Racial profiling and bus security

As I was getting on the bus to leave Gisenyi, I noticed a uniformed secuirty guard with a metal detector wand. He was sticking the wand in passengers' bags before they could enter the bus. The bags, being full of keys and cell phones and other assorted non-bomb metal goods, made the metal detector beep like crazy, and then the security guard would wave the passenger onto the bus. At no point did he look into the bags to investigate the source of the beeping. Just another example of someone here doing something that looks good but is actually entirely pointless or ineffective! However, I'd bet most Rwandans don't know what the wand is or how it works; maybe they think it would do something other than beep frantically if there were a bomb. So perhaps it is effective deterence.

I was waved on without being subjected to the frantically beeping metal detector. Racial profiling at work!

Unscheduled delay

En route from my village to Gisenyi.

Onontracom bus trip

The big green "gift from Japan" Onontracom buses go to the more remote areas of Rwanda. I took one from my new site to IST in Kibuye. The front windshield gives the impression of eyes with a unibrow, with two big square windows and a long thin one above. My ears were filled with rattling of the lose door and lose ceiling panels and consistent hissing of the breaks as we went around the many curves, these loud and ominous sounds so loud I could barely here the engine. I could barely get the door open to get on when it pulled up in my village (it comes from Gisenyi towards Kibuye between 8:30 and 9:30; today it was 9:30). I counted 94 people (6 babies, others small children, but at least 75 adults) when I got on. This is on a vehicle smaller than your average city bus (even before the extra-long jointed fuel efficient kind rolled out, more circa 1970). As for scent, it was puke and armpits. It was worth it because it was much faster than goinv via Kigali, but mostly for beautiful glimpses of the lake and layers of gray mountains, the green farms and clay roof tiles and banana groves, the glimpses of lake Kivu with a heavy gray-black cloud settling over it, the cold blasts of lake air when the door was opened (by way of removing a loose metal rod from the latch) but perfectly cozy on the crowded bus.