Day Seven

 I wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of hyenas crying in the distance. The moonlight bathes the small clay house in a soft milky light. I stretch my aching muscles and sit up. I can hear people all around me tossing and turning, moaning and groaning in their sleep. Someone shouts out something in Kinyarwanda, something that sounds like Ndagenda, or I am going. The sound pierces the sky, as if an arrow has been shot through the air. I freeze for a moment alarmed at the noise. Then realizing everything is ok, that everyone is ok, and that the world is not coming to an end, I roll off of my straw mat onto the floor of the hut. I push myself up into a stand, and being careful not to step on the other sleeping members of Team Rwanda, I walk out the narrow door into the night. 

My alarm on my digital watch beeps, telling me I have to end my walk and get back to the hut where I have been staying this past week. It is five in the morning, which means I have forty minutes or so until the sun rises. My plane is at nine, but the airport is over an hour away. I slowly walk back to the hut, making sure to take in every wild flower and every footprint in the dust. I wish I could take all of Rwanda back with me, but of course, everyone knows that is impossible. As I near my hut, I can smell goat meat cooking. That must be Adrien, Abraham, and Obed, three of the Team Rwanda members, cooking breakfast. I have been sharing a house with them this past week. I didn’t know they would be rising this early. They must be going on a 30 mile bike ride, and they want to get an early start before it gets too hot. I enter the small house and look around, probably for the last time. Grabbing my stuff, I pull out my passport and airplane ticket. I am row D seat 6.

 It turns out Adrien, Abraham, and Obed were cooking breakfast for me and the rest of the team members. They all wanted to share a final meal with me before I got on the road. Part of the team wasn’t here, they took a flight to Spain to compete yesterday. Right as the sky turned orange and pink, and the golden sun started to rise, Nathan and Basore showed up. They said “Mwaramutse”, which means good morning, and joined us sitting down in the tall, dried grass. We passed the goat meat and bananas, along with the best sweet potatoes I have ever tasted. I will never get over how good they are. After our breakfast, and watching the sun rise, I told the five guys “Ngiye kukibuga cy’indege”, which means I have to go to the airport. But before I could take one step in the dust, Adrien stopped me. “Turajye.” he told me. In english, that mean we are going. “Iki?” I told them, slowly turning around. Iki means what. Adrien repeated himself. “Turajye.” 

 The one and a half hour car ride to the airport was full of laughter. We talked about our past week biking all over Rwanda. We talked about the beautiful sunsets and the one rainy day we had. We talked about people, places, and things. We talked, talked, talked, and talked. The whole way, I stared out the window, looking at the villages speed by. People stopped and stared at us, just like on the way to the village where I stayed. Before I knew it, the car stopped. Adrien gave me a “Rwanda Hug,” as I like to call it. He grabbed my shoulders, and I did the same to him. Then, we brushed heads, first on one side, then on the other. I did the same thing with Obed, Nathan, Gasore, and Abraham. Then Adrien and I did it again. I waved goodbye to my three teammates/friends, and disappeared through the double glass doors into the airport. 

 Exactly one hour later, I was on my plane, sitting in row D seat 6, next to a nice old man, who’s name was Bernard. He had just finished telling me his story. “So.” he said to me. “Where have you been? What have you been doing in Rwanda?” 
 “Well, it’s a long story.” I told Bernard, 
 “We have time.” Bernard answered me. 
“Well, I was biking with a team… here, let me start from the beginning.”