Rwanda To Burundi - Land Borders 2

 "You don't know Français. You don't know Swahili. And you want to go to Burundi?", said the young woman. I was travelling from Kigali in Rwanda to Bujumbura in Burundi. I wanted to reach Lake Tanganyika, of which I had read so much in my Geography class in school. 

Rwanda in East Africa was one of the most progressive countries that I have seen in my travels. It was one of the first countries in the world to ban plastic. My bags got checked for plastic when I crossed the border from Uganda. The motorcycle taxi drivers in Kigali, the prosperous capital of Rwanda, wear a neat uniform with a prominently displayed registration number. They wear a helmet and also carry a helmet for the passenger. Rwanda has gone through a horrific past documented in the highly disturbing Genocide Museum. But the country has gone past that period. Recently they have installed solar powered smart dustbins that notify the collector when to empty them.

I reached the Nyabugogo bus station in Kigali and got into my bus to Bujumbura. I had bought a ticket a day earlier. My seat was a middle seat. I was seated between two young women. The woman, sitting on my right, never spoke to me for the entire journey. She completely ignored me. The bus was supposed to start at 10am. At 9:59am the driver came and sat down in his seat. I was impressed. He turned the key. Nothing happened. He turned the key three more times. Nothing happened. The bus did not start. He then turned around and gave a speech in French. The entire bus erupted in anger. 

I turned to the woman sitting on my left, Diane, and asked, "What's happening?". She said, "This bus will not go. We can go to the ticket office and get a refund for the ticket". Nobody wanted a refund. Everyone wanted to reach Bujumbura. All the passengers trooped to the ticket office and a verbal fight started. The bus company finally accepted to bring in a replacement bus. About one hour later, that bus arrived and finally left at 11:15am. I was the only foreigner on the bus. Everyone else was either a Rwandan or a Burundian.

Diane asked me, "Where are you headed to?". I said, "Bujumbura". She was also headed to Bujumbura. "Do you know Français?", she asked me. I said, "No". She then asked, "Do you know Swahili?". I again said, "No". "You don't know Français. You don't know Swahili. And you want to go to Burundi?", she said. "Yes, of course", I said. "Good. I can practice my Anglais on you", she proclaimed. Diane then proceeded to talk non-stop to me for the entire journey. We spoke about everything under the sun. We spoke about Africa. We spoke about India. She wanted to know about arranged marriages in India, a topic that I had little knowledge about since I hadn't had an arranged marriage. We spoke about Nelson Mandela. We spoke about Mahatma Gandhi. We spoke about Narendra Modi. The year was 2014 and Modi had just then been elected as the Prime Minister of India. "How can you elect a man who is banned from entering the United States?", she asked. 

Diane was a Burundian who had just finished her schooling and was doing a Diploma in French Cooking in Kigali, Rwanda. "So, you are going to become a chef in Bujumbura?", I asked. "No! There are no jobs in Burundi", she said. "Then in Kigali", I asked. She said, "No, not Kigali". "Nairobi?", I enquired. "No", she repeated. I then asked, "Johannesburg?". Diane screamed, "No! I want to get out of Africa. I don't want to stay in Africa". 

"Where do you want to go?", I asked Diane. "I want to go to Europe. I want to live in Paris", she said. "How do you plan to do that?", I asked. "I don't know. My mother wants me to get married to an European, preferably a French man. So that I can go live in Paris", she said. Diane then suddenly turned, looked at me and asked, "What passport do you have?". I said, "India". "Show!", she demanded. I then showed her my Indian passport. She wrinkled her face in distaste! But she did not know that I had a U.S. Green Card. Otherwise, I think, she would have proposed to me, right there on the bus! Should I have told her?! I could have had nice French food every night!

The bus reached the Rwanda - Burundi border. The border procedure was very strange. From Rwanda, I walked into Burundi and got a visa stamp. I then walked back to Rwanda and got a Rwandan exit stamp. I then re-entered Burundi and got an entry stamp. The bus was waiting for me. My bag did not get checked. There were some money changers and I changed my remaining Rwandan Francs to Burundian Francs. The money change offices were barricaded with steel and there was a tiny hole through which you could transact. It reminded me of the ATM machines in Tennessee. 

