The Road

Travelling to places which I don’t know, but of which I have a clear idea, have occurred more than once in my life. So I go straight to a famous bar in Pamplona, recognise an elderly woman at the railway station in Prague as someone who is in search of tourists needing accommodation, know where to find good beer in Berlin and avoid the Weisse mit Schuss, it doesn’t matter what I wear in Denmark or which currency is in my pockets in Luxemburg, and even if I lose my passport in some backstreet in Athens, I wouldn’t worry too much about finding the embassy. The only thing of real importance is that I know the translation of “pancake” in each of the languages.

Now then to Kigali, Rwanda. I have not the faintest idea. Just different fragments of information from pharmacists, guide books, documentaries, feature films, and news on current affairs, so altogether: mythologies. And of course the knowledge of the Western European running through my privileged blood, that this place will be, presumably, close to the heart of some darkness.

If you ask me for my nationality, the truth is I feel more European than anything else. I am part of this culture, this European civilisation. I can walk into any gallery on our continent and completely understand the images and the stories on the walls. These people are my people and they have been for thousands of years. I can read books on subjects from Ancient Greece to Dark Ages Scandinavia, from Renaissance Italy to 19th-century France, and I don’t need the context or the landscape explained to me. The music of Europe, from its scales and its instruments to its rhythms and religion, is my music. The Renaissance, the rococo, the Romantics, the impressionists, gothic, baroque, neoclassicism, realism, expressionism, futurism, fauvism, cubism, dada, surrealism, postmodernism and kitsch were all European movements and none of them belongs to a single nation. (A.A Gill. The Times. 2016)

No idea why I quoted that. What is fauvism anyway?

It is very clear that I will not survive. That’s partly the reason for not having bought a return ticket. Because…what do I know about Rwanda? Diane Fossey was killed there, for starters. And then, the list of diseases my pharmacist warns me about, reads like the 10 plagues of the old testament, which will all rain down on me, like frogs. I tried to be reasonable, and said that I do not need a vaccination against Meningitis, because I am not intending to have sexual encounters with the locals, at least not unprotected, and I will try my best not to get bitten by any animal that is frothing around the mouth. There is no vaccination against Dengue Fever however, and none against Sleeping Disease, while the treatment against Malaria is preemptive and also is only 100% secure if one can manage to not get bitten by members of that Anopheles-Gang, that roams the streets of Kigali between 10pm and 2am each night. I can’t avoid vaccinations against food-related inconveniences like Typhoid and Hepatitis A, though, and a refreshment course of Tetanus can’t hurt really, can it? That the authorities require a negative Covid-Test in order to enter the country, seems a bit petty in light of the above. I forgot to mention Yellow Fever. One might die from it.

Then there are the dangers of being trampled to death by what they call the big 5, presumably Elephant, Hippo, Giraffe, Zebra, and a morbidly obese tour guide called Harry. The chances of that are, admittedly, rather slim in the city, but you never know. In Disney-Movies they cause a lot of trouble everywhere they turn up.

Lastly there is the little issue of dissent, that is frowned upon, and any deviation from the lawful path might lead to some form of sanction. Amongst the most despised missteps one could possibly undertake are trying to bring a plastic bag into the country, wearing T-shirts with slogans, mentioning the war, touching people of the opposite sex in public, littering, and making critical comments about the authorities. Wearing camouflage shirts will bring you straight into prison, as it should be in any civilised country. So far, so good. Rwanda is regarded as the cleanest and safest country in the whole of Africa, with a state-of the-art telecommunication network, a front-runner of the free market, the pet-project of Tory development aid, and an example of how to overcome a national trauma caused by a genocide, the bestiality of which would have made Adolf Eichmann shudder.

And it’s a functioning democracy with free elections – from a UK perspective, where 40% of the votes might bring you a 80 seats majority in parliament, everything should be regarded as a functioning democracy, and if one of the presidential candidates repeatedly gains north of 90% of the votes, not only the UK, but the EU and the US regard this as a sign of reliability and will not hesitate to fund the government further, to make sure that peace can be secured for eternity. All proper, and the past, which has been constituted very much by division, has turned into a present, that is characterised by unity. Or so. And “pancake” is “Mandazi” in Kinyarwanda.

Anyway. The reason for the journey…

*using the location app what3words, to not forget where I am