Hiking the Countryside

The second half of umuganda consists of community meetings and events. Since they were all going to be in kinyarwanda, and our participation would be limited, we instead decided to head off into the hillside to enjoy some of the views. Since Emily lives up in Butaro, she knows the hills really well, and lead us on an adventure to see some of her favorite sights.

My first thought was on the sheer steepness of the hills. Gosh. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest after only 3 minutes of walking as I was basically walking up stairs the whole time. Thankfully we only had to climb for about half an hour or so before we were high enough up that the hillside smoothed out a little.  This shot was taken at the top of the first hill.  Luke leads the way, with Hannah, myself, Emily, and Eric (and of course, the gaggle of kids) following behind.

My second thought was on the sheer beauty of Rwanda. Mountains give amazing views. You can get up high, and look down on life going on all around you. What was particularly interesting to me was this was a mountain view that was actually defined by HUMAN life as opposed to the “natural, untouched landscapes” of most mountain views I see. Houses and carefully cultivated farmland dominate the hillsides, and what you see is human subsistence-living going on everywhere.  Here, Hannah, Luke, Emily, Eric, and I pose in front of the valley we were about to walk through.  You can barely see the path we walked in the mountain behind Hannah.  It sits about halfway up the mountain side, and is wide enough for a single-file line.

We wandered through the pathways that act as the main routes of most transportation here. No one has cars – people walk. We wound around the perimeter of that valley (Emily has a particular affection for it), and entertained the revolving group of children that followed us in our apparently aimless wanderings.  Here Hannah and Emily were far enough ahead that the group of abazungu were split up, and the kids followed behind whichever umuzungu was most interesting to them.  I love this shot.