Today was hands down, head and shoulders above, by miles, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the best day in Rwanda yet. It started with a decent sleep and an early trek to Serena for the second and last day of the conference. We were breaking into groups and Lama suggested, completely in line with what I was already thinking, that if I had better things to do I didn’t need to participate in the workshops. I made my way to the restaurant to have a coffee and use internet and do work. I stayed there until it was time for the conference coffee break, where I joined up with Lama and Kara for more coffee + snacks. Following that, there was more workshop. Since I’d already missed the first two hours, therefore making me want to participate in this workshop even less, I decided my time would be much better spent back at the hotel working. I have lots of footage to work with now, color correcting to do as well as cleaning up sound. So I spent the rest of the day listening to music and working at the hotel. I even ordered a pizza that was delivered to my room! I had a ball.
When the conference was ending, Lama called to tell me, “Hey man, you should get back here. We’re having cocktails and they’re doing traditional Rwandan dance!” I changed clothes and got on a moto within minutes. By the time I got there, there wasn’t any dancing. There were drinks though, so it was mingling and mutzing pretty fast. I asked Kara how was the dancing and she said it made her cry. I almost cried out of jealousy. I’ve wanted to see that ever since I arrived, and I even heard a story that their dancing is so good, that people have tried to patent it. Well, today was my lucky day, because the dancers all came out for an encore. I know what Kara meant when she said she cried, and just like the writing of Robert M. Pirsig, the movement of these dancers blew my mind to tears. It’s just so good. Kara talks often about how everyone’s movements here are very languid, they are smooth and calculating in every single gesture. Even the placing of a fork. Their hands glide when they use them. These dancers were extremely languid. And the way their dancing works, is they have a choir singing and chanting, drummers playing awesome pulse-pounding beats, and then the dancers have these bells tied to their ankles that they stomp in time to the beat and make the music even better. I don’t think it’s unusual for me to see cool dancing and think “this dancing is awesome, I wish I could dance like this”, but I’ve never experienced that feeling as profoundly as I did watching them up on stage. It is the COOLEST, BEST dancing I’ve ever seen.
At one point, there was only 5 guys dancing on the stage. They jumped right off into the floor and were dancing in the crowd, and coming up to people to bring them on stage. One of the guys came over to me and handed me a spear and a shield and took me on stage so I was stomping around with them the best I could. It was so awesome, and I could get the feet and the rhythm of the steps fine, but I couldn’t get the flow of the arms. I’m just not languid enough. It was so fun though, and I could not stop thinking that I seriously want to take lessons while we’re here. At the very least, I’m going to the store to buy those bells for my ankles and I’m going to prance around the house and make music everywhere I go.
After the cocktails ended, Kara, Lama and I were waiting in the parking lot because Freddy was coming to pick us up. While we were waiting and talking, we saw all the dancers leaving. We called out to them and said “You guys are AMAZING” and they all came over and talked to us. They were so excited that we liked their dancing and they asked if I would be interested in learning and I said HELL YES and they say they’re going to give me lessons. Unfortunately I am taking the attitude I’ve developed here of IBIWISI (I’ll believe it when I see it) because you can’t really count on anything happening until it’s actually happening. We exchanged numbers and they invited us to a festival they are performing at, and I hope we get a chance to go. Lama took out his camera and took some photos, and he snapped a doozie of this one guy trying to kiss Kara on the lips. She’s laughing, he’s kissing. It’s such a good picture but Lama doesn’t have his cable with him right now. I will update this post with the picture once I get it.
Gilbert goes for the kiss
So Freddy rolled up and we piled in. Kara changed at the hotel and we stopped by Freddy’s house so Lama could change. Freddy’s house was amazing. His view, his kids, his juice, his tv, all of it was breathtaking/adorable/delicious/large respectively. We sat on his patio and talked and hung out for awhile while Lama changed. Freddy told us about his next door neighbors who have NINETEEN CHILDREN. That family must have a blast. They can do anything. Form a football team? Great, they’ve got the numbers. Round robin tournaments, 4 teams of 5? Done. Parties? No need to invite anybody! I can’t believe that. I wonder about the relationship dynamics when you have that many siblings. There must not be so much pressure to live up to your older siblings since there are so many you could probably go completely unnoticed just as easily. Oh, and only 4 of them are girls. 15 boys! HA!
We went from there to meet up with Ndambe at a restaurant called Car Wash. He was sitting with three girls when we arrived, Mary Anne, Lindsay, and Claire. We were joined later by a guy named Kevin. We had some drinks and food and were slowly joined by more and more people that I couldn’t keep track of. Around 1 am we decided it was late enough to finally make our way to the club. We went to a place called H20. It was pretty awesome. We were clubbing in Kigali. The dancing was fun, but the music was nothing but crunk club hits. There was nothing fast, just bumping and grind jams, which isn’t really my style. I was doing my best, and Claire did her best to teach me how to dance. Back in Canada, I’m probably the best dancer no matter where I go, but here I’m the worst. Oh wait. I’m terrible in Canada too. It’s just accentuated here. I don’t want to generalize, but I will say this much – the girls at this particular club, who happened to be African, holy $#!t could they move.
While we were at H20, I picked up a fan who was relentlessly interested in me. His name was Fidel. He had this mickey of some Ugandan alcohol he kept trying to feed me, saying it was up to him and I to finish it, and I tried to be as polite as possible without going home with him. So I danced with him slowly when he grabbed my hands and pulled me close. And I didn’t say anything when he was kissing my hands. And I didn’t flinch when he was whispering in my ear so sensually. In retrospect he probably thought I was into it since I was going along with it, but I just didn’t know what to do, and to be honest I didn’t really care. I don’t know what time we left H20, but we went from there to Cadillac, THE club in Kigali.
Where H20 was a restaurant/loungey place that included dancing, Cadillac was a straight up black-lights thumpin’ club. We were kind of dancing at H20, we were dripping with sweat at Cadillac. I was also warned by Claire that girls were going to “grind their asses into me” because they think I have money. Even that blunt warning didn’t really brace me for how forward some of the girls actually were. These two girls just came up to me, grabbed me and pressed against me so hard and wouldn’t let go. One said “I’m with you now” and the ambiguity of that sentence made me laugh out loud on the spot. I told her I had to go outside and eventually broke free of her death grip. I think around 4:30, as I was practically falling asleep on my feet, we called it a night. I had so much fun, the day felt like it was a week long, and hanging out with Ndambe, Kevin, Lindsay, Mary Ann and Claire was super fun, they’re great people. I was so tired, we had to be up early to meet with the women from COVAGA, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to care. What does being tired matter when your days and nights are this fun?
