And That's All... For Now

This is going to be an attempt at a conclusion to my blog in Rwanda, as I'm planning on making it my last post. Unless I go back next year, which is definitely possible.

I've been home for over a week now, and I still have no trouble writing about Rwanda. It's still pretty much always somewhere in my thoughts, and it's pretty easy for me to start remembering and missing the place. To sum up my experience, I would say I loved it. To be a little more detailed....

I loved the natural beauty of Rwanda, and the fact that I left Iowa expecting more exciting scenery than I lived in but totally unprepared for what I can only imagine is the most stunning place in the world. 1,000+ hills/mountains packed into a country 1/3 the size of Iowa, with sooooo much green and somehow so many people at the same time. Volcanoes, tea plantations, forests, rice fields....

I loved the gorillas. To experience so rare an animal in so natural environment, but to be treated as a guest by them. And to be close enough to a 450 pound silverback to pet him.

I loved Kigali. As beautiful as the countryside in Rwanda is, I found myself longing to see the rolling hills littered with little houses. The people walking everywhere, the mototaxis zipping inbetween traffic, the new roads and houses and other steps to development, the stares, the small-scale businesses, the energy, the safety, the feeling that this is where the movement in Rwanda is right now, and the feeling that this is my home.

I loved the mood of Rwanda. 15 years ago one tenth of Rwandans were killed by other Rwandans and the effects are still felt. It is far too common to see amputees walking along the streets, victims of machetes during the genocide. There are too many memorials to the genocide to be counted. There are orphans, AIDS, and intense psychological damage. But for all of this, you can't spend a day in Rwanda without catching the positive atmosphere. Despite the fact that there were 1,000,000 murders 15 years ago, the overwhelming sentiment is to move on. Reconcile the past, go forward, never again. And... it works. Incredible. Rwanda feels like an up-and-coming type of place, and so does every aspect of life inside it.

I loved the children of Rwanda. Seeing streetkids wandering around every day touches your heart, but not as much as playing with the kids at Gisimba. Every child was a miracle away from becoming a homeless, friendless, glue-addled victim, and they're all so full of promise now. How can one collection of people be so loving to each other and everyone who visits? If there is any image to represent Rwanda and the hope for the future, it would be Gisimba.

I loved.... the mixed emotions I have for the government of Rwanda. It's not perfect - spend enough time and you'll find the complaints. No free press... a portion of the people who live in extreme poverty without a voice and with little attention from anyone... made up government statistics. Then again, 15 years ago one tenth of Rwandans were killed by other Rwandans. Nowadays the victims have be neighbors with the murderers. Everything needs to be put in that context. How do you ever go about making a functional country from that? And Rwanda isn't functional, it's one of the leading examples of a successful African state. Yes, Kagame could potentially turn into the next Idi Amin or Mobuto if he chose, but he really truly doesn't seem to be inclined that way. In fact, he seems to be genuinely concerned with nothing more than the betterment of Rwanda. He knows exactly how he wants to do that, and he does it. He invents jobs out of thin air for the people, forces development to occur even at the expense of slum housing, puts the whole country into a local gov't organization system, tries sooo hard to change the idea of horror and tragedy the world associates with Rwanda. Above all, he educates... and I have never seen a better case for the importance of education. There are 1,000,000 Rwandans dedicating their lives to coming to a university in the USA, and I didn't even have to try to do it. Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of students entering universities in America will not finish their degree... how can I believe we deserve the opportunity to throw away opportunities simply because we were born in America instead of Rwanda?

Finally, most importantly, most unforgettably, I loved the people I met who made my time in Rwanda worth repeating again and again and again. The children who moved me. The teachers who charmed and inspired me with their dedication and motivation. The students who I made friends with, who told me about Rwanda, who gave me a perspective I can relate to, and a conversation I could easily have. The students who also inspired me with their dedication and motivation, and changed me so that I will never, ever, ever take my education for granted again. The hotel workers who were beyond friendly. The government workers who were so concerned with improving their country. The families who welcomed us into their homes. The woman who wished me peace in mass. The friends I made, for being friends. Our drivers... for, literally, everything. I have never felt so welcomed before in my life - 10,000 miles from home.

I could go on, but that would be fairly counterproductive to my goal of concluding my blog. Instead, I have stolen two quotes from my awesome friend and like-minded travel buddy to end with, pretty much summing up my thoughts on life right now.

"How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light."

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."

I won't stay away.

Can't Help but Compare...

So I guess there's still some blogging I'm supposed to do. As much as Rwanda dominates my thoughts of our trip in Africa, we did also spend some time in Tanzania. It was probably a necessary step in the process of coming home... it was hard enough to leave Rwanda for a vacation in Tanzania, it would have been just about impossible to leave for the US.

Our time in Tanzania was pretty much one big safari, so rather than give a boring day by day account of 'we went here and saw this' on repeat I'll just give the highlights.

- The list of parks visited: Tarangeri National Park, Lake Manyara, and Ngorongoro Crater

- The list of animals seen: elephants, giraffes, zebras, lions, hippos, rhinos, wildebeests, warthogs, baboons, hyenas, impalas, a few other antelopes, and lots and lots of different birds

- The list of animals missed: leopard and (most disappointingly to me) cheetah

- We really stayed in luxury in Tanzania. The two lodges we had both provided 4 course dinners, shows of some sort for nightly entertainment, big and fancy rooms, and people to carry your luggage wherever you go. Not really what I had in mind for a trip to Africa.

- The landscape of Tanzania is pretty beautiful (although nothing close to Rwanda). I think that Disney's Lion King is inspired 100% from Tanzania. Everywhere we went made me think of the Lion King, which was a little funny I guess. The open, empty countryside was a totally different change from the population-dense Rwanda.

- The highlight of the time in Tanzania was probably watching the Champions League Final (kind of like the Super Bowl of soccer) at one of our lodges. I'm a Barcelona fan, and they won 2-0 over Manchester United. I made a few friends from Spain and maybe a little hostility from a British couple.

- The highlight of the safari was in Ngorongoro Crater, when we came across a male lion. At first he was just laying around relaxing, but after a while he got up and started to wander around. He walked right next to our jeep... dead serious, if I would have reached out the window I could have petted him. Pretty cool.

- Simba's lack of interest in the humans surrounding him also kind of illustrates a problem with the whole safari thing. Supposedly this was us seeing a lion in its 'natural environment', and yet he just walked around and through a crowd of jeeps with people leaning out to take photos and gawk at him like he didn't even know we were there. The wildlife is obviously completely accustomed to the presence of humans, which seems to not really be a 'natural environment' to me. Apparently they're discussing closing off the crater for a few years in order to remedy this, which I'll admit I can definitely understand.

Really Tanzania the country was overtouristed in my opinion. Gone were the constant stares of people at the sight of a group of muzungus; in their place were swarms of hawkers harassing us into buying necklaces or whatever souvenir every time our jeep came to a complete stop. Everywhere we drove, I could not believe the number of tourist shops that existed. Can an entire country exist where the only real source of income is tourism?

