all white women shave their legs?” “Well, most of us would either shave or wax, yes.” He was shocked. “What is waxing?”

Thank God for the whisky I was having, because this was turning a bit beyond belief. I gave as accurate explanations as possible, but he absolutely needed to touch and closely examine the skin on my legs in order to really quite get it (and NO, it was not an excuse to touch my legs!!!). He confessed he had never touched a white person before (!), so he was endearingly curious (while I was feeling as some sort of a derailed museum-material)… He then felt like he had to ask me if I had done a “boob job” as well, because he saw in the movies that white women also do THAT. (All I can think of in this context is the utter expression of despair which I recently learned from a hilarious British series: “CHRIST ON A BIKE!!!”)

The whole thing continued the day after, when I went for a swim in one of the hotels in Musanze. The hotel personnel, men and women alike, had all lined up and started staring. I have a hunch they also called their relatives and friends, because soon the property was filling up with veeery curious-looking people. At least, they were sort of enjoying it (I know, gross). But I am saying that in light of what happened to me on Monday morning, when I started hiking to the forest. I was wearing sun-glasses and my hoodie, which obviously scared the hell out of a local kid. He was in the potato fields, bare-footed, carrying a shovel twice as big as him. When he saw me, still quite far away, flanked by soldiers and black colleagues, he totally started screaming and running away, looking back in complete fright. I still want to believe I am not THAT ugly as to scare African kids like that. But, well, some evidence seems to point to the contrary… (The rest of them usually just wave at me and say the only thing they know in English: “good morning, teacher!”, regardless of the time of the day and place where we meet.)

But yes, I felt like I needed some help in my quest for beauty here, so I brought this all up with a new Italian friend of mine, Alberto, over a meticulously crafted cappuccino this Sunday. Alberto, who has been here almost three years, obviously has a much better understanding of this phenomenon, so his expertise was overwhelming: “Questi rwandesi, quando sono belli, sono belli” (I TOTALLY agree), “e quando sono brutti, sono brutti” (I EVEN MORE TOTALLY agree). Basically, he could have just as well said “quando sono tutsi, sono belli, quando sono hutu, sono brutti”. I AM SORRY, but this is pretty much how it is, even if we are not supposed to voice any sort of comments on race and ethnicity!!! But yes, I can completely understand those Belgian colonialists some hundred years ago, totally baffled at how RADICALLY different these two kinds of Rwandans actually were. They did go a bit too far, yes, when they started measuring them and categorizing them, and giving them separate identity cards and different status in the society (which, eventually led to the horrific things we all know about). But I totally get their curiosity about these HUGE differences in looks. (Joseph’s explanation about the tutsi look goes back to the same thing, again: that they been privileged enough to have access to milk, therefore they have this beautiful skin. And yes, he did ask me if I used to drink milk in Europe, and I said yes, and I actually realized that I am missing it here – it IS a luxury…)

So yes, if you ever hear that Rwandan girls are the most beautiful in Africa, DO BELIEVE THAT!!! I have no holistic expertise, but men of every African nation I have met so far say that, and I guess for a very good reason. Men are not too bad either – yes, those very tall, slim, powerful guys are the ones I notice. I am sorry if pretty much all of them turn out to be Tutsis…

As for myself, I am now closely analyzing my size, my weight, my skin, my everything. It is really quite a remarkable self-rediscovery process. Go figure, turning into an unwilling narcissist in Rwanda!!!