Ride to Butaro

Hannah and I decided we were sick of Kigali and finagled out of Emily an invitation up to Butaro. Emily works for Partners in Health there, and since there is a staff party going on tonight, we decided to head up north and check out some of the Rwandan countryside.

The first bit of the trip was paved and rather uneventful. We managed to get a ride in one of the ambulances that was carrying medical supplies up north, and climbed in the back with big Styrofoam coolers of meds with Oliver and Luke. Since the road was paved and the sun was still out, things ran smoothly, and we eventually left the city of Kigali behind the first hill.

The ride became a little more interesting after the sun went down and the road changed from pavement to dirt to a horrible excuse for a road. Suddenly we were winding around the hillsides with a sheer drop on one side of us and a solid wall on the other. The “road” consisted mainly of riverbeds washed out by daily torrential rain, a few wooden boards laid across the especially deep ones, and the more-than-occasional rock that jutted out of the road to remind me with every jar of the tire and jolt of the steering wheel that my spinal chord is on the fritz. Our driver drove slower and slower, mindful to blare the horn every time we came to a bend in the road in order to warn unseen oncoming traffic of our presence. Only, there was a bend in the road just about ever 10 seconds or so. Add to that music that was blasting on a blown out speaker system, my desperate desire to pee, and the fact that even after putting on TWO bras, I still had to hold myself down. Then make it a 4 hour ride. Oh goody. Poor Luke eventually got motion sickness from the whole thing.

Thankfully good company and a seemingly-endless-but-not-quite road brought us to Butaro’s Health Clinic safe and sound.