A Rwandan Dinner

After our hike we were pretty hungry. Hungry enough, perhaps, to eat this many potatoes:

My history isn’t that great, but one thing I thought I remembered was that potatoes were from South America. So I was bit surprised at the number of potatoes being grown in East Africa. Turns out they were brought over by the British in the 1880s but have really grown in importance over the last thirty years. They grow them on the sides of the volcanic mountains in big rows and then load up bikes to take them downhill to market.

Anyway, back to dinner, which thankfully was already arranged for us. We would be joining Jeff, Denis and Laurent at Bora and his wife Fannie’s home. Their place was just a short ride up the road; easy work for a 4-pack of boda bodas. Of course, only Jeff knew where it was and he would be directing the lead boda boda… and it was dark out. To make a long story short, there were some u-turns, quite a few confused pedestrians and just a bit of hair-pulling, but we made it just fine.

We were treated to a Rwandan feast. Fresh bean and veggie stew (similar to pinto beans but not dried, very common due to the never-ending growing season on the equator), a nice rice + lentil mixture, some delicious cooked dodo greens and a maize porridge/cake mixture that had a consistency and taste of a hardened cream of wheat. Topping it off, a fruit salad with several fruits we were unfamiliar with. Everything was all delicious! They were excited to cater to the vegans in the group, and there was no meat at all on offer. Nobody else seemed to mind.

The food was mostly prepared by the family’s live-in helper, Naomi, who was sort of in the background for the evening. She was taking care of their newborn, tag-teaming with Bora and Francine throughout the evening. This is a relatively common arrangement as far as we could tell.

Aside from the food, we were very fortunate to be able to hear Laurent’s story in depth, which was harrowing to say the least. He was a refugee early on in his life and spent over ten years away from his family in Rwanda, living in Congo and Cameroon. The circumstances are complex and just one small part of the extremely chaotic history of Rwanda. To attempt to recount any of the details of the stories would be presumptive of me, so I won’t try. More than any souvenirs, these are the things we will be taking home with us and holding onto forever.

We were pretty wiped, so the evening didn’t go too late. Denis was kind enough to give us a ride home, so we were able to avoid the boda bodas. We all slept well.