That's Rwandan hospitality for you...

1

I'm completely alone, walking toward Byangabo's small city center. The darkness is thick save for the moon at 11:30pm and I'm wondering, "What the heck am I doing?"

Every Friday night I host an English Film Night and discussion for the students at ISAE. So far, we've seen Inside Man, Blood Diamond (their request), and The Curious Case of Benjamin of Button. Two weekends ago, we watched Slumdog Millionaire (most Rwandans love Indian movies, especially with dancing, so they were excited). My four hour lecture ended around 6 and we started at eight pm. The small cement room was packed, students scrunched up on benches and several times we had to find more seats.

My friend Danielle (she's the other Fulbright here, whom many Peace Corps Volunteers believed was my wife and that our last name was Fulbright, hence the blog's url: Jonathan Fulbright), she and a group of her college friends came up North to visit. I'm not sure why, but there is a large pack of Yale alums in Rwanda. I figure Rwanda must have had a mind boggling booth at a Yale career fair some months ago.

Anyway, I was hoping to meet up with them after the movie. It would be difficult to find a ride, being so late, but I'd give it a shot.

After Slumdog's dancing credits ended, I'd never seen the students so animated, and though I wanted to see my friends, I let go of that eagerness to leave. I asked them what they thought of the repeated theme: "it is written." This launched a debate about whether fate, choice, or chance dictate our lives. Many agreed: What Imana (God) wants is what happens. Life is fated.

Rwanda is an extremely religious--particularly Christian--country. Nearly every day I see a group of students at a Bible study group outside; the weekends are filled with dozens of Christian singing groups practicing away for future performances; and Church often lasts for 4-6 hours.

Some students argued that life was dictated by choice. "Imana may have created us, but we choose whether to good or bad, to try, or to give up." The quality of the discussion trumped many that I've heard in the US. Someone asked me what I thought, but I'll spare you my philosophy. Without realizing, we'd spent an hour exchanging opinions, weaving through ideas as though walking in a garden of forking paths, on one of the most central of philosophical inquiries. I was pumped.

I left the gates of the school compound, asking the guard in his skull cap and puffy yellow jacket if it would be possible to find a motorcycle this late. He walked me to a neighboring house and banged on the door. It was late and these folks were not coming out at 11pm. He wished me good luck and I set out on an impossible task, following the one road to town.

When the moon is full, even the most isolating of darkened moments seem possible.  It shown like a floodlight, drowning out surrounding stars, echoing off the mountains hugging our valley. The solitude of walking in that darkness produced an intoxicating freedom.

I realized quickly that there were no motorcycle taxis at 11pm from here. In fact, Byangabo is so small, I've yet to see a single moto taxi, unlike in most towns. Then, I did what many have done in similar situations: I took a stance on the roadside and stuck out my thumb. Only two or three trucks and one bus passed. None slowed, and one seemed to speed up past me. "What the heck am I doing?" came to mind.

Putting the thumb down, I went to a nearby bar and saw a young man dressed like a student and asked him if he had any ideas on how to make the 30 minute trek to Musanze, where my friends had now arrived some time ago. Valentine was indeed a student at ISAE and energetically took my hand, walking us down some mud paths carved out by powerful little rivers, between clay-brick houses with corrugated metal gates warped from wear, some of which glimmered in the moonlight.

He knocked on an unassuming house door stained with rust and a naked man wrapped lightly in a towel emerged to answer, clearly awoken from sleep. He and Valentine spoke in Kinyarwanda while I laughed to myself at the situation, simultaneously feeling sorry for the sleeping man. Valentine turned and said, "he's got a bike but it's not working. But, he thinks he can find another." Disbelief turned into excitement as the man disappeared into the greater darkness of his one room home, reemerging with what looked like snoopy's outfit when dressed as the Red Baron.

We walked to another house that had a moto and the Red Baron took the helm. Valentine said, now it is late so he won't do it for less than 2,500 francs. That's $4.16. "Ok," I replied. As I turned to thank him for spending so much time on a whim with me, for hunting down a ride in the middle of the night, for being so generous, he replied simply, "That is how we treat our guests." Now that's Rwandan hospitality for you.

The rest of the night was fun. I met with my friends who had teamed up with a group of German and American volunteers. We all crammed into the back of a white safari truck and went to a really sketchy bar that smelled more like urine than stale beer. I saw several students at ISAE there, and one in particular who must have learned English from a Rasta because he's vernacular contains "Bodacious" and he refers to himself as a "ghetto boi." As is customary in Rwanda when dancing at a club, I only danced with guys. (Girls at clubs are almost always prostitutes and homosexuality does not exist in Rwanda, according to culture, so dancing with guys doesn't bother them, a lot like girls dancing with each other in the US doesn't alarm anyone.) So, long ago yielding to the awkwardness potential, I danced with the ghetto boi and with a few friends in a circle, holding hands and kicking our legs out in a  whirling dervish of sorts.

We left early because one of my friend's phones was stolen. (more later on getting that back) We took motos back to Byangabo at 2 in the morning, winding around the edges of a thousand hills, tired and free, cutting through the valleys filled with moonlight, our bodies swaying on machines beneath the stars unseen.