Road to Kisoro

Today we are on an 11 hour journey to Kisoro near the Rwandan border.  It is nice to get out of the city.  Goats and cows are tethered to stakes and eating grass all along the roadside.  We see la ot of very poor children wearing little more than rags sometimes sitting along the road just inches from traffic whizzing by.  Not far from them will be children nicely dressed in school uniforms; the lucky ones who can afford the supplies needed to attend primary education. 

There are little shops after little shops selling anything from sodas to caskets.  Grownups tend the stores and sit and talk together while children, chickens, goats, and an occasional dog, play and eat.  The large fruit stands can be so beautiful with an impressive array of vibrant colors. Except for the major highway, the roads are all dirt and you find women engaged in what must be an endless exercise of sweeping. Many will have a baby cuddled on their backs with what they call a kangaroo wrap.  All the while she is working going about her day and/or carrying heavy loads on her head.  It doesn’t take long to realize women do the heavy lifting here.

They burn a lot of leaves and trash or use charcoal for cooking; all of which pose dangers to little ones.  It scares me as I’ve seen countless horrific sights in the hospitals wards here.  As we’ve been told, 11% of all pediatric hospitalizations involve burns. 

Some people live in very rough huts and others live in nice mud brick homes.  The bricks are pressed into form and then stacked together and baked from the inside to cure.  There are a lot of bikes here but we don’t see a lot of them being used for riding but for transporting loads of leaves, wood, bananas and jerry cans. 

Just as I’m just about to sign off, a boy with his goat and the end of a rope kicks him in hind quarters to get him out of our way.  I imagine that goat means a great deal to that little boy and his family.

We’ll be checking in again after our voyage.  (MS)