I couldn't help but compare Tanzania with Rwanda, especially since at that point in time I was pretty much dedicating every waking thought to Rwanda anyway. I have to say, the comparison didn't go too well for Tanzania. I'm sure that a major reason just had to do with our purpose in being in each country, but I also think that reflects the country itself. Tanzania is a country of tourism, and as a result our time there consisted of lots and lots of animals and luxury. Tourism is basically nonexistant in Rwanda outside of the gorillas, and as a result our time there consisted of working with people and making meaningful connections. Even though we were more detached from the daily life of Rwanda than I would have preferred, I still feel as though we really had the opportunity to see the country for what it is and learn about this wonderful place. The attachment I felt to Rwanda was obvious when we were getting ready to leave Tanzania in the airport. I had no trouble leaving Tanzania, I just couldn't believe that we weren't getting on a plane to head back to Kigali. I definitely wasn't ready yet.

I think the best way I have of summing it up is what I told our program director as we were boarding our plane, when she asked me what I thought about our vacation in Tanzania.

"I have nearly all of my souvenirs from Tanzania, but all of my memories are from Rwanda."

Left Behind

Luckily I was too busy most of the day on Tuesday to be depressed about it being my last day in Rwanda. If I had been given too much time to think about it, my passport may not have made it all the way to the airport.

I spent the whole morning getting packed up and preparing for the presentation we would be giving that afternoon at Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) to university students about what we had learned on our trip. Not surprisingly, we returned to Bourbon Coffee for lunch and finalizing the presentation. Somehow I was delegated the responsibility of putting together the whole thing over lunch, so I can't really say it was a relaxing time.

In a perfect summary of our experience with 'African Time', we were rushing to get everything finalized for our presentation and ended up arriving at KIE about 45 minutes later than planned and about 15 minutes after we were supposed to have started presenting. Not to worry, though, because John, our contact at KIE, had made absolutely zero preparations for us to present by the time we got there. We had to tell him again everything we needed for the presentation and he went about making arrangements. The students of KIE seemed to be the truly informed ones, as everyone showed up about an hour after we were supposed to start presenting, just a little bit before we did actually get around to starting.

When we finally began, it was really a little bit awkward. What do we tell Rwandans about Rwanda? I felt like we were walking a fine line between being interesting, insightful, condescending, and offensive. More like balancing at the top of a pyramid I guess. I was particularly unsure for myself, considering I was comparing American healthcare to Rwandan healthcare. It didn't make me feel any better when we were grilled with some really tough questions afterwards, including some instances of being told that our information was totally wrong (such as not knowing the correct number of districts and provinces in Rwanda...oops).

I was really afraid we had done a poor job, so I was amazed and delighted when all the people I talked to afterward during our 'mingling time' were all very pleased and thanked me for the presentation. Maybe we had managed to balance after all. Anyway, I was really glad not to have offended anyone, and I even made a few friends in the process.

We said our goodbyes to our new friends at KIE only to head to Gisimba in order to say our goodbyes there as well. While I don't think we connected with the orphanage as much as last year's group might have, it was still really hard to leave. One moment that really got me was when a boy I had played with quite a bit walked up to me. He hardly knew any English, so he just outlined tears on his cheeks with his fingers and stared at me. Ouch.

As I was talking to Ashley she brought up another pretty sad reality: the depth to which all the kids understood what was going on. They had gone through it many times before - everyone that comes and helps out at Gisimba eventually ends up leaving too. It gave me an even greater understanding and appreciation for the relationship all the orphans have with each other...

... And before I knew it we were driving away. We went to the Hotel Des Mille Collines (from the movie Hotel Rwanda) to spend the evening since our plane wasn't leaving until 4am and we had already checked out of Chez Lando. I got a few humbling lessons in igisoro, my new game, from one of drivers Guillaum. As a group I think we really bonded with our drivers/translators/fixers, and I know I'll really miss them.

They took us to the airport around midnight, and I had to say goodbye to both our drivers and the city that I'd spent the last few weeks falling in love with. It was a little unreal... I felt like I was just going on another weekend trip and would be coming home before too long. Instead I was moving on, but not without leaving a part of me in this little country in Africa.

Familiar Sights

Monday was sadly (for me at least) our last day of normal activities in Rwanda, and as a group we were pretty exhausted so it ended up being as much a day of recovery/schoolwork as anything else.

In the morning a few other students and I visited ESCAF, the primary school run by Jotham, the uncle of my sort-of relative at UNI. ESCAF is a private school, but the fees are extremely low compared to other schools such as Green Hills. I think we all agreed that what the school does with the resources it has is completely amazing. We were treated to songs or other performances in every class we visited, and usually the headmaster (who was escorting us around the school) would ask a few students some random questions for them to demonstrate their knowledge. A few things really stood out to me:

- The discipline of the nursery school. These were ~4 year old kids, yet obediently listened to the teacher, sang us a welcome song, and jumped out of their seats to be called on to list English consonants.
- When we visited a P3 (3rd grader) class, instead of singing songs they performed dialogues that they learn. A dialogue that 2 students performed for us was about HIV/AIDS. I am sooooo in support of an honest education about HIV, especially starting with children. Awareness is the easiest way to fight HIV.
- The overall feeling of welcome we received at the school. When the kids went on break we hung out with them for a while, and I think I shook about 200 hands in 15 minutes. Everyone from the students to the teachers all the way up to the headmaster was so happy to see us and so positive about the school... the feeling was contagious.

In the afternoon we went to another women's center in Kigali, just like the one I described many blogs ago. We were warmly welcomed, as always in Rwanda, and given a description of the women's network. It probably would have been more interesting if we hadn't already been to a place nearly identical already, but it was good to learn more about the network that connects all the women's centers.

After that visit we went back to the hotel, supposedly to do some school work, but I just passed out for a couple hours instead. I am totally against naps (and sleeping in general... just a waste of my life), but it was pretty much necessary at that time.

In the evening we went for dinner at Bourbon Coffee Co., which is pretty much the Starbucks of Rwanda. It was kind of nice to have a taste of home, but I really had mixed feelings about it in general. We didn't come to Rwanda in order to seek out the most Westernized experiences we could, we came to learn about and experience Rwanda. If I had to venture a guess as to the number of white people in all of Rwanda, I would say somewhere around 1,000 of the 10,000,000 people in the country - about .1% of the population. I'd also say Bourbon Coffee usually had about 50-75% muzungus. Probably not a place to learn about Rwanda. I'm really glad that we didn't go to Bourbon before the end of our trip, otherwise I'm afraid our group would have only been concerned with going there all the time instead of enjoying what Rwanda was offering us.

