The Wheels of the Bus

Every day we venture out of our hotel at a reasonable hour and head off towards work. This entails a stroll down the hill to the round-about, a switchback back up the hill, through the mass of van-busses, to the half bus/van that goes to Kicukiro.
This morning the bus was mostly empty when we got there, so we got seats (!) toward the back ;( and waited for it to fill up. "Muzungu!" The children exclaimed. ("Whitey!" Yep, that's me) "Ameruku? (How are you?)" I excercised my pathetic Kinyarwandan on the children sitting on their mother. They had no clue what I was saying. The adults laughed and translated for them. The kids smiled. So we sat there, waiting for the bus to fill up. Every few minutes I would try one of my French phrases on them. They would stare blankly, as an adult tried to understand me, then translated in to Kinyarwandan, then the kids answered.

The challange of communicating...the butchered language, the extensive mimeing and the smiles of triumph when anything at all is understood. It's one of my favorite parts of traveling.