Soon after the bus entered Burundi, the woman sitting on my right, the woman who had completely ignored me, took off her top, folded it, kept it in a bag and put on another top. She then took off her skirt and put on another skirt. I then saw two other women in the bus getting undressed and changing into a new dress. I never figured out why. I couldn't ask Diane, lest the woman on the right heard it. Was it a mere coincidence that the three women changed their clothes or was there some other reason behind it? The bus stopped soon after. Vendors selling whisky came onboard the bus and everyone bought a few bottles. Liquor was apparently cheaper in Burundi than Rwanda. 

As the bus was nearing Bujumbura, Diane said, "You should come to my house. You must meet my father". I said, "Why?". "He wants to import Tata Nano cars", she said. Tata, an Indian company, had just then introduced the world's cheapest car, the Tata Nano. A car cost just $1250. "He wants a Tata Nano dealership. You can help him get it", she said. I said that I did not know anything about the automobile business. When the bus reached Bujumbura, Diane helped me get a taxi and negotiated a reasonable price to get to my hotel. I checked into the hotel, walked out and got a Bajaj to go to Lake Tanganyika. Tuktuks or auto rickshaws are called Bajaj, after the name of the Indian manufacturer. Half an hour later, I reached Lake Tanganyika. 

As I was walking along the shores of Lake Tanganyika, I could see the hills of Congo on the other side of the lake. I was so close to Congo and yet could not go due to the Ebola outbreak there. I was determined that I would reach Congo one day. A group of three Europeans, a man and two women, sitting in a bar called out to me, "It is not safe to walk around alone. Join us". All three of them were Belgian and they were doctors working for a well-known medical NGO. They were stationed in Congo where there was an Ebola outbreak and they worked for 45 days without a break. After that they got 15 days off for "rest and relaxation". Their all-expenses paid "rest and relaxation" was in Burundi. 

They said, "Did you know that there are less than 20 doctors in the whole of Burundi. If something should happen, your chances of survival are very low". They asked me, "How do you plan to go back to Bujumbura?". I said that I will get a Bajaj and go back. They were quite shocked and pointed to their resort across the road and said, "We could get them to call you a taxi. A hotel taxi will be safe". I declined and said, "Thanks. It's fine. I am used to travelling in a Bajaj".

I flagged down a Bajaj, negotiated a price and started my way back to my hotel. The driver asked, "Where are you from?". I said, "India". He said, "Hah. India. I will take you to one place. I need your help". I told him that I just wanted to get back to my hotel, but he insisted. I was quite positive that he was going to take me to a place where there were sex workers. I was thinking of Paul Theroux's chats with sex workers in Singapore. In Singapore, the sex workers had a government issued licence which specified the number of men she could sleep with every night! I was looking forward to a chat with a Burundian sex worker. But he took me to a bar with no sex workers. He introduced me to the bar owner, who he said was his business partner. 

He opened a bottle of Primus Biere, gave it to me and then said, "We need Sildenafil. Can you supply it from India?". He took out a sheet of paper and wrote it down, "Sildenafil Citrate". I had no idea what it was. I said, "I don't deal with drugs". They laughed and said, "No drugs. It's medicine. It's Viagra". India was one of the largest manufacturers of cheap Viagra clones and they wanted to import it from India and distribute it in Burundi. I said that I did not know much about the pharmaceutical business. I was getting a lot of business propositions too in Burundi! The driver gave me his email address and phone number and asked me to put him in touch with an Indian pharmaceutical manufacturer. He then dropped me in my hotel. My journey from Kigali to Bujumbura had come to an end. 

The hotel receptionist told me, "Your retardation is approved". The French speak English so confidently. What she meant was that my visa extension had been approved. At the border, they had given me a three-day visa and I had asked for an extension to one week. They had said that they will inform the hotel when it was approved. I could now stay for one week!

Have you ever been proposed to by a local, while on your travels?! If so, where?

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