After visiting Coopthega, Rwanda Mountain tea we headed back towards Gisenyi. Two different taxi buses and a sleeping Francine later we stepped outside the bus in Makoko, a small town before Gisenyi where according to Numerien everything is cheap. He wanted us to get out the bus a few miles before to stretch our legs and walk to town. Secretly I was thinking damn it I was sleeping on the taxi bus. Both hungry we decided to first have lunch. I didn’t have breakfast this morning as my headless chicken routine failed and Jean- Claude (the bookkeeper) arrived 15 minutes ahead of time ! What’s up with being so crazy punctual out here?! Nausicaa just messaged me that people who studied at the missionaries you can’t beat them on the clock. Well that’s what I get for trying to rest till the last minute. I devoured some granola bars and unknown fruits I have been eating for days. So at 14:30 I was dying hungry considering we already had crossed half the country. Numerien wants me to have good food and we go and check out a few places. The food was a bit old laying in buffet warmers. I didn’t mind eating it but Numerien was afraid I would get sick so he took me to its favourite spot. It was a total shack but boy did they serve us good food! Numerien kept on telling them to be hygienic, cook the food well and serve it hot. I smelled the grilled/ barbecued food and began spontaneously drooling. Wow how amazing and clean! Numerien is giving me the most local African experience I ever had in my life! I am enjoying every bit of it. We discussed our work and our personal life. He saw I was tired from the journey and said: I see you are tired, you like the nap; it’s the African in you! We both laughed very hard. Numerien has seen me eating fruit (not knowing I didn’t have time for breakfast and I have no other choice), and wanted me to have the best fruit at the best price so he took me to the local market. Everywhere people screamed muzungu, white woman. I don’t think no muzungu had ever come here. As a matter of fact ever since being in Nyundo, Gisenyi and Nyabhu I haven’t seen a muzungu! I see there are plenty of NGO’s out here but where are they? It’s almost a mystery to me. I am guessing the areas I am visiting and the life I am living is not for muzungu’s. Every time we take the taxi bus, I am the local attraction because muzungu’s don’t take taxi bus. People are shocked, awed everywhere Numerien is taking me. Touching my hair, holding my hands and some asking for money because the muzungu is rich. Well legacy of colonisation I would say; can’t blame them. (What the locals don’t know…. ) First of all, I am not a muzungu but half a muzungu I feel like saying. However, if you start messing with this muzungu, I will screw you up. Being mulatto isn’t common here in the countryside. The population is homogeneous. When I tell them: my mother is Nigerian and my father Belgian; most people here in the country back don’t know where Nigeria is. It could be in Europe for all they care. Two countries full of muzungu’s LOL Well I can’t blame them, my mom living in South Nigeria has travelled all over Europe but never heard of Rwanda as well. Africans in general don’t travel much within the continent as travelling between countries isn’t always easy. I have asked her to come visit me but first we have to find out if there are easy connections from Port Harcourt to Kigali. My dad called me from Monrovia saying he found a connecting flight somewhere with Kenyan airways. So maybe my parents will be visiting me here in Gisenyi as they are both very curious about Rwanda. Fingers crossed that everything will work out. So my life as a mulatto is basically in Africa my natal continent; I am a white woman and in Europe my father’s homeland I am a foreigner. Technically everywhere I go I am a foreigner. My paternal grandfather had Indonesian roots and my looks take also part from there. In Brazil I’d probably pass for a local too… Never been though. As an intermixed person I don’t believe in race or nationality; it is all the same for me. I could be a Chinese passport holder looking Latino. So call me Muzungu but without the privileged treatment because no race or skin colour is superior ! Ohh and don’t rip me off because I will muzungu yo ass ;)