There is, I am told, a vital difference between the tourist and the traveller. Is it that tourists tend to be neatly adorned with camera, hawaiian shirt, bum bag and map in hand? Oh, and always sunburned! Is it that tourists are expected to make no attempt to delve into anything beyond their guide books, while travellers for their part look altogether more dishevelled and laid back? Travellers judge themselves on how meagre their lodgings are and how small their budget. But is this really the point? Someone once said, “The traveller sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.” This, I think, comes close. A.C. Grayling hit the nail on the head when he wrote: “The benefit of knowledge accrues only to the traveller not the tourist.” The traveller is an active being. He has understood Dr. Johnson’s remark that “in travelling a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring knowledge home.” The tourist is passive, he expects to be carried abroad, conveyed from the airport to his hotel, provided with entertainment and refreshments, and protected from foreign annoyances. Our main story tells of a group of tourists/travellers who come to Rwanda to see, to be taught, to sympathise and understand. They have chosen not to be passive but to seek adventure. Whether they are tourists or travellers matters little. What matters instead is their embrace of the country which allows them to gain immeasurably and give back perhaps even more. Ends
