ACT TWO, SCENE ONE

INT. MORNING. KIGALI SERENA HOTEL

After a croissant, scrambled eggs, and passion fruit juice, we are met by Eddie (PAO) and Charles (PAS) at the front desk and have our bags loaded into a muscular SUV for the trip to Kigali. There's a small mixup as the hotel bill ends up on our individual credit cards as opposed to the State Dept's. local account but Eddie takes care of it and we're off.

EXT. SAME DAY. ROAD TRIP!

If I hadn't mentioned it before nows the time to point out that the first thing you smell when you get off the plane (something that continues throughout our stay in Kigali) is the smell of burning wood. It's not overpowering, but omni-present--and from what I hear its an "African smell"--ubiquitous on the continent and a warm welcome for the returning traveler. Indeed, its something to embrace for the first-timer as well....

As we leave the City one is immediately engaged in a visual montage of the cleanest streets imaginable, the hustle and bustle of well-dress people going to work on foot, motobike, or crowded mini-bus; varied small-business fronts housed in short, very modern buildings, and the sidewalks the giving out to dirt trails that connect to evenly carved steps that lead upward to families' homes.

For the first few miles these small-to-mid-sized dwellings frequent the terraced hills and roadside landscape. Almost all are made from brick, stone, adobe--or some combination. And as we move further from the central city, one can see them being constructed (completely by hand!) in nearly every town or community. Some have terracotta roofs, others have corrugated metal, one or two have steel. Imbedde above their doors and atop some windows, like a talisman, are a variety of open-design cinderblocks, and nearly every one is neatly painted, surrounded on one side or the other by vegetation and most lie under or near trees.

Further out, the homes are spread out in the landscape; sometimes bigger, sometimes more demanding of the time and skill of their builders. Distinct 'plots' of farmed land become visible and I am told these belong to families (subdivided by kinship, marriage). And where one simply assumes the bustle of the City is tied into the dynamic of economics, it becomes clear that this work ethic has its origins in country life. Every plot is hand-watered, every row of crops is hand sewn/harvested, and people are here and there lifing soil with steel-bladed, wooden-handled hoes. Talk about an industrious people--the Rwandans I saw are the very definition!

And now we settle in for the multi-hour drive....

First let me state, this is not the land of "1,000 Hills"--its the land of 100,000 hills! We climb, curve, dip, climb, and climb again--and repeat this hour after hour. People are out and about. And the car rapidly gives way to the utility of the bicycle onto which EVERYTHING is ported that is not carried atop the head. Men, women, children (as in "tots") are living, playing, working and walking along side this road. The road itself is a well kept two lane highway with sidewalks in some place, well defined pathways in others.And the gap between the traffic and the walkways is less than a foot in most places--perhaps just a few inches in others!

Young children guide even younger ones aside when the sound of a motor approaches and adults just as knowingly step inward to let the vehicles pass, then continue onward. Uniformed students appear on the playgrounds in some communities, churches here and there. Intersections seems to define the boundaries of several regions and/or towns and there gather people waiting for the mini-bus and motorbike taxis, or they stop to fill their tank at the gas station, or trade goods with their fellow citizens.

But these communities are in and among HILLS. I'm talking about long stretches of unbelievably windingly steep hills!! I started sweating just thinking about how winded I would be after trying the shortest of them! The cyclists carrying water jugs, baskets, furniture, buidling materials, etc. wherever and however they can balance them, then walk their bicycles up hill and (I'm sure) gleefully take in the breeze downhill.