Lorna Nicole Kayitesi
Kigali, Rwanda
2 February 2006

Walking over hill after hill, gazing over breathtaking vista after breathtaking vista, I easily fall in love with my country all over again. Whenever I get thirsty or need a rest, I just stop for a minute and buy a pineapple at a little stall along the road. I bend the chunks of pineapple and let the juice drip into my mouth and gulp down each tasty morcel as fast as I can.

Realizing that my entire face and arms are covered with sticky residue, I find a way down to the stream, stretch out on a rock, and splash water onto myself. Then, lying back on the rock and enjoying the partial shade afforded by a couple of Central Africa's ancient, magnificent trees, I close my eyes and listen to the songs of birds.

Time comes to a standstill and I find myself alone in my own land, a million miles from stress, obligations, and chores. Feeling a gentle breeze dry the moisture from my face, I hear the sound of drums and cheerful singing blowing in from the other side of a forest. "Did my ancestors perceive these exact sensations five, ten, fifty thousand years ago?", I ask myself.

But then I slip out of myself and there are no more ancestors, because there is no more Lorna. I simply dissolve into the beauty surrounding me. I am the verdant hill that stares endlessly up at the true blue, African sky. I am the industrious farmers as they put the field in order. The wind blows through the branches of my tree-form and under the white tuffs of my cloud-body. I shine down on the whole scence, while I bubble and eddy in the stream. The wonder of Rwanda flows down into my consciousness like a mighty waterfall.