Small stories from a big world

I live in Rwanda now, but I used to live in Vietnam. Of course, Rwanda and Vietnam are totally different. But what perhaps strikes me most, are the plastic bags. Or rather, the absence of bags. In recent years, many countries have taken all kinds of measures to ban single-use bags, just to reduce plastics and promote more sustainable bags. I remember how in South Africa, the bags at the checkout were made sturdier and paid for in order to reduce the amount of plastic in the litter. But even now, you see the "flowers of Africa" everywhere: bags hanging in the barbed wire of fences, flapping in the wind. In Belgium, too, people are trying to reduce the amount of plastic. The fruit and vegetable departments of supermarkets have switched from the thin bags to reusable, cloth or paper bags. But still, when visiting Belgium, it strikes me how much plastic is still in circulation, how many fruit and vegetables are pre-packed in plastic. That is less the case in Vietnam. Fruit ...

  I went home quite early today. The sky looked so dark and heavy with rain. But as I reached “my hill”, I saw blue sky again and sunshine. Should I still go for a run? I stand on the porch and overlook the valley in front of me. I cannot see the next hill anymore, clouds already wrapping the slope of the hill. Better to stay. My thoughts are not yet out or I can hear the rain. Not yet here, but across on the next slope. It falls heavily on the corrugated iron roofs and makes so much noise that I can literally hear the rain coming. The wind picks up this side now, the branches of the frangipane are swinging around. Drops start hitting the pavement, releasing that typical smell of rain on a dry hot surface. And then the thunderstorm sets off properly. It gets dark instantly. Lightening and thunder, almost simultaneously. Rain falls with more power than a tap under pressure. The power goes. The racket the rain makes on the roof makes thinking almost impossible. I see big hail falling...

  We woke up early today, even though it is a Sunday. At 7 am we are already at the entrance of the Volcanoes National Park in the north of Rwanda. While the guides decide who will join which group, we drink a delicious cup of coffee. Black, cappuccino, latte. It's all available and the coffee is super tasty. We have already forgotten the early wake up. We are assigned to a group of 7 tourists in total. Patience is our guide. After a briefing, we set off. First by car, following a winding road into the the mountains. After an hour, we arrive at a village that is also on the edge of the park. We walk through the fields. It is full of potatoes, in all stages of growth. People are harvesting and planting and other beds are full of young flowering plants. It is beautiful. We climb steadily and finally reach the wall and ditch that mark the border of the park.   This barrier is mainly meant to keep the elephants and buffaloes, who apparently live in the jungle here, away from the f...

It is 5:46 and I am gently shaken out of a dream. Literally. The earth trembles again. I hear rumbling and the mosquito net dances back and forth. On Saturday night, the Nyiragongo began to spit fire. Nyiragongo is a volcano in Congo, near the border with Rwanda. The last eruption was in 2002 when lava destroyed a large part of the city of Goma and killed more than 200 people. Fortunately, this time there were far fewer deaths. The lava mostly flowed in a different direction. The smouldering rubble stopped at the airport. But even so, several villages were destroyed and an important access road to the north was blocked. People fled the scene holding everything they could carry on their heads or backs. Through the deepest darkness -because the electricity failed-, with behind them the threatening glow of so much nature violence. Many crossed the border into Rwanda in the dead of night. Most have now returned, especially when the earth began to tremble in Rwanda. It seems to be a nor...

  Musanze, formerly Ruhengeri. It is still early when I go jogging. The mountains are shrouded in mist and clouds. A dirt road first, then I get onto the tarmac road. It is busy on the road. Not because there are many cars but there are many people on their way on bikes and on foot. Cyclists with large, pale yellow, plastic cans. I don't think they contain water. Rather something that is fermenting, because I hear a soft hissing. Maybe banana beer? The road climbs steeply. The cyclists get off and push their heavy loads further. So do taxi bikes. A carrier is welded onto the back of the heavy bicycles, with a colourful cushion. Sometimes the seat is extra-long so that two or even three people can be carried. Hard work for those who pedal. I see women carrying large bags of greenery on their heads, bundles of brushwood too. I pass the campus of a college. On the grass, young people, each with two basins in front of them, doing their Saturday laundry. Soon, the washing lines ar...

  Kigali is a green city, spread out over various hills. I find jogging and walking good ways of discovering a city. But the steep slopes make jogging, walking and cycling real work-outs. In Da Nang I was running at sealevel, and it was flat. Kigali has an average height of 1500 m. You can just imagine how these first runs looked like. Uphill, puffing like an old steamer.   Suffering. One day I went jogging after a heavy rainfall, just before it would get dark. That happens in no time here. Twilight barely lasts half an hour. I passed the American Embassy and turned right. Most of the paved roads have sidewalks that are easily passable and not, as in Vietnam, crammed with scooters and food stalls. Usually there is only a sidewalk on one side. I had reached a good rhythm and was on my way to my temporary home. "Sssss," I heard across the road. Jogging. "Ssss," I heard again, from across the road. But also from some distance away. Looking up. Across the road, pede...

  Today I have a few items on my To Do list. Searching for a house, of course, but also sorting out MoMo. MoMo stands for mobile money. It is a system in which you load money on your mobile phone and use that to pay in shops and cafes. You don’t even need a smart phone. But it is smart. Even the smallest shop has the codes for MoMo pay clearly visible. But it has to be activated, and that cannot be done online. You have to go to the MTN shop. Last week I already visited an MTN shop to get a sim card. I was queueing fort wo hours. What a difference compared to my arrival here 11 days ago. Passenger locator form check, vis an and passport check, PCR test, it all went as smooth as possible. The results of the test were available within hours. This time I come prepared. I have a book. Plus, I am trying another MTN shop. Maybe I am better off here? On the pavement in front of the building I can see big yellow circles painted on the floor. Each circle has a number. To the left of t...