Unforgettable

Some of us got up bright and early to go to the 7am mass at the cathedral in Butare, the national cathedral of Rwanda. Rwanda is about 70% Catholic, so it is a very important aspect of Rwandan culture. It was beautiful, and it didn't matter in the slightest that it was in Kinyarwanda and I wasn't able to understand a word. One of my greatest memories of Rwanda will be from mass, when it was time to say "Peace be with you" to all your neighbors. I realized that I had absolutely no idea what the equivalent phrase was in Kinyarwanda, so I very hesitatingly reached to shake the hand of the lady next to me. Something must have tipped her off that I wasn't from Rwanda (might have been the fact that we were the only muzungus in the cathedral) and instead she said, very shyly with a smile, "Peace?" For some reason, that little effort to connect with me left a big impression on me.

After mass we set off for Marambi Hill Memorial, which was one of the most intense experiences of my time in Rwanda so far.

First a little history... In 1994 a school was in the process of being built on Marambi Hill. When the genocide started, people from all around the region were sent to the school and told that it would be a safe place for them to stay. They were sent by local leaders, including teachers and pastors, to one of the most horrific events of the genocide. Somewhere around 50,000 people were crammed into a collection of 10 or so buildings, where they hid for two weeks without any regular access to food and water. They were given a few police officers supposedly for their protection, but who in reality were there to keep everyone penned in.

After two weeks of sporadic attacks on the hill, the genocidaires came in full force, throwing grenades into the school buildings and emptying machine guns.

There are 4 known survivors from Marambi Hill.

50,000 people is the population of Ames.

Now Marambi Hill is the site of one of the most grisly memorials imaginable. Around 27,000 bodies have been exhumed from the mass graves which were dug by the genocidaires and have now been given a proper burial, but there are still many more to find and bury. There are also over 1,000 bodies which are not buried, and instead sit in 24 classrooms where the murdering took place. This is how the memorial works - you walk around the grounds and look into different classrooms, seeing skeletons strewn througout each room in the same position they were found in. The bodies of children are always closest to the door. It is the starkest, most blatant way of saying that this must never, ever, ever happen again.

The sites of the mass graves were bodies were thrown after the massacre are also marked on the unfinished school's grounds. We were told that many of the people thrown into the graves were not dead yet. There is also a marker for where the French army set up a volleyball court during Operation Turquoise, when France supposedly sent in an army to stop the genocide but in reality was protecting the genocidaires, who the French government had invested a lot of money and weapons in. The volleyball pitch is about 30 feet away from the mass graves.

After touring the memorial, we met with a man who works there and is one of the four survivors from the hill. He told us how he went out to fight the genocidaires when they attacked, and returned to the room he had hid in with his family only to find his wife and children murdered. He was shot in the head, but somehow managed to crawl his way to another hill that night and slowly made his way to Burundi. There is literally a hole on the top of his head where the bullet still sits in his skull.

The visit was, in a word, overwhelming.

From Marambi we had a long, somber drive back to Kigali, which gave us time to recover our thoughts and emotions.

Back in Kigali we headed to dinner with Elizabeth, the principal of FAWE school for girls and one of our main helpers in organizing our time in Rwanda. We had dinner at the home of one of the teachers of FAWE, and it was pretty much a full-out party. In addition to the 15 of us on the trip they hosted a few neighbors, our drivers, a few students from FAWE, and a couple teachers as well.

While we sat and talked in the sitting room of the house, someone turned out the lights and a birthday cake was brought out to me. After listening to the happy birthday song sung in three different languages, I happily blew out my candles. To my surprise, the singing continued, and I was told it wouldn't stop until I “celebrated my birthday”. I was thoroughly confused, but since a knife was brought out to me I cut the cake, not knowing what else to do. The singing continued. As I was looking around without a clue of what to do, one of the girls from FAWE walked over, took a piece of it, and spoon-fed it to me like a child. I was pretty much speechless, and was laughing as I tried to force my cake down. I told everyone we would have to count that as a learning experience in cultural differences.

After everyone had taken some cake, Jeremiah, one of our drivers, came over and presented a gift to me. It was igisoro, a local board game I had been attempting to buy for the past week or so, and a hand made Rwandan card signed by everyone in attendance. The willingness of these relative strangers to make a special plan for my birthday, and the fun of learning cultural differences firsthand was an awesome experience for me.

After a traditional Rwandan dinner and a little bit of speech-giving, we said our goodbyes and set off. My new friend in Rwanda who took Andrew and I out on Friday night had agreed to show us around for my birthday. Almost our entire group went out, and we had a blast celebrating my birthday across the world.

From morning mass, to Marambi Hill, to a surprise celebration, my birthday was a rollercoaster of emotions, and the most memorable birthday I've ever had.

Ames in Rwanda?

This past weekend we took a trip to the south of Rwanda, to the town of Butare. Butare is the home of the National University of Rwanda, and it really feels like a University town. It actually reminded me a little bit of Ames - it had a relaxed atmosphere and the presence of college-aged students was welcome.

When we arrived in Butare we first visited the National Museum of Rwanda for a little bit. The museum was concerned with the entire history of Rwanda, starting with prehistoric times. It was interesting to learn about Rwanda outside of the context of the genocide, and I think it reminded us that there is more to the history of Rwanda than 1994.

After the National Museum we went and took a tour of the university campus, which was pretty cool and really reminded me of universities back home. It was interesting to see the gender difference at the university - only about 30% of the students were girls. Even though gender equality is being stressed throughout Rwanda now, it's still taking some time to come into effect.

Genuine Rwanda

Friday I was finally able to get a true experience of Rwanda, something I didn't know would be possible in a group of 15 Americans.

In the morning two other students and I visited King Faisal Hospital, the top medical center in all of Rwanda. On our initial tour of the hospital it seemed really similar to Mary Greeley in Ames, although Mary Greeley doesn't have the distinction of being the best hospital in our country. After our tour, though, we met with two med students from Duke University who are doing a rotation abroad in Rwanda, and they gave us a much more real interpretation of the hospital.

A good way to summarize would be to say that I'm thankful for the healthcare we get in America. King Faisal is the best hospital in the country, yet these students said that they had patients routinely die from illnesses that you would never dream of someone dying from in America. The biggest problem they face is simply the lack of resources. This hospital has the only CT machine in Rwanda, and if you need an MRI you have to go to Kenya. The Duke students said they didn't even know how many CT machines they have in their hospital back home. Also, this is a private hospital - the public hospital is much, much poorer.

The organization of healthcare in Rwanda is very similar to its government organization. There are small clinics that serve local populations, and everyone goes to their local clinic first. If the illness is too serious to treat at that clinic, they are moved up to a larger hospital with more resources. The most serious cases would be the ones who go to King Faisal. It's a logical system; the only problem is the general lack of resources. Hopefully that's something the government will start to emphasize soon.

