Saturday Market.

My first Saturday here, I decided to walk with Miriam and Katie down to the market. It was my third day here and I was feeling pretty tired, but thought it’d be great to get into the heart of Shyira. The path we walked on turned out to be a hike down the side of the mountain. It was absolutely beautiful. We passed different houses on our way down, children, women carrying babies on their back. We passed men carrying up a man on a stretcher. It was a wooden stretcher and the carrying style was very much like that of a pallbearer. It was great and overwhelming to pass all these people on the way down. Some of the children were using banana leaves as umbrellas.
The walk reminds me of being young and finding trails at my grandparent’s house in Columbia or with my grandmother at a lake in North Carolina. It is some mingling between wonder and adventure. Something of childhood vigor is reclaimed. This mountain is like the world a child tries to create in her backyard out of a brain and imagination and hope. It makes me think that there is something very important about that longing of a child that we brush aside for growing up. I want to figure out how not to trade one for the other. I think I had forgotten parts of me that I haven’t outgrown as much as I thought. They are turning out to be more like a wheel barrow that will still go and carry, and even has a familiar grip- but is a bit awkward because its rusty and your hands are bigger. But, they are still a wheel barrow…or a chariot, or a pirate ship.
After the walk down, we came to the market. The sun was blazing and there were so many people. The atmosphere is very different from any market I’ve been to in Niger. Miriam and Katie and I were complete outsiders, ‘muzungus,’ white people. That is all anyone says to us. It is strange being only known for that. I want to know people. I feel like it is a more difficult thing to really know people here than it is in Niger. There seems to be more of a reservation. I’m not sure if it is because I am white or if it is because this country has learned to carry a different sort of awareness in the past century than I’m familiar with. This leads to another strange part of the atmosphere of Rwanda. The words Hutu and Tutsi are not spoken- they are not discussed. The day I arrived in Kigali, I saw the genocide memorial, but I have heard nothing concerning the events since. It creates a tension. I think it may have been naivety on my part thinking that I would learn a lot about Rwanda’s history by hearing people speak on it. I think it may be that I learn more in the quietness of this history.
On the way home from the market, we had to hike uphill. Let me remind you how excited I had been for the venture. Now was the real adventure: hiking uphill. There are uneven rocks everywhere and then some rocks covered with dust that makes them easy to slide on. You have to pay particular attention to your footing, and you’re a little breathless so there’s not a lot of talking. Also, the sun was making itself increasingly known. At one point I even thought to myself- whatever category I’m in right now is so far past Team Mihm Extreme, I amaze myself. It was very tiring, but I was in it. Then, I started feeling dizzy. Hmmm. What’s this strange sensation? My legs aren’t too terribly worn out but I feel like I can’t catch a good breath, even when I stop. Whoa. What’s that? Severe nausea? Then, we all realized, I had altitude sickness. I tried to give them a heads up: “Guys. I’m going to throw up. When I throw up, I cry.” I had only known these girls three days when they patiently watched me vomit and dry heave on the side of a mountain. Did Pan ever throw up when he was flying to Neverland? I have a good notion he didn’t. All of a sudden, my amazement and my body were colliding. It was a painful dash at my morning pride. The ladies carrying babies on their backs that we passed on our way back up now passed us. There was a faithful little girl that followed us up the whole way. Every time I stopped to throw up, she stopped, too. Katie and Miriam couldn’t have been more kind and patient with me. As bad as it was, it was great to see so quickly what great people I will be sharing this trip with.
There is a lot left unsaid about Rwandan culture I’ve experienced thus far, including that day. My apologies. I don’t yet feel qualified to speak on it. I certainly don’t feel qualified to assess. My eyes are very young here. The more I am here, the more I need to watch and listen, and not try to figure out.