Rural Rwanda
July 4, 2024
I headed to the bus station through the snarl of traffic and was instantly engulfed in chaos. Buses, minivans, moto taxis, private cars, people vending food and touts swarmed around the place. It was far removed from the spic and span streets of town.
I am headed to Kibuye, on the shores of Lake Kivu. The bus is not merely a bus but is the delivery service as well as goods carrier. Mattresses, tires, jerry cans and giant bags containing who knows what are loaded. And then the passengers troop in and we leave. Barely on the outskirts of town I already see farms and by the side of the road are seedlings and plants for sale.
Trucks are loaded down with bananas, sugarcane, giant logs and other produce as we pass them. The hills have been shorn of their forest cover and there are fields as far as I can see. From what I read, an estimated ninety percent of Rwandan industry is agriculture.
With a tropical climate, plenty of water and fertile soil this country must yield bountiful harvests. The red soil and the lush greenery certainly makes for pretty pictures.
There are villages strung along the road. Large and small, they dot the countryside with hardly a gap in between. I had read that a large part of the populace in Rwanda are under the poverty limits but the villages that we pass do not seem destitute.
With few mud huts, most have simple houses with cemented walls, some of them elaborate. The highway is asphalted and good while most of the roads into the villages are dirt.
No doubt in a few years, they too will be tarred. Again I marvel at the changes that Rwanda has wrought in the thirty short years since 1994. It might be easier since it is a small country but nonetheless, it is an amazing success story on the world stage.
ITCHY FEET TRAVELS 