In the afternoon we met with the Minister of Education (yes, that would be the person who runs the entire education system of Rwanda). I'm amazed at how easy it is to meet people of importance here. I don't think I would ever meet a secretary of education or defense or anything like that in America. It just wouldn't happen.

Also on that note, I forgot to mention that while we were standing outside King Faisal we ran into the Secretary of Defense of Rwanda and talked with him a bit. No big deal.

Anyway, it was interesting to meet with the Minister of Education. She was really interested in our work here, and she was really interested in getting us to come back to Rwanda to teach. Rwanda really wants English speaking teachers right now, so they're trying really hard to get people from America through programs like the Peace Corps and WorldTeach. It's a little sad that Americans get teaching jobs before Rwandans, but I guess it's one of the dilemmas created by switching to an all-English teaching system.

The minister also gave us some interesting information about education in Rwanda in general. In the 30 years before the 1994 genocide, less than 3,000 students graduated from the National University of Rwanda, the only public university in the country. Total. As of right now, 15 years later, their are about 25,000 students currently enrolled in public universities. Presently, 45% of the Rwandan population is 15 years old or younger. The genocide decimated Rwanda, but the country has made some extremely impressive steps forward since it happened. The minister said that 98% of children in Rwanda attend school right now, which I'm positive is a completely false statistic, but the emphasis on education is admirable. As she said, they need to get the education system correct now, while the young generation is so large.

In the evening Andrew and I went out with the son of a contact Dr. Keino has here in Kigali. He's 20 years old, so it was really cool to spend some time with someone my age here. We went to a local restaurant to get some dinner, and it was like a completely different world. It was like we were finally able to experience Rwanda the way people here do, instead of from our bubble of tourism. He was also the first person who spoke to us honestly about Rwanda, giving us both the good and the bad of the country rather than the pretty image presented to tourists here.

We also stopped by his house for a while and met his family. His family is reeeeally wealthy (he may be coming to ISU next year), but it was still a really good way to get a sample of life in Rwanda.

Welcome Back

Thursday was pretty much dedicated entirely to the orphanage. It was really good to spend a whole day there, as it really let us get a feel for daily life. I spent a little time helping out to organize our service project, providing bags and school supplies for all the people who live at the orphanage. The majority of the time, though, I spent with the kids. Since we were there for so long it was easy to find some kids who weren't doing much and play around with them for a while. Some of the kids discovered that I have both hairy arms AND legs, so that was a pretty big hit.

Some of the university students who were raised at the orphanage were also around, so I spent a lot of time talking with them. In general they speak English really well, and a few of them have even been to America before (with the East African Children's Choir). I really like talking with people my age about our lives and the places we come from.

I remarked to one guy that I was amazed how all hundred or so people of the orphanage get along like one giant family, and how happy everyone is in general. He told me about some of the stories of the kids I was playing with. One boy was found abandoned in the forest as an infant; one boy lived in the streets for 5 months with a foot too badly burnt to walk; one girl was born to a handicapped woman who was raped and abandoned. He said he has watched all these babies grow up into the amazing children they are now, and knows they must have a special protection. Gisimba really is an incredible place.

A small group of us students were picked up from the orphanage by someone I'm going to call a very distant relative - the uncle of a woman from Rwanda I met through an obscure relative of my grandparents. We visited Jotham's home and were welcomed with open arms. It was a wonderful experience to visit a home here in Kigali, and we were treated to a traditional Rwandan meal that has left me so full I am nearly unable to walk.

It really feels good to be back in Kigali... it's amazing how you can meet people across the world and turn a foreign city into a home.

Wednesday, May 20 - Heading Home

And by home I mean Kigali. Even though we've been staying in a tropical paradise here in Gisenyi, I think there's pretty much a consensus that we were ready to head back to Kigali. Since Gisenyi really just feels like a vacation, it makes Kigali seem like home - like it's where I'm most comfortable and in my element.

It was still a little sad to leave Paradis, especially because I had just started to get to know all the service people who had been so incredibly kind to us while we were there - the type of service you would pay hundreds of dollars for in America. After saying our goodbye we set off though, but we made a bit of a detour on the way back.

There's a primary school called Mwiko that sits right next to the Virunga Lodge, a hotel with views you pay $700 a night for. So the setting is good. It takes about 30 minutes of very, very slow driving with a few feet of clearance on either side of the truck between you and a couple thousand feet drop off the hill. The bright side of this is that the views are absolutely stunning - there's a lake, a volcano, and plenty of hills all set out in front of you. You also get to look at the clouds from about eye level.

The difficulty of the drive illustrates the biggest problem the school faces, its total isolation. Mwiko is extremely poor and extremely poorly supplied. Some of the teachers end up working for free, which is truly amazing. Seems unlikely for that to happen in America. If the drive up is hard, imagine what it's like for the hundreds of students and teachers who make the journey every day - on foot. One teacher I met said he walked an hour every morning and an hour every night between home and school. The dedication everyone shows is incredible. We arrived to the sight of about 300 students crowding the road waving at us in greeting... visitors are just as rare as supplies here. I observed an English class where everything had been in French until the start of the year (including the teacher's education). So a teacher who doesn't really speak English himself is trying to meet the new requirement to teach in English. Not an ideal situation, but once again, impressive dedication.

After a brief time with some of the students we needed to leave already in order to get some lunch at a reasonable time. As we were getting ready to leave, the whole school assembled and sang the school song and a welcoming song to us. A couple students danced in front of the rest of the kids as they sang, and the whole thing was awesome. When the second song started, the little 8 year old kid who was sort of leading the dance ran over to me and pulled me over to dance with him. My skills in traditional African dance are fairly lacking, and I think all 300 students present got a lot of enjoyment out of it. It's a pretty fair exchange, though, because it was definitely one of my favorite moments so far on the trip.

After we successfully navigated our way back down the mountain we started the lengthy drive back to Kigali, where I'm typing from now. I loved the countryside of Rwanda, but I'm definitely a city person. It feels like this is where all the action is happening; it's the place where I really get the feel for what's going on in Rwanda right now. We also have consistent internet, hot water, and comfortable beds.

It's good to be back.

Tuesday, May 19

Since some of us still hadn't had our fill of the Gishwati region (or maybe the ridiculous views on the way there) 5 of us woke up early again on Tuesday to make the drive back. Even though the ride is bumpy, I don't think I would ever get tired of that commute.

Rather than tree-planting/idiot acting, this time we were going just to take a hike through the current forest and check it out. It was cool, though not really as cool as the gorillas' forest. It was just nice to be out in nature for a little while.

We got back to Paradis that afternoon and I was finally able to truly relax. So far, even though we had been on our vacation time I had somehow been busy doing things every single day. It was good to take some time and think about everything I have done and experienced so far. It's also the perfect opportunity to catch up on all my blogs so far, and as I type this I'm sitting out watching the fishing boats come in with a pot of Rwandan coffee and perfect weather.

