We drive the traffic jam-packed Kinamba-Nyabugogo road on Friday morning. Our car has to move slowly. Near Nyabugogo Taxi Park, Rwanda’s largest bus terminal, road construction activities are underway, which makes it narrow to handle heavy traffic.

The situation gets awful as the car heads to the taxi park’s entrance. More cars are also trying to get inside from different roads like Gatsata, Kinamba, Giti Cy’inyoni, and the central business district, which intensifies traffic jams.

Finally, we find a way and enter the taxi park. At the entrance, we sanitise our hands like other people around us. Others are directed by the youth volunteers to the handwashing space — complying with Covid-19 guidelines.

For hours, several passengers have been queuing in front of the offices of transport companies to buy tickets and travel to visit friends and family in the countryside.

Theoneste Harerimana who is set to travel to Nyanza is one of them.

"It was very hard because there were many people waiting. They asked me to present the vaccination card before allowing to pay for my bus ticket,” he said, tightening the straps of his backpack.

Although transport fares remained stable, traffic surged so much that operators were forced to deploy more buses on countryside routes.

"The ticket is still at normal price, Rwf1, 850. I am now going to Nyanza to celebrate Christmas with my family,” Harerimana said.

Although passengers were being urged to take care by youth volunteers reminding them to put on face masks appropriately and to present vaccination certificates before buying bus tickets, it was visibly difficult to comply with social distancing because they were many.

Another passenger who was only identified as Solange said that:  "I have been queuing to buy a ticket for about two hours.”

Jean-Paul Karangwa, the Managing Director of Virunga Express, said that since most passengers are travelling out of Kigali, more buses have been in the countryside since Thursday night.

He said they were on their way back to Kigali.

"They are soon going to carry all the passengers to their destinations,” he said.

Bosco Tuyishime, the Head of Marketing and Public Relations at Horizon Express Ltd, said "Since the passengers are many, we are deploying more buses to transport them– starting from those taking long journeys.”

A USSD *114 has been set up to help view the passengers’ vaccination certificates through mobile phones.