Hello from Rwanda

So I made it to Uganda and then to Rwanda.  After my long flights, I got a few hours sleep and then we left at 4:45 AM in a van to drive to Kigali, Rwanda.  I was so excited that I wasn't able to sleep in the van so I was really ready for bed that night.

I'm really enjoying my team and getting to know the people here at the ministry.  It is completely Rwandan run and they are really trying to provide Rwandan's with skills to help themselves rather than being dependent on others. 

Yesterday we got to hear about the work that they do, and then in the afternoon take a tour of Kigali.  We visited a genocide memorial which was incredibly tough emotionally.  It is a lot to work through.  Even though the genocide was 18 years ago every Rwandan has been affected and some of those effects are being passed on to future generations.  The encouraging thing is to see that the story is not yet over.  The people at Gate of Hope are doing so much to help the people in their recovery process.  After the memorial we went to the  Hotel de Mille Collines which is the hotel from the movie Hotel Rwanda.  It is not the hotel where the movie was filmed but the hotel where the actual events took place.  We saw the pool where the refugees drank out of.  The memorial and the hotel made everything I had read about the genocide really come to life.

This morning we were told it was community cleaning day and we would be "trimming hedges" It ended up being chopping down carrigana like trees with machetes.  All the muzungu's (white people) made quite a conversation and I don't think we were very good at hacking down the bush.  Rwanda is very clean and developed compared to other places in Africa I have seen.  The people here take a lot of pride in where the live and keeping trash off the streets which is somewhat of an anomoly in this part of the world.

At the cleaning day, I attempted to speak French with some of the people.  Very few of them actually speak French.  The language here is Kinyarwanda which everyone speaks.  They used to teach French as a second language in school, however the uneducated would only speak Kinyarwanda.  Now because of political problems they have switched to teaching English as a second language in the schools.  I am slowly learning a few phrases in Kinyarwanda, but it seems to be slow.  Sometimes I know I'm not supposed to speak French or English and my mind is in overload and I almost start saying something in Creole or Luganda, neither of which I speak much of.

We are having to borrow our hosts computer to get on the internet so I don't have that much opportunity to do so.  I will try and post again if I can, but getting on the internet is difficult.  As I am not on my own computer I'll have to wait to post pictures.

Until next time,

Jaimee