The very last shows

Two weeks ago we went back to the east, to Rwamagana. The last time we were there, screening at a vocational school, we met a British volunteer whom invited us to visit two of the villages he works in. On the way to Rwamagana we did a small excursion with a Rwandese development worker named John whom once gave us a lift in Kigali. John engages the local population in his development work. Together with the local community he decides what is needed in a village and then he trains local leaders for the projects. Besides his development projects John also has a personal tree planting project in the far east, and this is what he wanted to show us. His piece of land is right by the Tanzanian boarder beautifully placed on the top of a reach overlooking the boarder crossing and the rivers. Here he is planting trees and he also dreams of making it into a camping site for tourists, a place where people can completely relax. A baboon family is also living in the area, which gives a safari experience to the place. We got to see them running around the hillside, and when we threw pineapple and bananas at them they came quite close. We got extremely excited and started chasing them with binoculars and cameras, some local children saw us abasungo (white people) running around the hillside and got equally excited and started chasing us. After this exercise (a mix of burning sun and the high altitude make small efforts feel like an intensive exercise) John brought us to the boarder crossing which is a bridge over a waterfall. He also managed to get us over the bridge to the Tanzanian side (yey!). After all of these exciting experiences we headed to Rwamagana.

In Rwamagana we did two successful screenings in two small villages. Between 300 and 400 people came to each screening which were held in churches. A Rwandese volunteer was our speaker and did a good job (we think at least) explaining the audience about HIV/AIDS and gender violence. We also received some nice comments from locals finding the movies both necessary and educational. Once in Rwamagana we seized the opportunity to camp by Lake Muhazi and do a small morning tour on the lake. From Rwamagana we went to Gatagara where we stayed with an American couple that has sold everything they own back home and plan to build a school and a community center in Gatagara. Here we did a screening in a building complex for disabled people. People come from near and far to get the help and equipment they need. Both people staying in the complex and people from the neighboring area came to the screening.

The following day the Americans drove us to Butare where we showed them around the city and ate at an upper class (abasungo) restaurant. We strolled around in the colonial neighborhood from the Belgian era surprised by how well preserved it is. With just a little bit of imagination one can really understand how it was 60 years ago. The following day we did our very last screening in a reconciliation center funded by a Norwegian organization. We did our screening in bright daylight, for a change, and we also received and dance and singing performance. It was a day of mixed feelings, sad about it being our last gig but also happy about the result of the project and of the successful ending.