Mount Gahinga

"Off the beaten path" is not at all as fun as it sounds...

On Friday, I discovered that I could not, in fact, extend my stay in the US this coming May. I was going to try to delay my flight back to Rwanda, so I could see my family, The Man, and some friends. The airline agent basically chuckled at me and told me I might as well buy a new round trip ticket, because it would cost roughly the same thing. I nearly lost it. Okay, maybe I actually did lose it.


My grand scheme had been to stay longer in the US and heal a bit from some of the negative occurrences that have happened to me since my stay here. I would come back for a little bit more in Africa, work here and there, travel some, and then return the US in August, for good. Now, my grand plan was turned down outright. I don't know if I can last here without a longer reprieve at home. It's been really hard, as I might have illustrated. It almost felt like condemnation, to a lesser extent. Do I have to stay here that long? Of course I know I don't absolutely have to, but I don't want to feel like a quitter, either. I'm now trying reflect on myself and to figure out how to make some lemonade out of these lemons.



If that didn't make for a sour-mood Kim, Denise and I walked home from a long Friday in the office. We ended up waiting on a road intersection for our friend Ariel, and on the other side of the road a group of little children gathered. I started hearing shouts of, "Mzungu! Wait!", "Mzungu! Gimme money!" But their shouts became more jeering and taunting, like them harassing another kid in the playground. The oddball was now becoming the center of the freak show. I was already on the verge of tears, and these children were really striking the wrong chord with me. I finally shouted at them, "Vah-mo!" (which is somehow close to Get lost!), and the taunting grew more menacing and mean. I was juggling between two emotions - to sob outright on the street, or to throw some rocks at them to make them stop.

To make myself feel better, I created for myself a Vision Bag. A Vision Bag is much like a Vision Board, only I wasn't able to find any posters around here, so I thriftily took a brown paper bag and covered both sides with my vision for the upcoming future - 2012. I did this exercise around this time last year, and I must say I think I accomplished a lot of my vision for 2011. However, this year's Vision Bag is nothing like last year's Vision Board. The 2012 Vision Bag has a lot more things about me working on my creativity, being truly happy and authentic to myself, and traveling (but not necessarily internationally). I want to see sacred places, and get back in touch with my spiritual self. I want a puppy. I want to eat more chocolate bunnies. And I want to envisage more my career path and how this business idea could turn out. Though one thing remained the same on the visions: do more yoga, stress less, and have more fun. I feel like I'm changing, growing, and in absolutely none of the ways I had initially foreseen last year. I'm looking forward to totally different things.

On Saturday, we met Jane at the US Embassy yard sale. It was pretty picked over by the time we got there, but what was left was incredibly expensive. A used iPod Nano for roughly $80?? That didn't seem right... I think that Americans charge too much for things here because they can, and there's so much that isn't available here. It simply offended me. And especially because some of it looked like it was from the 1980's!

Jane then informed me that it probably was all stuff from the 1980's; if you're a US government worker, or a contractor with a private company in development, you can ship your entire house in the US for free! Everything you possess can get hauled to your station, no matter how ridiculous. Some Harley Davidsons completely inappropriate for Rwandan terrain were being sold at the yard sale.

I ended up going to Musanze with Ariel and her roommates on Saturday evening. The reason: to go on a hike up an extinct volcano. Mount Gahinga is one of the smallest volcanoes in its range, and we thought a nice Sunday would include a leisurely stroll up the old volcano. We bought our volcano visas, and off we went.




We got to Musanze on one of the nicer national bus lines, Virunga Express, and arrived in Musanze late at night, as it started to rain. Unfortunately, the hostel we planned on staying at for our 2-day excursion was hosting some major religious event, and was booked solid. Laura, one of Ariel's roommates, happens to know people, and managed to contact a friend of a friend of a friend (or something) who happened to be in Morocco at the time, and had his house empty and available for us to crash while we were in town. Thank goodness for networking!

