Rwandan hospitality

We have had many lovely experiences of Rwandan hospitality. On Friday, Cristof, one of the apartment guards, knocked on the door and told me that I must buy electricity. I told him that I bought electricity the first night I arrived, and he shrugged and said "you only have three left." Three kilowatts, three hours, three minutes?? I decided to take his advice. In small shops along the main road in our neighborhood, you can "buy" electricity. In exchange for francs, they give you a code that can be entered into your electric meter and this allows you to have power. As I walked toward the street, Cristof called after me "are you going to buy electricity?" "Mind your own business," I thought tersely. "You must have the paper with the account number!" He smiled sweetly as I trudged back up the stairs to get the necessary information.
I went to the place I had bought electricity before. The young girl with the laptop greeted me like an old friend. A woman I had not seen before was behind the counter, apparently the girl's mother. I murmured "bonjour" and was overwhelmed by a barrage of French. Young girl helped me out by translating. Her mother's name is Bertilde, and the daughter's name is Coretta. When I told them my name is Susan, the mother almost burst with happiness...her mother's name is also Susan. After some more small talk, Bertilde invited me to come visit them in their home, "nous habiton pres du ici," we live near here. We settled on Sunday for the visit.
Returning from the electricity store, a man walking with a crutch said "Good day." I greeted him in return. We began a conversation about what I was doing in Rwanda, and about America. He knows someone in Ohio. His name polysyllabic name in Kinyarwanda translates into "King" in English. He asked for my cell phone, then put his name and number in my contacts list. Apparently collecting contacts in a cell phone is the equivalent of Facebook here.
Doug and I were walking at midday Saturday, coming home with groceries. We were hot and his knees were tired, so we decided to sit in the shade of a large flowering tree by the road. An elderly woman wearing a royal blue knee length coat was sweeping blossoms and dust off the pavement. There are an army of these cleaners who sweep the streets, wet mop the rain ditches, and tend to roadside plantings. She looked alarmed as we sat on a concrete wall to rest. We thought she was about to shoo us away, but instead she retrieved two paper bags from her trash collection. Smoothing them out carefully, she motioned to Doug to stand up, and put it on the wall where he had been sitting, then did the same for me! We smiled and had a brief exchange in sign language. She grimaced and rubbed her stomach. I pulled out a liter of juice we had bought and offered it to her. What a smile!! She took it and carefully put it away inside a small shelter close to the road. After we finished resting, we waved to her and said au revoir. She replied in English "Bye Bye."
Sunday morning we were walking home from church and I decided to check out a little dairy shop we had seen along the road. We peeked in the doorway but only saw two women sitting in chairs, so we concluded that we had misinterpreted the sign. Just then a sharply dressed young man said "can I help you find something?" He introduced himself as Aristote, and explained that the two women were in fact selling milk. We were looking for cheese, and they had none, but Aristote told us we could get cheese in a small grocery down the street. He walked us to the store and introduced us to Eric, the shop keeper. Eric had run out of cheese, but he said he could call and get some in one hour. We said we could come back tomorrow, and had some other shopping to do. We needed an adapter for a certain type of plug on the coffee pot in the apartment. Eric pulled a box from under the counter and dug through cables, wires, remote controls for TVs and fished out a plug adapter that was attached to a cell phone charger. Would we like to have this one? Free for his new American friends. When we insisted on paying for it, he found another one.
Meanwhile Aristote wanted Doug's cell phone to get his number. I went back to the apartment to get the phone and we exchanged numbers and cards, and have now had two emails from him inviting us to visit Parliament, where he works researching legal issues.
We've traveled to many places around the world, but have never had the genuine hospitality that we experience in Rwanda. It isn't always lavish or fancy, but it is sincere. The sincere offer of a home visit, a plug adapter or a paper bag to sit on is a gift to be treasured.