It's amazing how disconnected from everything else in the world this trip can make you feel.

Monday, May 18

Monday was back to work as usual, and even though we were still staying in Paradis (the actual name of our hotel) we were doing plenty of work again. We woke up early to start our two hour drive to the Gishwati forest, but it was definitely, definitely worth it. I think Dr. Keino might have said something like “Rwanda is really pretty” at one of our meetings during the semester, and I think it was the biggest understatement of my life. Rwanda is absolutely, hands-down, no question the most beautiful place I have ever even dreamed of seeing. I didn't come here expecting to be blown away by the natural geography, so that made it even better. I will never, ever be able to put the landscape into words, so instead I'll describe my reaction: many times I had goosebumps as I looked out over the thousand hills and fields and I was devastated when I would think that I only had such a short time to see it. I thought the Cinque Terre of Italy was gorgeous, but there is more beauty in 10 minutes of driving through Rwanda than in all of Europe.

We met the people of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa at their field station and set off hiking to the site of all the tree planting. The chimpanzees living in the Gishwati right now are doomed to extinction unless they can start breeding with the chimps in the much larger forest to the south, so a plan has been devised to connect the two places by creating a corridor of forest for the chimps to travel in.

After a solid hike we arrived at the planting site and were surprised to see that about 50 people were already working there. I think we were all under the impression that we would just be by ourselves doing some conservation work, but we were actually joining a large part of the local working force. The government of Rwanda has recognized the problem of depletion of Rwanda's forest and is funding the project to restore them. It's a pretty good deal, as it employs tons of the people living nearby in the process.

The only problem with this situation was that we were kind of trying to do these people's job when they were already much, much better at it than us and were obviously only slowed down by our presence. I decided I would do anything to keep myself from looking like some conceited America who comes in and tells people what to do, so I tried to help as much as I could while making a fool of myself in the process. It actually worked out well – even though I couldn't communicate with any of the people around, everyone understood the comedy of me trying to do their job.

So we planted a few trees, then eventually hiked our way back to our jeeps. Along the way kids from all the houses along the path would see me walk by and run to follow me. By the time I got close to the village there was probably 15 kids following me just to check me out - it looked like it came straight out of a UNICEF commercial. Everyone else was pretty exhausted and started the drive back to Paradis, but Lori (another student) and I stayed back with some people from the Great Ape Trust to work on our bean pole project. We spent a while talking to a local farmer and learning all about the process of growing beans in Rwanda. We got answers to a lot of questions that we would have otherwise been clueless about, but I'm not entirely sure that these are the answers we wanted.

We finally started our journey back home around 4 (views were still incredible even to my exhausted senses) and arrived just in time for some dinner. I had asked the girls from FAWE school what their favorite traditional Rwandan dish was – what they really wanted to eat whenever they went home with their families. They family meals usually consisted of beans, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, matooke (pretty much a potato shaped like a banana), and a sauce. I don't think they're usually concerned with leaving on an empty stomach.

Anyway, I had noticed that our hotel had a dish called 'Plat Rwandais', which was pretty much exactly what the girls had described. I decided I needed to try it, and not surprisingly I was stuffed. It was actually a lot more flavorful than I expected... the beans were really good and Rwandan sweet potatoes are like American sweet potatoes on steroids.

So exhausted, sunburnt, and full to bursting I fell asleep without a problem.

Sunday, May 17

I woke up Sunday morning and just soaked up the atmosphere: laying out on the beach, checking out the mountain scenery, and watching the fishing boats come in. The previous night I saw tons of little wooden boats setting out to the lake and was told that they were fishing boats that went out and fished all night. As they returned in the morning they chanted traditional Rwandan songs to signal how much fish they had caught the night before. Really cool to see tribal traditions still carried out in a non-contrived fashion.

I also went to church that morning, which was really fun but reeeeeally long. We left after a little more than 2 hours and the service was about half way done. It was like 90% singing and 10% preaching, and the other girl who came and I were welcomed with a special song by everyone.

We spent pretty much the rest of the day relaxing, which included a dinner at the Serena Hotel in town, a pretty fancy place that runs about $200 a night. Keep in mind that's $200 in Rwanda, where our budget accommodation has its own beach and incredible service. So it was pretty nice.

Saturday, May 16

We woke well before dawn Saturday morning and headed to the visitor center, where we met our guides and learned about the gorilla group we would be visiting. There are 5 groups that receive tourist visitors, and no more than 8 people can go to see one at any time. The name of our group was Umubano; it was made up of 10 gorillas, including one 2 week old baby. It was also the furthest group from the center, which we learned as we limped along the roughest, bumpiest one hour drive I have ever seen. In retrospect I'm pretty amazed nobody was injured by colliding heads or slamming against the windows.

Once we stumbled out of our jeep we had a 40 minute walk through some local farmland until we reached the 'Buffalo Wall', the wall separating the park from the surrounding land. We were met by two soldiers with fully automatic weapons who are supposedly needed to protect us from any buffalo or elephants that might charge us (I can't help but suspect their presence also has a little bit to do with our proximity to the DRC and Uganda). From the wall we walked another 20 minutes before we met our trackers, the men who had been following our gorillas all day and directing our guides via radio.

We set all our things down and forged our way forward. I was the first person behind our guide, and I'll never forget turning a corner to see a baby gorilla rolling around on the ground before climbing up into the trees. As we walked around the area the gorillas had nested in we realized that all of them were actually up in the trees. We tried to get as good a view as possible as we dodged falling branches and gorilla pies, but they were really high up there. Luckily after 30 minutes or so we were led to a clearing where the mother was eating with her 2 week old baby – so young it wasn't even able to walk yet, it just clung onto its mother's side wherever she went.

More gorillas kept coming, and eventually we were pretty much surrounded by them. We were supposed to stay at least 7 meters away at all times, but the average was more like 3. The closest encounter, however, came when the silverback (the male leader of the group) decided to come and check us out. Our guide informed us he was approaching, so I started to film him walking. He was huge – about 3 times the size of me. As I was filming I realized that the path he was walking along actually intersected my path right where I was standing. I looked over at our guide, who seemed to realize the same thing and said “maybe you should back up a little.” I would have, but there was an entire line of people standing behind me trying to get a good view, so it didn't really work out. Instead, boss gorilla kind of lumbered his way by about 4 feet away from me. I could have bent over and touched him, or he could have turned and punched my leg into 500 pieces.

It was awesome.

The whole experience was awesome really. So cool to see an animal as rare and impressive as a mountain gorilla in its natural environment. Their human-ness was pretty crazy – some of their gestures and actions struck me as something I would do on a normal basis.

When we finally got back into town (about 3 hours after our other group), we ate lunch and set off for Gisenyi, a city on the western border of Rwanda. Gisenyi is a border city (with DRC) and a lake town, and our hotel happens to be lakeside property. 'Lake', in this instance, should not be confused with the Iowa definition of lake – Lake Kivu is pretty huge. If it wasn't for the giant mountains just across on the Congo side of the lake I don't think we'd be able to see the other side from our hotel.

