A Picture of Rwanda

Rwanda is a beautiful landscape of steep hills and cultivated mountain slopes. The land is a breathtaking agricultural quilt. Everything is vegetated. Trees are abundant and of great variety. Some resemble pine trees, but with soft feathery “needles” that are more wispy than defined, and bright orange-sienna bark. Other trees are slim and tall with wide canopies that resemble an umbrella turned inside-out or simply flat-topped. Perhaps the most surprising is the enormous cactus-like tree that begins with a standard trunk but branches out with cactus arms; these are gigantic. Banana trees are abundant, some with individual leaves that are twice my size in length (or maybe saying “Caleb’s size” would impress you more). ; ) The trees are found all along the river valleys and hilltops. The sun illuminates patches along the hills, and leaves others cooled in shadow. Altitude seems to make no difference to the terraces of farms and trees. The sharpest inclines are still made farms of any given produce: pineapples, tea, coffee, beans, potatoes, avocados, etc with dirt paths and mud-brick homes thatched or clay terra-cotta style roofing. The clay is rich red that makes the bricks of many of their houses, and adds a burnt sienna glow to the muddy brown rivers. The rivers flow in the base of the valleys, and waterfalls are found in the mountains.

The roads are paved with scattered pot-holes, and are always populated with people walking and biking with loads too heavy for most. Men, women, and children pile loads on top their heads and shoulders to carry them for miles uphill and downhill. Some put exceptionally full sacks to the back of bikes and require the help of one or two others to push it up the hill; some do it alone. Women carry everything on their heads and have their babies strapped to their backs while carrying work tools or other items in their hands. Children are most often seen with yellow water jugs. I am convinced these people walk uphill both ways.

While all this scenery is breath-taking and beautiful, it is hard to ignore the condition of these circumstances. The people live off the land – and that happens to mean the side of mountains with great distances between cities and water sources. The manual labor along the roads is less than $1 a day… and yet this is beautiful Rwanda. It is beautiful. But it is hard.

It is easy to love what I’ve always known, and measure all else by its standard... Adjusting takes experience; adaptation takes change in attitude of both the mind and the heart.