Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The Fourth of July

The first week in July is a big week for Rwanda…the first is Independence Day (aka independence from Belgium) and the fourth is Liberation Day (aka the end of the genocide). The weekend of the fourth was also a big deal in my village because two priests were being ordained (no small thing in a Catholic parish!) We, however, skipped all the festivities and headed out of the village with a group of muzungus from South Africa who, conveniently, have a car. On Saturday we went to the hot springs “near” us (aka you take the long dirt road to our village in a different director for a long, long time). Their location is pretty ridiculous because you drive from the fairly lush, well vegetated hills near Nyungwe Forest to an arid area full of mainly scrub bush. On the other side of a quarry, however, a well manicured park (complete with parking spots) appears out of nowhere with the springs in the middle. Mind you, along the way there were no signs to the springs, and without our (limited) grasp of the language we would never have found the place. The park is clearly used infrequently at best, because a group of muzungus pulling up drew a huge group of spectators, who then stuck around for the remainder of the day to see what the muzungus would do. We entertained by wading through the springs until they were too hot to bear, and settled down on the grass beside the springs to enjoy our cold Primus out of a cooler. Sunday we drove down to Lake Kivu for a more refreshing version of the day before.

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