In the 1950s, the whole of what’s today known as Burera District was my playground. Burera District lies at the northern fringe of Rwanda, along the border with Uganda. We lived near the border post that we locals knew as ‘Duwani’.
In the 1950s, the whole of what’s today known as Burera District was my playground. Burera District lies at the northern fringe of Rwanda, along the border with Uganda. We lived near the border post that we locals knew as ‘Duwani’.
That ‘duwani’, I’ve now come to learn, was a corrupted French word that was otherwise ‘douanne’, ‘customs office’ to you and me. The correct French name was ‘Douane de Canika’ and the office referred to still exists today as Cyanika Customs Office.
I was reflecting over those days as I watched President Kagame open an ultra-modern hospital in Butaro Sector, last Monday (24th Jan 2011).
Indeed, it is interesting how things are changing. In 2003 when I visited Butaro, nothing had changed and it looked as dejectedly barren as it did those many years ago – the 1950s. That is why when I took one look at the area, I swore never to visit it again. How could I, with the bitter memories I held of it?
It must have been October 1959 when I was allowed to visit relatives.
Considering that we covered all distances on foot those days, Butaro was far from Cyanika. I was not worried, though, because Ntibikwira, my trusted ‘protector’, would escort me as usual. In fact, he used to carry me on his back whenever I was too tired to walk.
So, that morning we set off very early, Ntibikwira in front and fat-headed but tiny yours truly at his heels. We followed the footpath up through Kagogo and when we hit the edge of Kinyababa we found a shade tree under which travellers paused for a rest. Ntibikwira set down the calabash of ‘musururu’ (a soft sorghum brew) and ‘gisorori’ (covered food bowl) he was carrying and we settled for lunch.
After lunch and a rest, we set off again and before evening fell we were in Butaro, in the warm embrace of my uncle and his homely wife. They spoilt us with food and milk as you would expect and then made us a bed for the night.
That bed, understandably, meant dry grass covered with a grass-mat. When we were offered a blanket to cover ourselves, we protested but they insisted. We knew, however, that they were depriving themselves of the sole luxury that they possessed. If anyone had money, they just bought one blanket strictly for the old parents who lacked the natural warmth that young blood provided.
With that comfort, then, we dropped off and when I was woken up by the urge to ‘go to the Gents’, it was already dawn. I woke up and quietly moved aside the grass mat that hung in the doorway – there were no doors those ‘good’ old days – and went to the grassy edge of the dust compound. As I was finishing my business, something pricked me and I screamed.
Yes, I screamed "Inzoka irandumye weh!” without having to check because I knew a snake-bite when I felt one. And, because they knew the gravity of the danger, Uncle and Ntibikwira were on my side in a flash. Ntibikwira quickly sat me down and seized my foot and clamped his mouth on the wound and started sucking furiously. Meanwhile, my uncle had hunted down my crawling predator and was smashing its head. (Sorry to civilisation!)
Done, the two men led me to the grass-bed. As Ntibikwira cared for me, Uncle ran to fetch the local traditional ‘doctor’. The doctor circled the bitten skin with thin cuts and doused the cuts with a greenish liquid that contained substances that looked like tea leaves. Still, by mid-morning my whole leg looked like a python that had swallowed a goat.
Uncle and Ntibikwira decided: I had to see a modern doctor. Unfortunately, the nearest health centre was in Ruhengeri, a two-day journey that I was not likely to survive. They resolved to take me home, since my father owned a pick-up – rickety, yes, but a ‘motor-car’, all the same, as we called them then. Taking turns to put me on their backs, the two men got me home by early afternoon.
All swollen up now, I was bundled into the cabin of the ramshackle of a pick-up and rushed to Mutorere Hospital, in Uganda, which was better than our health centre in Ruhengeri. There I was hospitalised for two days and by the third day I was up and bouncing about, as fit as the proverbial fiddle.
So, to see a hospital in this same Butaro area is nothing short of witnessing a miracle! And that’s not all. The hospital features "three operating theatres; digital technology for ‘tele-medicine’; an advanced lab; and a neo-natal intensive care unit set to Harvard medical standards”, according to the architects.
Harvard experts have called it "the finest in central Africa.” The hospital has no hallways, so patients can only gather on airy verandas and pathways. Louvered windows are set on high walls to allow air to rise away from patients and be naturally ejected by huge, slow-moving fans on the ceiling.
Oh, that Uncle and Ntibikwira are no more! And that I no longer annoy sleeping snakes!