About our hotel... If you know me very well you know that the beach is my happy place.
Yes, our hotel is on its own beach.
Yes, we have tiki style huts and reclining chairs on it.
Yes, the hotel bar/restaurant is an indoor/outdoor thing that sits on a point.
Yes, we stay in little bungalow rooms.
Yes, we were welcomed to the hotel with a traditional Rwanda dance.
Yes, I fell asleep to the sound of surf.

I love it.

Friday, May 15

Friday morning we woke up at our usual 6am to visit Green Hills Academy, a private school that's very well funded – President Kagame's children attend. As we took a tour of the grounds I was extremely impressed by how nice the perfectly landscaped campus was; obviously some of the money the school gets goes into looking prestigious as well as being prestigious. The school has a very interesting admissions system that's based on an entrance exam rather than simply being able to pay. If you score well enough on the exam and are admitted to the school then you pay fees based on what you can pay, so the rich families end up paying for some of the poorer kids' education.

I sat in on a 5th year class, and I loved it. The instructor, Teacher Caroline (Teacher is the title students use here), was teaching students who had been taught in French their whole lives up until 5 months ago. However, Green Hills is currently in the process of switching to all English teaching (I think both for practical reasons and because of Rwanda's current feelings toward France) and these students are now being taught in English. I really enjoyed Tr. Caroline's style of teaching – she had the class split up into teams and gave out our took away points from each team as a rewards/punishment. She had a policy of absolutely no French or Kinyarwanda spoken in the class otherwise she would deduct points, and she enforced it very strictly but still managed to be fun.

Her style was obviously effective as well because I was blown away by the English ability of the students. I was also amazed by their honesty – when she thought she heard French somewhere and asked a student if they had spoken French the students were always honest. I really enjoyed getting to observe and participate in her class. I also observed her teach English to students who had not been placed into a full immersion English setting, and the difference was striking. Their English level was nowhere near as good as her regular students. I got to spend time answering questions from the class, too, and it was really fun to hear the questions they came up with. They asked about everything from family, pets (extremely rare here), whether I know countless celebrities (Kobe Bryant, Miley Cyrus, and of course, Barack Obama), and the first question I always hear, where my loyalties lie in football (Best team: Barcelona, best player: Messi. Luckily I picked up a little in Scotland).

I then got to observe the students' option class, where they choose what classes they would like to have out of art, band, dance, and debate. Tr. Caroline was in charge of debate, so I went to that one. In case you were wondering, yes these are still 5th year students. First of all, who knows how to debate when they're 10 years old? But it gets even better – they debate in English. I was absolutely amazed. The topic was whether or not science has done more harm than good, and they raised points that I think some high schoolers would have trouble bringing up. They spoke properly, saying things like “for example” and “I would like to address a point raised by the third opposer” and sometimes rambled on for 5 minutes or more. After a while the teacher had me introduce myself and see if anyone wanted to ask me questions. I made the mistake of making a little joke about the topic which just launched everyone back into debate again. They didn't even hesitate to skip asking me questions! It was a little unbelievable.

After debate I ate lunch with the students and talked to the girl who mediated the debate, Kelley. If I'm completely honest, it was a little odd – I felt like I was talking to someone my age stuck in a 10 year old's body. I learned about her family, which sounded like one of the more wealthy ones attending the school, but I was most interested to hear about her father. Her father is currently serving in Sudan, in the force Rwanda sent to help fight the genocide in Darfur. While almost the whole world recognizes that a genocide is occurring in Darfur right now, the protective forces come largely from tiny little Rwanda. Rwanda: a country with little military to serve for its own defense but a country that knows firsthand why genocide needs to be stopped.

That afternoon we left Green Hills and headed up to the northwestern part of Rwanda, to a place a little bit outside of the city of Musanze. This part of the country shares the Virunga volcanic range with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the volcanoes are surrounded by a large jungle which is one of the few remaining habitats of mountain gorillas. The drive up was beautiful – the mountains would drift in and out of sight as the low lying clouds sailed along, all illuminated by the light of sunset.

We spent the night in a lodge right next to the Volcanoes National Park center where we would start our trek for gorillas the next day. It was very basic, back to wilderness accomodation and I loved it. At night I stepped outside and heard a collection of sounds I've never even dreamed of... the animals of the jungle are a little different than what you can hear at night in Iowa.

Thursday, May 14

Thursday was a pretty busy day, but compared to our first three days here in Rwanda it was almost like a holiday. In the morning, we went to another secondary school, College St. Andre, and I sat in on an S4 Chemistry class. I was once again really impressed by the discipline of the students and their dedication to their education, especially to learning in English. Everyone here tries so hard in school – as Dr. Keino says, maybe they try too hard. Everyone is so focused on succeeding in school and going to that prestigious American university that they don't take any time to just enjoy being young (compared to Americans at least). Of course on the other hand, they end up making American students look lazy and unappreciative by comparison, so I guess it's a trade-off.

After St. Andre we went to a market in Kigali, which was pretty much an exercise in keeping myself from looking like I was in a group of 15 Americans. Pretty difficult, seeing as we were probably the only muzungus in the place, but I did fairly well. The market is pretty much what I expected – vendors selling everything from freshly slaughtered meat to clothing to crafts to kitchenware to haircuts. I bought a couple things from the market, sometimes for as much as 1/3 the price other people in my group paid. There's probably a few reasons for that... knowing a little bit of local languages, being a guy, and probably not walking around in a group (practically a bulls' eye for vendors). Amazingly, I was done shopping well before any of the girls were, so after I convinced one guy selling crafts that I had no more money I was able to talk to him for about a half hour using a mix of my limited Kinyarwanda and French and his limited English. Probably pretty entertaining to listen to.

After lunch we went to Gisimba for the whole afternoon; it was nice to finally be able to spend a solid amount of time there. We brought them American footballs and frisbees, so it was really fun to play some American games with them. I spent a lot of time sitting and talking with the older kids since the little ones all seem to rush to the girls in our group. It was really fun but at times very frustrating – it's really easy to interact with a child even if you don't share a language but with older kids it can be really hard because you feel like you should be able to communicate more. Luckily some of the kids there speak English very well, so I was able to spend some time chatting with them and playing with the occasional child who would run by.

Once we left the orphanage we headed to an Italian restaurant for dinner, and the view was awesome. The hills of Kigali rolled out in front of us as night set in and the lights flicked on. Kigali is a different city from anywhere else I have ever seen. There were lights everywhere, climbing up and down the hills as far we could see, but they're different from other cities. There are no skyscrapers, and the lights aren't nearly as densely jammed together as a typical Western city.

