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Published: August 17th 2013
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Emma with two Rwandan children
In one village two children decided to befriend us to a degree that we eventually had to ask people to tell them to leave us “Surely you’re joking”
If you recognise the headline we first would like to make it clear that Richard Feynman has nothing to do with this blog entry. We only borrowed
the title from him to have as a headline at the top. We thought the title was pretty good because it gives you an idea of how we thought when we picked the photos for this this blog entry. They are some leftovers that we couldn’t fit in elsewhere but still wish to publish. Some are a bit funny, hence the headline, one or two you might find interesting and there might be some cute children somewhere as well. It’s a bit of this and that and there is no real theme going on. But we hope you enjoy looking at this anyway.
Next we would like to explain the title of the blog. "Mzungo" means foreigner or white person. Foreigners are in many places in Rwanda so rarely seen that both children and adults tell each other when a white person walks by. So quite often we heard people saying the word "Mzungo" while pointing at us and more than once we had a group
Carry on the head
All over Rwanda people, mainly women, carry things on their head. of children running after us saying "Mzungo, mzungo". In Kigali one day we found a T-shirt saying "My name is not Mzungo" and we thought that was funny and very fitting. So not only did we borrow the headline to the blog. We didn't think of the title ourselves either.
In the beginning we have eight photos of people, Rwandans we met while we were on the road.
In one village two children decided to befriend us to a degree that we eventually had to ask people to tell them to leave us along. The children were sweet and kind and meant us no harm. They were hoping that we would give them some sweets or buy them a coke or something but they weren’t really begging. They were just following us around holding our hands and refused to let us go.
All over Rwanda people, mainly women, carry things on their head. Sometimes it looked really funny, for instance one woman was carrying a coffee mug and nothing else and she carried it on top of her head, but most of the time it just looked pretty cool.
Carry on the head
They are very good at balancing things We saw children everywhere, there are many children in Rwanda and they are outdoors a lot, and they were more than happy to let us take photos of them.
Football is played a lot in Rwanda. We sometimes saw football fields in the most unlikely places, such as small villages in the middle of nowhere and, as you see on one of the photos, on a sloping and very uneven patch of land between some houses in Kigali. One of the weirder photos we took was of a football match where there just behind the goal line were several cows grazing.
The market in Rubona we mentioned in the previous blog entry. One of the photos we took there we decided to put on this blog entry. The amount of bananas they are trying to sell is impressive.
When we were in Rubona we walked along the shore of Lake Kivu and came to a village with the name Rambo. It must be a coincident because we can’t for our lives believe they have named the village after
the fictional movie character. But it is a cool name and we can make so many
Children
We saw children everywhere crappy jokes about that name. But we’ll spare you from them or else you might stop reading and go and weep. But we just have to throw in our favourite Rambo quote before we leave the topic: “Live for nothing, or die for something. Your call.”
We noticed that there isn’t a single McDonalds restaurant in all of Rwanda, at least none that we saw. That didn’t stop one restaurant to use the yellow M, normally symbolising the American hamburger joint, as their logo.
When we were in Musanze in the beginning of the trip we visited a restaurant named Africana Bistro and ordered a Pickled Classic Hamburger. That hamburger was easily the best food we had on this entire trip. Days afterwards we were still talking about that hamburger. So when we in the end of the trip had one day when we didn’t know what to do we actually went from Kigali to Musanze, had another Pickled Classic Hamburger at Africana Bistro and went back. The second time around they failed to repeat the formidable success they had with the first hamburger we had there. It was still a good hamburger but
Child
There are many children in Rwanda and they are outdoors a lot not something that we will write about in our memoirs.
In Rwanda they have a law against non-biodegradable plastic bags. You can’t buy them in any store, they have paper bags instead, and when you enter the country they might go through your luggage and confiscate any plastic bag you try to bring into the country. To outlaw plastic bags might seem strange but an interesting consequence is that Rwanda is an unusually clean country.
The last day we were in Rwanda we went to one of the better hotels in Kigali,
Hôtel des Mille Collines, and had a swim in their swimming pool. We did this because it is nice to swim in a pool of course but mainly we went there because the hotel, and also the hotel’s pool, was made famous through the movie
Hotel Rwanda.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Mzungo, McDonald's and such
Thanks for sharing the meaning of Mzungo. Not surprising it has been made into a t-shirt. I am surprised someone from McDonald's hasn't made them take down the sign. Too bad the burger could not be repeated.A great experience and thanks for sharing.