Driving in Rwanda

Yesterday for the first time I drove in Rwanda. To be more precise, I drove a Toyota SUV with four-wheel drive around town, up to the building site (dirt road), and up a hill on another dirt road, impossibly long and full of huge rocks, massive holes, mud, and deep ruts. Micaela said I was brave to drive here, but it’s really not a big deal. I’ve been driven by others a lot here and have observed the locals’ driving habits. So all I have to do is drive like them, which sometimes proves a bit counterintuitive to me, but isn’t difficult.

In Rwanda, people drive on the right side of the road, so that’s good for me. However, the driver’s side of the car is also on the right. Fortunately, Arlene’s SUV is an automatic; I think driving a stick using my left hand would have thrown me off too much. Other than that, most things are where you expect them to be except the turn signals, which are opposite from my car at home.

We were going to the site of the new house in the morning. When John arrived with the car, he handed me the keys, got in the passenger’s seat, and asked if I would mind driving. “Fine with me,” I said, and off we went. I had offered to drive a number of times, but he always declined before.

Several challenges present themselves when driving in a town like Gitarama. One is that many more people walk in the street than drive cars. Pedestrians are everywhere, including the middle of the street. Also chickens, goats, and the occasional cow. A two-way trust exists between drivers and walkers. Walkers make way for cars, trusting in a way I certainly don’t count on while walking in Hyde Park that the drivers will not try to hit them. Drivers trust that the walkers really will get out of the way. Sometimes while driving you have to get uncomfortably close to walkers, but both you and they know it’s safe.

Mototaxis provide another challenge. Guys hang out all around town waiting for passengers to ride on the back of their motorcycles. They provide a helmet for the passenger, then you sit on the back on hold on real tight. They travel slower than cars and usually more or less stick to the right side of the road. To get anywhere on time, you have to pass mototaxis quite often. Etiquette requires that you give a short honk on the horn as you approach behind the mototaxi to let the driver know you intend to pass. He (it’s always a man) then turns on his right turn signal, not to turn right, but to notify you that he heard you and will stay over to the right side while you pass. This signaling routine also applies to passing larger vehicles.

Passing larger vehicles can be quite unnerving, but it has to be done if you’re going to get anywhere. In this mountainous terrain, if you stay behind a large truck chugging its way slowly uphill, you will never get where you’re going. So you do the same as passing a mototaxi: honk, then pass. The problem occurs when several vehicles get lined up behind a too-slow truck and three or four of them pass it at once. So you have the truck in the right lane going ever more slowly up the mountain, and four or so cars passing it at the same time in the left lane, facing oncoming traffic. One of the local assumptions is that no oncoming traffic is actually on its way. This is often the case, but not always. In the event that cars are approaching in the other lane, they slow down and let the passers pass. Everyone know what’s expected and no one gets angry about being passed or about seeing cars approaching them in their own lane. They just slow down and wait.

A convenience in driving is that if the road is rough (and many roads are rough; I’ve read that only 6% of roads in Rwanda are paved) you can drive on the wrong side of the road. No one gets excited about this, even if you’re coming their way. They expect it. They know you’re avoiding holes and ruts and have to select the best path around them even if unconventional driving is necessary.

The wife of one of the guards here had a baby by C-section over the weekend. She was being released from the hospital yesterday. Theogen’s (the guard) plan was to take her and the baby home by mototaxi. We just couldn’t imagine riding a mototaxi after having major surgery, so we offered to pick her and the baby up at the hospital and take her home. Theogen was thrilled, so off we went. Our experience at the hospital is another story for another day.

Anyway, we traveled down the road toward Kibgayi with the car loaded with five people and the baby. We turned off the main (paved) road onto a wide dirt road. I’d been on this one before to see one of the kids who just started in a secondary school up that road. We passed the turn to the school, and road got narrower. As we crawled along at 10-15 km/hr we laughed after each big bounce. Micaela and I were with three people who knew no English, but you don’t need a common language to understand how difficult this road was. Occasionally I looked toward the back seat, afraid the baby had bounced out the window, but the mom always gave me a thumbs up.

I have no idea how many km this road was, but as it narrowed, it got steeper, rockier, and more rutted. A few times, I slowed the car way down and studied the best way to get over whatever obstacle presented itself. After what seemed like forever, we arrived at Theogen’s house way up the mountain, where he got to present the baby to his waiting family. He is so proud of the baby, and he was even prouder to be driven home in a car by a couple of muzungus. John said that Theogen would remember that for the rest of his life and that being with us brought him new high status in his neighborhood. I find this attitude toward people with white skin uncomfortable, embarrassing, and unwarranted, but people here cannot be talked out of it.