We walked home from the restaurant, and even though it was only a 10 minute walk or less, it really made me realize how much I wish I was walking places instead of riding in a car. Kigali is a really safe city, and you miss out on so much of what a place is really like when you sit in a car the whole time. We're more than just physically separated from the people of Kigali when we ride around in our mobile bubble, and it can be a little frustrating. Luckily I've been able to make meaningful connections with people at some of the different places we've been.

Wednesday, May 13 - Up and Down

I know, this is a little late. Traveling Rwanda kind of has the side effect of cutting you off from the internet.

So to continue my travel log, on Wednesday morning we went to FAWE, an all-girls boarding school. It was pretty obvious that there weren't too many boy visitors, especially American boys, as I seemed to be getting quite a bit of attention everywhere I walked. The first class I went to was just a Q&A session with the students there (S6, so the same as a senior in high school). They mostly just asked us about what America was like where we live and what the education system is like. We also had occasional questions regarding personal life, which were probably much more interesting to everyone involved. After answering simple questions like what we do for fun in America, we got to the juicy stuff that everyone apparently really wanted to know, like how old we we were. My reply that I was 20 years old was met with giggles and “ooohs” of surprise. When we were later asked if we were dating anybody the girls I was with seemed to make the deliberate effort to prevent me from having to answer the question and being asked for any premature marriage proposals.

The second class I sat in on was an S5 physics class, which was very impressive. The students were learning much more advanced concepts than I did when I was a senior in high school. I was also really taken aback by the students' eagerness to participate – not something that you see very often in America.

From FAWE we left for a local hospital, which was pretty much just a small clinic – it only served the local population of ~1,500 people. While I would normally be extremely excited at the prospect of seeing what a medical setting is like in another country, I didn't enjoy this visit at all. From the moment we our trucks pulled up I felt apprehensive – 15 people taking a tour of a tiny little hospital didn't really seem like it would be what the patients here would want to see. Hopefully sometime next week I'll be able to return in a smaller group and will have more to say about it, but for now I'll just move on.

After we broke for lunch we went to the Village of Hope, the Kigali branch of the Rwanda Women's Network. It was a little ways out of the main part of the city and almost felt like we were out in the countryside. When we arrived we were treated to a song performance by a few of the youth women who are a part of the network. We then learned all about the center as it is now – while I'm sill a little confused about how exactly it all works, I know that it does help a lot of women who would otherwise be unable to provide for themselves and their children. Many of the women have lost husbands to AIDS and are HIV+ themselves from the use of rape as a weapon of genocide; other women had husbands killed during the genocide or from diseases. The center gives the women the training and the means they need to perform a craft (like basketweaving) and then sells the products they make. All of the money from the sales goes straight into putting the women's children in school and keeping the center running. While everything is a little more expensive than market price, it's easy to justify spending what is only a small amount more from my perspective in order to put kids in school and support this organization.

After we did a bit of shopping, we went to a classroom where we were told all about the history of the center. It was awesome to hear about how everything started from the women who were around at the start themselves. It was a really inspirational story about women coming together after the genocide and trying to help each other out. The coolest moment, though, was when we were all done and about to leave. The big lady who had told us the whole history of the center walked over to me out of nowhere, gave me the biggest bear hug ever, and said murakoze (thank you).

Once we were done at the Village, we returned to FAWE to spend some more time with the students there. Everyone was still busy when we arrived, so we met with an American woman who was teaching at the school through WorldTeach. She was really cool and was able to give us a little more insight into what life was like at the school, especially for the teachers. I learned a lot more, though, once she recruited/harassed some students into coming and talking with us in a more small group environment. I talked to two girls who spoke English pretty much perfectly; I probably learned more about Rwanda from talking with them than everything else on the trip combined. Since we only had one of our cars available to us (one of our drivers had just had a baby born so we released him from service), only half of us were able to go to the orphanage that evening while the rest stayed to spend more time at FAWE. I had no problem staying and talking – it was the first time I'd really been able to know people outside of our bubble of Americans, and I was happy to talk about school and life in general between our countries.

To summarize my feelings after visiting the school, I can only say that I am extremely, extremely impressed. The ability, motivation, and dedication of 90% of the students at FAWE is probably about the same as the top 10% or less in America. Everybody here dreams of attending university in the USA, and to be honest they all deserve it. What's sad is that probably less than a quarter will actually succeed in that goal because it is so expensive/difficult to be accepted, while about a quarter of freshman college students in America will eventually end up dropping out from what usually amounts to lack of motivation. It really gave me a perspective on how much we take education for granted and on the unfairness of the global division of wealth.

I'm trying my best not to fall even further behind in this blog, so I'm going to write about everything we did yesterday (Tuesday) now.

We started the day with some more city touring. I kept up my practice of never really stopping my question-asking, and I have pages of notes on my thoughts as proof. So here's a few that I'll list for now:

- Traffic here reminds me a lot of Rome, though not quite as crowded. The only traffic law seems to be "Don't cause an accident" and it seems to pretty much work. Horns basically mean "Hi, I'm over here, don't hit me."
- The roads of Kigali are very nice - at least the ones they have chosen to make that way. Very smooth, with great landscaping along them. The government is all about cleaning up Kigali, and in the process it's creating lots of jobs. Dr. Keino says the roads are much better than in Kenya, although there are still plenty of pothole paradise roads around, too.
- Small scale business rules the city. The city is absolutely filled with people running a business of some sort. If they're lucky the have a tiny 10 foot by 10 foot little building to use as a shop, but plenty of people simply walk around, carrying their business with them. A perfect example is women carrying around huge baskets of fruit on their head selling to everyone they walk by. Such a huge difference from the American business model, and it seems to work.
- The only tax here is on purchases, which makes sense because you really can't tax the microbusinesses many people operate. I can't help but wonder if this practice can keep sustaining the government as the country continues to develop?
- The government organization is very unique, and kind of takes from Rwanda's true African roots. the government is very decentralized, with organization going all the way down to the local (and I really mean local) level of ~30 houses. These mini-governments (I can't remember their name) have their own leader, responsible for settling disputes and even providing work for everyone. Very interesting - a government with a personal stake in its affairs.
- Rwandan lawn mower = machete. Now that's tough work.
- 19 of every 20 cars is a Toyota. The rest are Mercedes. Don't know why.

Don't worry, I have plenty more to share later.

After our driving we ate lunch with Dr. Keino's friend John, who works in the UN here. From there we went to the Kigali Memorial Center, a memorial to the 1994 genocide. It was every bit as emotional as I expected. I wouldn't really say I learned much new information, but it is totally different to get the information here in Rwanda, where it is so much more real. The experience is so much more powerful to be in a building built by Rwandans, staffed by Rwandans, walking along with Rwandans... it hit me on such a personal level. There were a few things that really got to me, so I'll put some of those in here.