Before we went off to sleep before the big hike, we went to Volcanoes Lounge, where we feasted on some pretty darn tasty brochettes and french fries. The company was great, and we all wept about our loved ones back home, talking about what we miss about our homes and the men in our lives that we miss and when we plan on going back. But, like how many nights are for me (especially here), I managed to get some minor food poisoning and found myself locked up in the toilet before sloooooowly waddling to the house we were borrowing. Maybe I'm just allergic to food...

We woke up early in the morning, blearily, to prepare ourselves for the hike up Gahinga and get into the mountain truck we rented for the weekend, with chauffeur (who was the size of a dwarf, I'm pretty sure). We drove through the beautiful landscapes - the rolling hills rolled by us with grace, and the craggy volcanoes imposed themselves as the backdrop of the horizon. Eminem and Jennifer Lopez boomed out of the speakers as we swerved along.

About 45 minutes of a windy drive, we found ourselves at Volcanoes National Park. The same place I anticipate on visiting in order to see the infamous wild gorillas. There were a handful of other clearly foreign visitors arriving, and we all sat quietly with coffee in hand to watch some traditional dancers and drummers perform for us before Mount Sabyingo (called for its jagged top). Our parks guide joined us in the car, and we started our way towards the volcano in question.

A note: Emmy, our tour guide, was a pretty wacky guy. He reminded me very much so of the Rwandan version of Borat. He was super energetic, talked in jest half of the time, and made noises like "whAOA!" and said things like "Heya! Youa likea tha muzeek? NICE!" I was ready for him to give a big thumbs up and start asking us how much...

Another note: If now you want to start asking me what was one word to describe our experience with Mount Gahinga, it would be: treacherous. As we drove towards the peaceful giants, the road got more and more intensely rocky. By the end of the drive, it came to a point where we were all holding onto anything in the truck for dear life and yet still would slam our heads on the top of the roof. The car was in mid-air for part of the time, I'm sure of it. I almost peed my pants twice because it was so shockingly turbulent. ....It was kind of fun to be in the car....

Now, when it comes to the hike, I cannot truly call it a hike. No, because when I think of hiking, I think of marked paths and outhouses on the edges of the roads. I think of gradual inclines and a beautiful scenic end at the precipice. I think of maybe 4 hours of walking on clean paths or rock steps. No, this was not a hike.

This was surviving the final test of military boot camp before going into the front lines.

We started off relatively fine. We meandered through some hilly farm fields with potatoes and promethium and a handful of goats. We hauled ourselves up through patches of dried grass to look at a wonderful panorama of the landscape below. Lakes and villages and the other neighboring volcanoes. Yet, it looked like we were actually trailing away from the volcano we anticipated on climbing. We hiked up this for about two hours, I believe, and met up withe a group of soldiers. Apparently this mountain has buffalo hanging around, and they are not very friendly animals. The soldiers were going to join us for the rest of the hike to ward off the buffalo and potential elephants from trampling over us six women.

Then it happened. The unpaved jungle. AH, you think I'm being hyperbolic. No, no, I'm not - it was a full-fledged jungle in front of us. At first I thought it was the beginning initiation of the rest of the hike, but it was not. This hike was on unmarked, in fact nonexistent, paths through TREACHEROUS parts of some other universe. I have absolutely no idea how the soldiers and our guide (now guides - I hired a porter to carry my bag because I had a hunch it was going to be a hard day) knew where on EARTH we were going.

Bamboo was everywhere! Everywhere. We had one machete for the group, and used it to make some ramshackle clearings for us to plow through. Bamboo slapped my face. Stinging nettles ripped away my rain coat. Rain poured down and made unbelievable pools of dirt and water and mud for us to slide and slip into the entire journey up. And the altitude was pretty up there. It was HARD! I cling onto my bamboo walking stick and whimpered through the steep upward haul for a while. Finally, about an hour and a half into it, I could feel myself ready to blank out. My back was upset, and my stomach was upset, and my head was pounding. I had lost sight of the other ladies, and I was with my porter and two soldiers, groaning and pausing every 10 steps.

