Tora Paul Kagame! Komera Kigali!

Woke up to rain. Seriously. It is raining again in Musanze.

I spent the morning reading and trying to doze.

Greg's sister Maureen (or is it Moline, I'm not sure) told me that there was a political rally for the RPF and President Paul Kagame today in a village about 10km from Musanze (I am so metric).

We were going to jump on motos to go watch the people but leave before the rally. Greg wanted to leave for Kigali around 4pm.

At 1pm Maureen decided not to go. Rats.

I jumped on a mototaxi and went myself. As I drew closer it was very noticable the amount of police and military on the roads leading to the rally. Not much traffic either.

So, I walked into (or I should say onto) the rally which was on a soccer field surrounded by hills, rocks and fields. I was asked 5 times why I was there and frisked 7 times (not saying that is bad). I had to show my camera about a billion times.

Now, one thing I found out is that the 2nd most attention a muzungo can get is to walk into a field with 20,000 Rwandese at a political rally for the president. Not much salt in this group!

I spent about 3 hours standing, fending off kids who wanted money and adults who wanted to stare. I pretended to be asleep standing up.

President Kagame was supposed to speak at 3. At 4:30 approached I called Greg and told him I would be late.

At about 4:40 President Kagame took the stage and started to speak, in KINYARWANDA! The nerve.

Anyway, after about 15 minutes of listening to him speak and taking photos I found out what the 1st most attenion a muzungo can get was. Leaving a political rally with 20,000 rwandese in a field. "Hey, nothing to see here!"

After I was frisked another 2 times and asked where I was going 5 more times I finally made it to the road where I was going to catch a moto.

Hey James, its the president of Rwanda. No traffic, thus no motos!

I started to walk and I walked and walked and walked (over 1 hour in rural Rwanda). Finally after greeting about the entire child population of Rwanda with Bite (whats up), Komera (hello), etc... I was able to flag down a mini-bus full of Rwandese heading to Ruhengeri. After I wowed them with my command of the Rwandan language and argued about the value of my bus ticket, I made it to Ruhengeri.

As I arrived at Greg's the car was running and my bags were already loaded. Bright and Greg were standing by the car waiting. (Dudes, I am only 2+ hours late. What do you want from me?!).

We drove to Kigali over some of the most winding roads in the world. I hadn't noticed how twisty and steep they were until I was driving with Greg in the "ladies car" with the steering wheel on the right side of the front seat as he spent the 2 hours doing business on his cell phone (in the dark). Fun.

Arrived in Kigali, stopped at his new house, went to Sole Luna for pizza, back to his house, chatted, sleep.

(hands tired thing again).

Shout out to the fam).

Amahoro.