All for a Cake

I have the stove with an oven, but I had no baking pans or cake flour or white sugar. They are not available in Butare. I’ve looked. So I needed to make a trip to Kigali. That proved to be easier said than done.

I waited until 8, when the business travelers had gone, before I walked to the bus depot. But I discovered travel was heavy. The next available seat was not until 10. I purchased a ticket, found a bench and read until it was time to leave. I try to always have a book with me for just such situations. Once on the bus, I texted the taxi driver in Kigali to meet me at the bus depot there. The last time I phoned, there was  confusion about where I was arriving and it took us over an hour to get it straightened out. His limited English and my limited Kinyarwandan makes texted a more reliable means of communication. He was there to greet me and take me to the mall I wanted. I asked him to pick me up at 3, sure that would give me enough time.

I exchanged money and went to an American style café, complete with lattes and milk shakes. I treated myself to a hamburger and a milk shake. I say treat because that little taste of the West cost me $16.50 with tip, but it was worth it, since it was my first in 4 months. Then it was off to shop. If you know me at all, you know that I hate shopping, but I plunged in, with my trusty list in hand. I was at a mall that hosts a Nakumart, a Kenyan style Wal-Mart. I wanted a hand mixer. There was only one in stock, so there was no choice, but it promised to be a good buy, since it included as chopper, something I had not counted on. I planned to pick it up later, to save carrying it through the store. Then I went to look for a cookie sheet and cake pan. The cookie sheet was no problem, but the only cake pan was a round spring-form pan, not what I was looking for. I decided to look in another store in the next building, so off I trotted, out of the mall and to the next complex. It was a futile trip because the smaller store had less of what I wanted, so I resolved to accept whatever I could find at Nakumart. They obviously had the best selection, even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. Then, I had to remember that whatever I got, I had to carry back to Butare on the bus, so I considered size and weight. I settled the medium sized cake round, for 5 kgs for cake flour instead of 10 and for 2 kgs of white sugar. With that and the mixer and the other items, I still needed another bag beside the tote I had brought. I bought one. After checking out, I went in to the mall area to repack my purchases. As I stood shifting things from the cart to the bags, I looked like an old bag-lady. I felt like one, too.

My taxi driver arrived just as I left the mall and took me to the bus depot. Again, I had to wait to get a seat, this time only an hour. Once on the bus, I tucked the one bag between the seat and my legs and held the second one on my lap. I was not the only one juggling cargo. The bus was crowded with people and packages. The young man sitting next to me had 3 large duffels. Once everyone and everything was situated, we rode in stillness. There was no room to move. The trip took 2 ½ hours because the roads were congested with large trucks with heavy cargo, too.

When we arrived at Butare, it was dark. As I stepped from the bus, with my two heavy bags and my purse, a motorcycle taxi driver grabbed for my bags. I didn’t resist. Riding in a skirt, on the back of a motorcycle with a heavy helmet on me head was preferable to lugging everything for a mile. In 5 minutes, I was home and had the joy of the wind blowing around me. It was my first motorcycle ride. Not bad at the end of a long day. It had taken me 11 hours of waiting, shopping, toting and bouncing in a bus– all of this for a cake.