We wake up very early. In the dark. We wait for the bus to the other bus as the moon waits, a little sliver in the sky, over the empty offices. The moon has more patience than I do. Let’s go already. Simba, the bus driver who's put up with us the past couple weeks, pulls into the dirt driveway and we all climb clumsily in. Good-bye Darius. Good-bye Center Christus.
The horizon begins to green as we board the bus to Kampala. Everyone got your tickets? Head count. Everyone here? Half the group spreads out in back and we’re off. We’re off. We’re – asleep…sleeping…head against glass pane – and then mist – over rice fields – white thick air over the marshes - between hills – maybe the people harvesting in half light, maybe imagined. Green in a blur – open your eyes. Time to get out. Border crossing. Passports, forms, lines. The bathroom. It costs 100 Rwandan francs, but the men collecting money try and pretend it’s 200. No, it’s 100, I say. They give me my change. They give the muzungus a hard time.
I learned the name muzungu used to mean – wanderer, someone without a home. It was derogatory. When the “white folk” came, they came from far away so they were called muzungu. Now the name means – someone rich. So a black African can be called muzungu if they make a lot of money. We are called muzungu all the time. Kids running down the street. “Hey, muzungu. How are you?” They are practicing their English as Rwanda has recently converted to an English speaking country.
Oh! I forgot to share this! This is a secret moment. Last week, the morning before we went to Kabuye, I went for a walk down the road outside of our hotel in Butare. I had so many thoughts in my head which made it so heavy I was staring at my feet walking down the road and I hear the little pitter of feet running down the road. I look up, two boys in school uniforms – very little – like maybe 7 – running down the road and they ran and they stopped right in front of me and one little boy puts his arms out and he gives me a hug. The other boy gives me a hug. Hello, I say shyly. They smile shyly. They run away. Thanks strangers on your way to school, I needed that hug.
On the other side of the border, Uganda. You can tell by the sign: welcome to Uganda! Uganda is markedly dirtier than Rwanda. You cross the border and the roads are not as kept, there is garbage marking the space between road and field. There is an army of young men ready to sell you phone cards and exchange money. On this side, we wait in line again, get our visas cleared, our passports stamped and then – back on the bus. Time for more sleeping.
Flat land and long fields – big sky – it’s day now somehow – yellow stalks of corn – sleeping – I dream I am in a field full of bodies of people I do now know. A town I do not know. Someone is taking their clothes. And it seems the saddest thing that their clothes will not be worn by someone who knew them. This new owner will wear the clothes only as clothes and where they came from will be forgotten, the particular way this sleeve rested on the wrist or housed this manner of searching for words, will pass into the realm of no consequence. They will just be clothes. I wake up.
On the bus, there is bus drama. The bus driver has skipped a pee stop and people have to pee. The back of the bus is bouncing like mad on the unpaved roads and this is making the need to pee unbearable. There is some talk about a bus coup but nothing ever comes of it. The rest of the bus is in total silence. Why? Do they need to pee? Do they think the bus driver is driving recklessly? It must be fine, it seems. Meanwhile, the Americans at the back of the bus are crying, “Oh, god. I need to pee!” Well, in hindsight, we could have just asked the bus driver to pull over. Or given him five bucks or something. I wonder why we didn’t?
Finally, a pee stop. The same one every year with giant vultures. Ugly things. And mean looking. These are the kind of vultures that would steal candy from babies and not think twice about it. Man, I have never loved peeing in a hole so much.
Back on the bus. The back of the bus. I trade out, ready to brave the bumps. I figure I can sleep through anything. And then I realize, I’ve lost my necklace. This is a real bummer because it’s something that reminds me of my mom and I have lost it. And I am very sad. And I sit in the seat at the back of the bus – except for when we hit bumps and then I sit in the air above the seat in the back of the bus – and I wonder if, in fact, I own anything. What do I have? Not people. Not things. Not days. Not plans. Not thoughts. Not dreams. Not memories, most of them anyway. What? What to hold on to? Or maybe the question is – what to let go of? Did I mention the bus ride is 10 hours? What to let go of? Necklace. Clenched jaw. Consciousness. I dream sadness. Like dreaming a little not that is a part of me. Don’t you recognize yourself? You are sleep and a little not and the silent, hot bus to Kampala and the cheek resting on the red seat and a schoolgirl on her way home for vacation and the big sky and the corn and the garbage and the dry dirt roads that need work and plans for tomorrow to tour Makerere University and the middle of the bright day and the night to come. You are here. The bus hits a bump and I literally fly bodily off the seat and then back down, back into sleep. I can sleep through anything.
In Kampala, our friends Kenneth Kimuli and Norm from Theater of Yugen – who was with the trip in Rwanda but flew to Kampala a couple days early – met us at the bus station. While we are waiting for taxis, I check the bus one more time. The mechanic found my necklace. Sweet. We are on our way to Ndere Center. Luxury, fan palms and wireless. Life is beautiful.
Today is made possible by the grace of the California Institute of the Arts.
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