A week ago two scouts from Kenya and Uganda entered the country through Gatuna border with flags representing their scouting team attached to their bicycles. The duo very tired with huge touristic bags on their backs, gave one the impression they were not making one of those leisure cycling tours on a peace mission.
The two are Nairobi’s James Chege and Kampala’s Daniel Naghaka who spent 16 days cycling from Nairobi with an aim to cycle the whole of East African Community, targeting to preach about peace and reconciliation as well as community development.
Naghaka noted that they decided to embark on the initiative after realizing there were several parts of the region recovering from internal disputes or politically orchestrated wars yet total reconciliation wouldn’t prevail unless residents united to rebuild their society.
While cycling through Uganda, they had a number of stopovers in various towns to preach about peace and community development and in some areas, they took chores in construction activities.
“In Uganda’s Rwentobo village, western Uganda we helped women crash stones which were supposed to be used as ballast for renovation of some houses,” he remarked.
In Rwanda they met with settlers nearby Gatuna border, where they heard of experiences of genocide and the progress made in regard to peace and reconciliation.
“We really learnt a lot from them, especially how they work together in associations. I would like the same to be replicated in my country Kenya, where up to now some people live at loggerheads due to the 2007 disputed elections,” he lamented.
Upon their arrival in Kigali city, they met with William Karoki a senior scout who runs his private business in the country. He noted that scouts should have the heart of brotherhood: “once a scout always a scout that’s why I hosted them for a whole week in my house, and incurred all the costs which I can’t demand from the Kenyan Scouts Association or from anyone”.
He further pointed out that scouts should help each other since their unity can help them achieve a lot, especially in helping the needy.
In Rwanda though, scouts are not established as their brothers in the region. The three managed to tour the cyclists around their activities and Naghaka stressed that local scouts need to do more than wait for funds to carryout various activities.
“For example we don’t have money to conduct this tour that’s why we’ve decided to use our energy and bicycles to save transport expenses and we are thankful to those who give their donations to us because it keeps us moving,” he remarked.
He advised Rwandan scouts to raise their funds through contributions which they can later use to come up with income generating activity. “They can contribute an affordable fee like Frw 100 which later they can use to come up with an ICT centre for example”.
While in Kigali a good number of people hailed their initiative and vowed to assist them. The Kenyan society for instance who had met for a campaign gathering to elect a new chairman donated over Rwf 100,000.
“This is interesting, I for instance in my village Mwala district close to Machakos, I with my friends constructed a well which connects more than 200 households,” Boniface Mutua one of the chairman aspirants who had also hosted the gathering emphasized.
The duo also met with local scouts who were reminded some of the scout values and how they inspire them to change the society. Amédéé Sahaha, the scouts’ assistant commissioner in Kicukiro district explained that he was challenged to find that other scouts are crossing borders to assist the needy.
“I’m very impressed. We normally have excuses of not having cars yet others are using bicycles and they don’t have that big budget for their tour, from now henceforth I’m going to mobilize all the thousand scouts we have in the districts to use bicycles in reaching out to those who need their help,” he vowed.
Sahaha who spoke his modest Swahili also vowed to train his scouts on the widely spoken language since it was among the main challenges the two Kenyan cyclists faced while talking to locals as they would neither communicate in Kinyarwanda or French which are mainly languages locally used.
The duo left Rwanda to Burundi where they estimated to use five days. “We normally cycle for 40 kilometers per day which is two hours non-stop and we also carry first aid kits.
During the night, we set our tents till the following day because it’s risky to cycle at night though sometimes we do so in order to catch-up with deadlines,” Chege explained.
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