It is true. The jungle really is unkind. 

A side note about my porter. His name is Andrew, and he was an absolute treasure. It was the best $7 I spent on the trip, I'm telling you! He bounded up the jungle and would come back to find me and help me up high rocks and through waterfalls. He started making my whimpering noises to me to see if I needed help, and oftentimes I did. He held my water and bag like a champ, and even counted in Kinyarwandan with me.

So, 2/3 of the way up Mount Gahinga, I started to wonder if I'd make it. I said to myself, "Can I come back down, without doing any real bodily harm to myself?" I started to say to myself, life: it's not about the destination, but the journey. But then, all of a sudden, in a big booming voice in my head, I heard The Man say to me, "If you're not enjoying it, why are you still doing it?!" It was as clear as day, and I suddenly realized, I didn't need to prove anything to anyone. I didn't need to finish this and hurt myself. This was for me, and I wasn't enjoying it. I could stop.

So I looked at Emmy, Andrew, and the soldiers, and said, "I'm going back down now." Another one of the women with us agreed to go back down, too (Amy was in a similar state), and we started to head down. Andrew held my hand through most of the journey down, because it was possibly harder than going up with all of the slippery bamboo and muddy rocks to scramble over and down. We ended up waddling and crawling through the jungle and back down some rocky farm terrain for about two hours before finally reaching the glorious mountain truck again.

In fact, the entire hike was a lot like my journey in Rwanda so far. It keeps getting harder, and more complicated and unmarked, and more like a jungle. It keeps getting more confusing, and unpleasant, and I keep wondering if it's in my best interest to keep going. Maybe this hike was, for me, like a sign about how I had to handle my journey in life right now. Maybe it's time to turn around. And it would be alright. If I need to, I can always turn around and help prevent myself from going through more unneeded pain.

We rested and munched on oranges and Kinder bars with our porters as we waited another hour and a half for the rest of our group. We played with baby goats and sheep, and I called The Man and my mom to chat for a brief bit. I was sunburned all over (even with SPF 55), and grimy and caked in mud. But I was so incredibly grateful to get off of the damned mountain.The 7.5 hour hike had finally ended for us!

When the rest of the group came back down (about 1.5 hours or so later), we found out that it only got harder, and there wasn't that much to see at the top. I guess I didn't miss out on much after all. Self, take note.

I had to immediately run to the bus after we got out of the park to get back to Kigali for work the next morning. I had to use a squat toilet next to the bus park, which was pretty gross but I thought to myself It's better than a bladder infection. And it was.

Some man, when getting on the bus, decided to zero in on me and try to work his magic. Apparently I'm "special", and "beautiful somehow" (his own words), and wanted to talk about his "future with" me. I sized him up pretty quickly. Does he have the professional clout that could help me network somehow in the future? Let's see....scrawny guy, which implies he has a labor-heavy job; baggy clothes, which implies he doesn't have enough money for a tailor; and aged, which means he's either married with children, or not worth the hassle. In a matter of seconds, I had made an appraisal of him with which I was satisfied. My decision was made.

"I don't think my husband would be alright with me talking like that with you." And I pointed on a bus seat with someone else and hid for a 2-hour drive.

When I left the bus in Kigali, the man came back over to me.

"We didn't get to sit next to each other!"

"Yes, well, I was asleep the whole time."

"Can I go with you?"

"No, I'm going home."

"Where's home?"

"In Kagugu."

"May I meet you sometime?"

"No, I think my husband would approve."

"Can I have your number?"

"No, I don't have a number."

I pointed down a moto and fled. The moto sped me home and I hobbled into the house, took a wonderful rinse, and crashed hard on my bed.

I'll be rethinking hiking as a leisurely thing to do on the weekends for a while, methinks.