Thank You, Rwanda

My first hike nearly broke me.

Lake Ruhondo, somewhere in the north. Body still recovering from a mountain bike crash that had no business happening. My legs were badly hurt because of it. I was so tired, my lungs felt very heavy. But I kept moving — and the view from the top of the hill when we got there made it all worth the pain I was going through. Lakes below, green folding into more green, mist sitting on the hills like it owned the place. Quiet in a way that cities never are.

I came to Kigali to work. To cook. Not to make art, not to find myself — I'll leave that to people with more patience for clichés. I came to work. But Rwanda kept interrupting.

Roadtrips on weekends. Hikes on free mornings. Views that had no business being that generous. And slowly, something shifted. I started looking at this country the way I used to look at a blank canvas — with the feeling that something needed to be recorded before it disappeared.

I've made work before. Paintings that meant something to me, that came from a real place — but got lost in translation. Misread. I'm not interested in relitigating that. What I know is that Rwanda handed me a new language. Landscapes. Light. The specific red of a dirt road outside Musanze. The way the hills here look like they were arranged by someone who cared deeply about the viewer.

I come from a country that is many things — loud, brilliant, overwhelming — but not always gentle with its own beauty. Rwanda made me jealous. The kind of jealousy that teaches you something.

So I started painting.

Thank You, Rwanda is a body of work I've been building quietly. Acrylic on canvas. Landscapes from memory and photographs. Documentation of a passage — a Nigerian in Kigali, moving through hills that weren't his, grateful for every single one of them.

The work is coming. This is just the introduction.