I like to think of sugar cane as the umusaza, the wise old man, of plants. Tall and lean but somehow commanding, it bends and bows like it has heavy secrets it might share, if you gave it time, tender attention, sincere curiosity. And if you gently part its leaves and crawl on through, who knows what you might find on the other side?
I wanted to hop off the moto and see, but we were on a mission. From Tyazo to Tyata, it’s a forty or so minute ride on roads that become increasingly unworthy of the name. But I am willing to forgive them, these paths we’d call trails back at home, because the view was so spectacular. I could be convinced that I can see every hill in Rwanda from the road. Terra cotta-colored mud huts are everywhere, of course, and a few are dressed up with pride, a few seasons’ savings invested in a luxurious round window, or a pair of simple, thin columns. Banana trees snatch the sunlight and offer it back in a warm, green glow. Eucalyptus, that greedy but aesthetically rewarding little pest, stretches high, as if to show off. You’d think that this—surely this, and not, say, New Jersey—must be the place they meant by, “And He said, it is good.”
When I looked, that is. I spent more than half my time watching the road, which is the same washed-out beige my pasty Irish legs become when I try to tan them. I’m convinced that my devoted attention would prevent us from crashing, much the way my mother grips the arm rests in an airplane in order to keep it, through her will alone, aloft. Americans—so hopelessly convinced that we can control everything simply through our resolve! Though I like to think I’m more practical: If I can gauge, even three seconds before impact, the angle at which we will likely crash, I can decide which way to hurl my body in order to minimize my injuries. Surely.
We arrived without incident, even though I’d closed my eyes a few times to blink out the dust. We spent the day walking between the farms of women (mostly) who are part of One Acre Fund, a new non-profit that’s giving seed and fertilizer on credit to the poorest farmers in Kenya and Rwanda–and training, of course, in what to do with that stuff. The day I visited, the Fund staff were doing a baseline survey to help determine, six months and more from now, whether these new resources have improved farmers’ quality of life. At the very least, we know their sweet potatoes—the biggest large enough that it is compared, in the office, to small animals—could kick the average sweet potatoes around the block.
Farms here are rather more like gardens; the plots are small, and often slope down the hill. Depending on the harvest, and the habit of the farmer, the produce will be consumed at home, or sold at the market, or some combination thereof. There’s not, I’m told, a whole lot of cost-benefit analysis in crop choice, nor a great deal of financial backtracking to determine whether the profit from the market covered the costs of the yield. Still, people manage to make money; one woman we meet wears a watch–a sign of wealth not to be sneezed at–and (more obvious) owns a moto. Others must weather risk: Another woman tells us she’s had an entire acre of cassava stolen in a single night.
I learn, by listening, how to harvest beans—to pluck the ones in the middle and save them as seeds for next year, and separate those from the top and bottom of the plant to eat. I might come back and give it a try.
As we talk with a farmer, I glance over my right shoulder. Fruits of all sorts grow behind a small fence, two splintered trees lying horizontal and three, knocked into the ground, holding them up. The ibinyomoro are plump but young, like girls on the verge of adolescence, just beginning to take themselves seriously and demand attention from the world. They are my favorite fruit here, because I’ve never seen them before. Rwandans tell me they are “tree tomatoes,” and it’s an apt translation: they look like tomatoes, a bit, and they grow on trees. (In French, they are prunes japonaise, Japanese prunes, but they look neither like prunes, nor especially Japanese, so I do not understand this at all.) You cut into them and scoop out the inside, a smooth, peachy pulp with burgundy seeds and wine-red juices. They are somehow tart and sweet, and to be honest, I think the novelty excites me more than the taste at this point, but I remain devoted.
Beyond the ibinyomoro is a house, and beyond that, hills roll into and out of each other. Some are beautifully terraced, others boast bountiful banana groves. A further layer back, the lake shimmers, and behind it, draped in blue shadows, the mountains of the Congo.
One day you should come and see how beautiful this country is. Because I can’t put it in words, and because my camera batteries died, you just must see for yourself.
But be warned: I am a jealous lover. I saw it first, and I’ll fight you for it.
