EXODUS

EXODUS
I sat in my room, contemplating with abandon all the conceivable outcomes and possibilities in my life. When you think like that you start with certainties, the first being death, the next being success and the last being failure. All things equal out but for the most time there is uneven balance. I was downright sick of being rejected, Britain is always a capricious teenager reeling from crushes and infatuations. She often said “Give me your tired and hungry, and I will make them more tired and more hungry.” There was also myself in the mix, the African who withstood all those years of waste, years of wasteful anger that patiently destroyed my soul. They kick you in the face for years then suddenly “You're one of us now! At least you speak English unlike these Poles.”


The job hunt was like course in self-esteem reduction. “Sorry Mr IZEBU, IZIBOW, ASEBO. But the position is filled.” I knew I felt British when I wanted to leave, A Place in the Sun beckoned on TV. Suddenly this limestone outcrop in the Atlantic lost its appeal and I felt would rather drown myself in the icy waters than stay another day. There is a place where my soul was born, where the hills resound to my natural essence, the place where my soul will go when I die. The ancients of my land thought Rwanda to be heaven itself. Though my eyes had never seen it, my soul had, Rwanda was always a state of mind, I heard endless stories of folklore. Of heroism, of sorrow so deep, of tragedy so profound that you rot in bile.


I wondered what I would make of it? I wandered the halls of Heathrow as I waited to board, the Lady at customs facially expressed “Bye Nigger, I hope you stay wherever you're going.” It took an eternity to get on the plane, when we did the Rastafarians were restless. Bemoaning every grace they received from Ethiopian Airlines, I on the other hand was grateful for the chance to fly if not apprehensive. The flight was long, my laptop was flat and therefore no entertainment. The in-flight movie was some awful Disney movie about some dog in the fire brigade.
The wait at Addis Ababa airport took forever, the lounge was now full of people I knew were my countrymen, we all had the same anticipation to see our home. I went straight to the side of a young man who was like a twin of one of my best friends in England. His name was Damascene and we clicked instantly, he was at university in Butare studying medicine but had come to attend a conference in Kent. We talked for endless hours about Rwanda and this was when I got the new vision of Rwanda. This Rwanda was dynamic, modern and though conscious of its history it was surging beyond its own limitations.


The plane ride from Addis was great as the ride from London was in the dark and I failed to prove whether the pyramids are visible from a plane. The view of Ethiopia was truly spectacular, lush green undulating hills veined with gushing rivers and streams, symmetrical patches of farmland that clung to terraces and rocky outcrops. The landscape got drier as we went south, giving way to semi-arid zones, then we turned West to the Nile Valley again and Lake Victoria beckoned in a sparse blue that reflected the sky.


We were near now as we past the savannah's of South-western Uganda and soon we saw volcanic crater lakes that meant we were just in touching distance. The only time I had seen Rwanda was on a school trip when we approach the border and I peered down at the valley into what was Rwanda. The pilot then announced that we were over Rwanda proper, Rwanda is a boundless nation that used to extend into Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and the Congo. So this was a minor technicality, this was just the Rwanda of the map. The places of lore, Rwamagana, Mutara, Kayonza, Rwanika, Nyagatare, all of which had spawned namesakes in far-flung places wherever the refugees went.


Lake Muhazi spread like fingers caressing a gentle landscape that was as golden as a lions pelt. We started to see houses as we descended to landing height, the scale of Kigali is breathtaking. It sprawls like an endless conurbation just when you think it is over, another suburb pops up and then another. The airport was in the middle of town, as the dust swirled below, this was the dry season and between the sparse trees was the red earth that was baked like clay. When we landed I went into a panic; was I really here? The butterflies were really jumpy in my stomach as I reeled, my legs were like jelly as I attempted to get off the plane. It was like I had drank 20 beers as I got on the bus to the terminal. When we got to the terminal I was too excited to fill the immigration form and I messed up several copies as I hastily tried to fill it in. When I got to the counter all my joy was gone.


The counters were divided into two, one for the White man and they were speeded through supersonically. There the clerks spoke English or French but on this one they didn't speak English. The illiterate clerk looked at my Rwandese passport with all the disdain bordering on nausea, he asked me a number of questions that I didn't entirely understand. I am fluent in conversational Kinyarwanda but when being interrogated, I would rather use English, he was surmising all manner of conclusions from what I had or hadn't said. I asked to speak to his superior and he merely sneered, my bile rose up my throat as I couldn't believe this situation.

I have been a refugee all my life, from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Denmark, Britain and everywhere I went I saw the same look he was giving me the look that said I didn't belong here. I was told that this was the one place I would be welcomed with open arms; I had heard a speech by our President that urged all sons of Rwanda to return home and buoyed by this I set my mind on coming home, obviously this clerk hadn't heard of this speech. The boss is the office as at least willing to listen to my story and in no time the matter was solved but by then my joy was sapped. I walked out of the office and took a good final look at the moron who ruined my joyous return.

I went to gather my luggage and realised it had been a full half-hour to resolve the issue, my father was waiting on the other side and we hugged I then my brother Manzi jumped on me and I felt home again.

The view was beautiful, the stadium was perched on top of Remera hill, the dust gave the view a reddish-golden hew, the heat was sapping and unlike the cool weather I expected. We got in the car and I amazed when my father paid a parking fee of Rwf 200, about 20p in Pounds. We drove and I saw what people were fighting for. Rwanda is a country so beautiful that even with all the environmental devastation caused by over-population hasn't robbed it of its beauty. My Grandfathers cried every night for Rwanda when they were in exile; their greatest fear was to die in a foreign land. When they did died; it was a joyous occasion, even with the urge of wailing around them they rejoiced in a simple fact. My Grandfather died in 2001 at the grand-old age of 82, half of his life was spent in exile. He had watched his great herd of long-horn cattle decimated to almost nothing. When my mother sent him money for anything; he would send it to inkotanyi and walk around in the same old clothes. When she offered to give him money for RPF separately so he could at least buy clothes, he refused and only increased his donations. For him it was best investment he could ever have made. When he died he was over-looking the hills where his ancestors roamed, he rightly smiled and asked. “Why are you crying? I got my wish. I have died in Rwanda.” This is my country and nobody can take that from me, a citizenship borne of blood and not a piece of paper.