leaving Rwanda

Rwanda is a beautiful country and very clean. I discovered at the curio shop that this is because the government, in what I'd consider a very characteristic move, has outlawed the use of plastic bags. It feels wrong to call them authoritarian as I admire the difference this makes on the first stage of my journey--from Kigali to the border.

At the border, it's necessary to go through one line on the Rwadan sie, then walk across a little bridge to Uganda where I go through another line. Finding myself at the end of the line, I ask someone to make sure the bus waits for me. Strangely, it is not me but she who is the last one to get on the bus. They noticed my abscence but I really have to make noise to prevent them from leaving without her. her name is Nadia and she is the only Rwandanese who I've met who I *know* was born in rwanda. And I know several who were born outside, in Uganda, Tanzania, or Burundi.

I leave Kamapala at dusk. At this hour, the women who sell vegetables on the slopes along the road place little candles among their wares and its wonderful that something so beautiful-- a flowing, flickering blanket of soft warm light on the hillside-- should be created by humans and by accident. There is still a little bit of light and activity when we reach Jinha, a town situated where the Nile flows out of Lake Victoria on its way to Sudan and Egypt.