Rejection Expenses [part one]

 

Up at 6:30, packed and ready to go by 7am.

 

Eat breakfast and take one last look around the Pacify Motel, thank Jean Pierre for all his help, and hop onto a leopard print interiored Boda Boda. We make it to the bus station in record time, considering I was certain that we weren’t going to make it up the giant hills. There await a few Jaguar buses, but I don’t get my hopes up, because these look way too nice to be our buses. Turns out they are. Hallelujah, we are God’s favorite!! We settle into the bus, arrange ourselves in the seats and cozy in for the 9 or so hour ride to Kigali.

 

 

 

About 2 hours into the bumpy, dusty ride we make a pee pit stop on the side of the road. For those of you back home who have never had to pee on a bus in Africa, you’re probably imagining a stop at a gas station where there is a rather unpleasant bathroom stall in which to do your business. 

 

WRONG!

 

There were bushes. Well, a hill with a couple paths and some bushes. As I am about to whip my pants down and start to tinkle, I hear Curt’s voice from across the way, and decide that it’s best to go deeper into the shrubbery. A couple other girls had the same idea, so there we were, three of us crouched on the side of an African highway, roughly obscured from any onlookers by God’s great bushy creations. Classy.

 

After a good disinfecting, Shannon and I prepare ourselves to make 30 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. This in itself would normally be a large task to accomplish on a moving bus, but considering we’re still in Africa and the ride is like some sort of roller coaster, the job becomes that much more complex. The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round…the peanut butter jelly time on the bus goes all over our pants, all over our pants, all over our pants.

An anxiety attack and an anger management class later the sandwiches are made, distributed, and eaten.

Did I mention that up until this point we’ve been enjoying the lovely auditory stylings (and even music videos) of various rap and hip-hop artists? 

 

A few more hours, a couple of bad movies, and another pee pit stop (this time at a gas station…but I would have taken the bushes over the whole in the floor toilets we used there) and the scenery changes. You can tell we’re getting closer and closer to Rwanda with every smooth, sloping hill that passes us by. I turned around to Kathleen and said, “I’m a hobbit.” Why? Because it looks like we’re almost in Hobbiton, that’s why. Breathtaking. The views are spectacular. The hills that rolled around us were smoothed and softened by the hand of time. Pictures will not do this landscape justice.

 

Eventually we make it to the Uganda – Rwanda border. We amble off our Jaguar bus and fill out our exit cards to Uganda. The nice border guard behind the glass smiles at me, asks me how my day is, and tells me he likes my haircut (or lack there of…does bald count as a hairstyle?). My passport is stamped and I smilingly walk down the long road into the no man’s land that seems to exist at borders. Just when we’re starting to worry that we’ve been abandoned on some African highway, we see our bus and the Rwandan border office. I fill out yet another card, this one for arrivals into Rwanda, and hop into line.

 

Everything seems to be going smoothly, heck, even my passport is stamped; but then things start getting, well, problematic. The woman behind the glass notices that my passport is different and starts flipping through the pages. With her eyebrows furrowed she looks up questioningly at me and says, “You are not American.”

I reply, “Well, one could assume that seeing as it says Canadian Passport on the front…”

Just kidding! I said, “Nope. I’m Canadian!”

“You are Canadian, you need an Entry Visa.”

“What?!”

 

As of November 1^st, 2010 all Canadians entering Rwanda must fill out an online application for an Entry Visa. It must be done online, it cannot be done in person, and most certainly cannot be done at the Rwandan border. Online processing can take up to 72 hours.

This is not something you want to hear when the rest of your squad is getting through the border without a hitch. 

 

Myself, my squad mate Shannon from Alberta, and a fellow BC-er named Britta stood outside the border office for over an hour trying to sort things out. As the hour progressed it became clearer and clearer that we were not going to get through the border any time soon. Curt was kind enough to stay behind with us for however long we are kept out of Rwanda. The four of us are escorted back through the Ugandan border by one of the Rwandan officers; we feel like school children being sent to the office for unacceptable behavior. The stamps on our passports are cancelled, so it’s like we never actually exited Uganda in the first place. Blessing: we didn’t have to re-pay the $50 entry fee to Uganda…turns out Rwandan escorts are handy for such things.

 

Understand, that us three girls in the back and Curt in the front with our daypacks made the Toyota Corolla nice and full. We stopped randomly on the side of the road, and suddenly the jokes about how likely it was for us to be trafficked stopped being funny…Thankfully Denis is a trustworthy man, and instead of selling us he simply added a few people to the car. A woman and her baby came into the back with us girls, Shannon’s daypack went to my lap to make room for Baby Kevin, and somewhere between the drivers seat, the gear shifter, and Curt, Kevin’s dad placed himself. To say we were cozy would be the euphemism of the year. Curt and Kevin’s pop looked about as awkward as a couple of stick bugs trying to do yoga. We couldn’t help but laugh at the situation we were in.

 

 

 

We make it to Kabale in tip-top shape, find internet thanks to Denis, and eventually find a place to stay for the night. Though the Sun Inn Motel is without electricity at the time, it provides us with beds, a toilet, and running water. A dinner of PB & J is shared by the light of our headlamps as calls are made to our respective contacts in Rwanda. Candles in coke bottles are brought in to help light up our lives.

 

As we were finishing up dinner, the smell of gasoline fills the air. A little concerned, we look for the source of the smell. We realized that a large contained of gasoline has tipped outside and in order to help hold the smell at bay Britta kindly closes the door. What none of us realize is that this locks us in completely. Best plan of action: Hang over the balcony and ask a stranger to please tell one of the girls who works at the Motel to please come let us out. Somewhere in the middle of this hilarious fiasco the electricity decides to come on like it’s a rave. As the light bulbs flash on and off in a haphazard rhythm a woman on the other side of the door who is fiddling with the lock jollily yells, “I AM OPENING IT!!!!”

 

After a candle-lit nap with Shannon (the electricity did not stick around), another trip to internet, a good laugh at how unpredictable our lives are, and a collective washing of the feet, we snuggle into bed. 

 

 

 

2 rooms for the night at the Sun Inn Motel: $4,500 UGX per person.

Getting cozy under the covers and realizing you’re sharing a bed with someone who was a complete stranger 6 hours ago: priceless.