I was sitting in the bus station in Butare and four Asian men walked in. A tall guy in an Indian-style tunic went to the counter and said, “Mwiriwe, amakuru?” Good afternoon, how are you? He proceeded to try to get bus tickets in Kinyarwanda, but the prices tripped him up.
For the fun of it, I said to the group, “Muvuga ikinyarwanda?” (and I even managed to pronounce the often tricky ‘ikinyarwanda’ brilliantly). You speak Kinyarwanda?
They laughed and said, “Yes!” It turned out three of them work in Uganda as teachers, and one in Gitarama, not far from Kigali. They only had the basics, but they spoke Luganda rapid-fire and seemed to think I spoke it too. I tried to clarify to no avail.
Finally, another one said in English, “And you, you speak Kinyarwanda?”
“Yes, a little, a little,” I said.
“So you understand this then? ‘Uri umwiza,'” he said, and looked expectantly. I smiled. “You are beautiful?” he translated in case he was wrong, and as if he wanted me to confirm it.
I laughed. “Urabeshi,” I told him.
“You are telling me the same back?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “I am telling you you are lying.”
We all had a great, hearty laugh, but the seven or eight Rwandans standing around in the bus station clearly had no idea what to make of four Japanese guys and a white girl trying on this very foreign language…
