Making Lemonade from Rwanda to Uganda (Update)

When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade… or at least that is what Beyoncé subliminally instructed the world to do.

Well life handed me an imagination.. now I’m trying to piece together the ingredients of this journey to make proper lemonade that you would enjoy. Recall nearly a month ago I took a three-country journey from Kenya, to Rwanda, then to Uganda. I was hoping to share photos from my journey but I lost my phone with precious photos from all three trips (now adding lemon).  I’m trying to be better at ‘adulting’ meaning I will take full responsibility for my actions but putting humility and naiveté aside, I really don’t think that it was I who lost my phone. Engage me for a second.

We’re going to skip the Kenya trip and go straight to Rwanda. While in Rwanda, my friends and I thought it would be a grand idea to cross the border to go to Uganda.. Lake Bunyonyi was too near for us not to visit. We spent the first half of the day trying to find a ride to take us across the border of Rwanda entering Uganda. We’d been told that a taxi would only cost a couple thousand Rwandan francs so we had a small idea of what pricing should be. What I thought would be a couple minutes of price negotiations ended up being a couple of hours of back and forth confusion in the beaming hot sun. Bewilderment consumed me as I tried to figure out why no one was willing to negotiate and why we were being quoted prices between 50,000-75,000 Rwandan francs when we were told the price would be in the low thousands.

Then it hit me. I was walking around Kigali, Rwanda with 2 “Muzungus”. One of my friends is a tantalizing mix of Asian and White and my other friend looks like the color of the caramel inside of a Twix Bar.. she’s Black and Native American. Together, we closely resemble a United Colors of Benetton ad.

The original image below is owned by the United Colors of Benetton  The image was accessed through Google Images.

On the African continent the term “Muzungu” was originally coined for someone who is a foreigner. Since then it has taken on the meaning of “white person” and from my personal assessments, white people are charged higher prices, sometimes double the price, of what a national would be charged. I find it hilariously sickening. So to receive a fair price, my friends and I agreed that they would hide and pretend to not know me while I negotiated the price. Benefits of being Black on the continent.  After about 20 minutes I was able to get the price down from 75,000 Rwandan francs to 15,000 Rwandan francs and bring my friends out of hiding.

So we go? Not just yet. There was one major problem. The taxi driver didn’t speak English nor Kinyarwanda. He only spoke Swahili, of which the only words in my vocabulary include Habari (Hello), Jambo (Hi), and Mzuri sana (Very Good). But our price heckling would not be in vain. I laugh a bit as I reflect back on how we traded awkward smiles with the driver and used hand signals to try to explain where we were going. The beautiful and breathtaking ride from Rwanda to Uganda made up for it. Literally, breathtaking.

According to what I’ve learned from my dad’s teachings about car mechanics, the taxi driver’s car had an exhaust pipe problem which caused the exhaust to expel back into the car, nearly suffocating us in smells of Accra, Ghana. I unsuccessfully tried to request that the windows be rolled down more but the driver was quite confused with the intermixing of my hand signals so we sat there….with headaches and our noses pressed towards the cracks in the windows gasping for fresh air.

After about 2 hours we reached the border and was able to take another taxi from there to Lake Bunyonyi. None of what I just shared has anything to do with how I lost my phone and why these photos are so scarce. Here is how (now adding water). Once in Uganda, we were told by locals that it would be a ‘quick quick’ journey to canoe between the islands of Lake Bunyonyi. Consideration of the fact that locals have amassed a level of endurance that we didn’t possess as they canoe everyday between these islands was not taken. What would be a ‘quick quick’ journey for them ended up being a near 3 hour journey for us.

We remained in the middle of the lake for some time contemplating the next move. We found a very generous man (see small boat far in the distance in photo above) who saw our struggle and offered to give us 2 of his children to help us row back to land. It took 2 seconds for us to put our  feminine pride aside and take this kind man up on his offer. As I sat there in laughter and embarrassment that these 7-10 year olds were rowing like they were in the Olympics, I calmed my shame the only way I knew how.. by looking at photos on the trusty Iphone 5 (now adding sugar).

I put my phone down right before reaching the island to help the children out of the boat and to bid them goodbye. I never saw my phone again.  I’m now that person who walks around taking photos with her Ipad (now stir).

Proper Lemonade has been served.