- I was blown away right from the start when the man at the welcome desk informed us that he had visited 415 memorials throughout the country but he had not visited them all.
- If the number of people used to evacuate foreigners from Rwanda were sent as peacekeeping troops instead, there would have been more than enough troops to stop the genocide.

And a few quotes from around the museum...

"He who saves one life saves the world entire" - Talmud
What does that mean when over 800,000 people are murdered?

A quote that really illustrates the incredibly hard problem Rwanda faced after the genocide:
"There can be no humanity without forgiveness. There can be no forgiveness without justice. But there can be no justice without humanity" - Yolande Mukagasana

A quote from a video about other genocides in the world that captured my feelings as a whole:
"Sometimes we call it war. Sometimes we call it ethnic cleansing. Sometimes we call it genocide. Any way we call it, we have wasted lives."

And finally, after I've gone through almost all of this incredibly emotional experience, I walk into the final section, the child victim section. The very first sign says, "This is dedicated to our children, who should have been our future."
And that pretty much finished me off.

But we couldn't end our day with the memorial, important as it is to understand, so went straight from the memorial to Gisimba orphanage, where our emotions can shift to the other extreme. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend as much time with the kids since we talked with Ildephonse, the director, about our plans for service work with Gisimba. We did get a little time with the kids - mostly photoshooting - and then we had to go home. I've noticed that the older boys (young teenagers) seems to hang out with Andrew and I a lot more than the little ones, who really seem to gravitate toward the girls... which makes sense I guess.

Even though we had already had an unbelievably full day, some of us decided we were still up for a little more and went to meet with the students from Simpson College who are just now going home from their trip in Rwanda. To be honest, my reason for going probably had more to do with the destination than the students (though it ended up being really fun to meet them and hear about their trip... just got me even more excited for the rest of ours). We met them at the Hotel des Mille Collines, the place where the controversial Paul Rusesabagina saved over 1,000 lives during the genocide. It was a fitting way to end a crazily up-and-down emotion day - a place that brings both good and bad to mind.

What Can I Possibly Say?

I can't believe it - I'm in Rwanda, and as my title suggests, I definitely can't summarize my feelings in one title, and I kind of doubt I'll even be able to in an entire blog. I'm sorry (especially to my mom) for not blogging anything earlier, but we've been really, really busy - I haven't even had time to properly think about everything I've experienced so far, much less formulate it into proper words. If I go to sleep this instant I'll have just under 7 hours of sleep, so we'll see how much sleep I'm willing to sacrifice in order to record my time so far. I'm guessing it will be a while before I am fully caught up.

I continued my previous practice of being unable to sleep on plane journeys, so I was fairly tired when we arrived in London on Sunday morning. We walked around the city seeing a few big sights, but to be honest I was not really paying attention. A lot of people thought it was weird, but I spent a lot of the time in London on the phone with my former flatmates in Scotland. I brought my phone I had in Scotland, and since I'd already seen the sights of London (and know they'll be there next time I visit) I just took advantage of the opportunity to talk to some of my best friends in the world. London is a great city, but I value my friends more. The one time I wasn't on my phone, though, was one of the coolest experiences I'd had in my life, when we technically had our first taste of being in Rwanda: visiting the Rwandan embassy in the UK. I've never been in a foreign embassy before, and don't really see it happening anytime soon, so it was a really cool experience. We met the Rwandan ambassador, who was really nice and gave us his card (coolest souvenir ever) and said if we ever wanted to do some work in Rwanda to contact him. Definitely keeping that in mind!

We then flew to Nairobi (in Kenya), where we first experienced Africa Time, as we started to board for our flight to Kigali about an hour before take off and ended up sitting in an intermediate room for about 1.5 hours before actually getting on to the plane. After boarding we found out that the plane would in fact be flying to Bujumbura first, then flying to Kigali. Apparently this decision was made sometime as we were waiting in between 'pre-boarding' and 'boarding'. I just laughed and soaked it up as part of the experience, before even getting to Rwanda.

A lot has been said about what that first step off a plane into Africa is like... and I think it's probably just about all true. You immediately know you are walking somewhere you have never even been close to before. Smell is the sense most closely linked to memory and my first memory of Rwanda is a humid, damp, grainy smell with a little more to it that I guess I just have to call Africa.

We met up with our drivers who will be escorting us for the whole time we're in Rwanda, so it should be pretty cool to really get to know them. We headed to our hotel, which is very nice, actually maybe too nice. I'm very much used to travelling on a shoestring, and staying in a more localized, in tune with the surroundings type of place. Here we're very much in a bubble - gated and fenced off from the rest of the city and given the services of hotels I would never dream of getting in America. I feel like I've unintentionally adopted a bit of an air of superiority here, and I feel a little guilty about it.

After our much needed shower, we rode around in our 7-passenger jeeps for a tour of the city. Although it did little to dispel my feelings of acting extravagant, it was easily the most culturally shocking experience of my life, and I absolutely loved it. I have essentially sworn off taking photos (we already have 13 other students constantly taking pics, and we're all going to share, so what's the point?) and instead just devote myself 100% to just taking in the experience. Venturing a guess, I'd easily say I asked our driver close to 100 questions in hour few hours driving. I learned soooo much about the country from him, but what sticks the most in my memory is the people. Some people smile, wave, and give a friendly 'muzungu!' (the kinyarwanda word for white person, a subject i could probably write a whole blog about alone). And sometimes people look at our enclosed caravan of rich foreigners with an easily translatable look - something like 'why the **** are you taking a photo of me?' And that's totally, completely justified! I absolutely despise the fact that I felt like we were on a safari for humans at times. Reverse, the situation, and I would feel exactly the same. If some rich foreigners drove around Ames in a fancy limo taking photos of people living everyday lives and smiling and laughing I would be seriously offended. People deserve respect.

Regardless, I was really glad we went on the city tour, particularly because it put our last item of the day into such a real perspective. We visited Gisimba Orphanage, where we will be working at regularly, and I faced an experience I will neverevereverever forget. As we got out of our jeeps and were greeting the director, Ashley came over with a kid she was really close to when she came last year. As I was watching how happy they were to see each other, I felt something on my hand and looked down to see a child had appeared from somewhere to grab it and lean on my leg. As I was trying to say hi to him, another kid grabbed my other hand and started to look at my watch. Within 15 seconds I had about 4 kids holding on to me, feeling my hairy legs, and staring at my watch. As I was showing them all how to use my watch I realized that this is what I came here for... a life-changing experience.

So that was my first day in Rwanda. I still have all of today's activities to talk about, but I seriously need some sleep so it's not happening. Waking up at 6:30 tomorrow and checking out a school!

If anyone ever has any questions about what I've done or what I've experienced or learned about Rwanda in general just let me know, I'll be glad to answer!

So... What are you doing in Rwanda?

A question I always receive when I tell people I'll be traveling to Rwanda, and one that I should have addressed a while ago on this blog, is what exactly I'll be doing in Rwanda. I thought I was going to talk about it in my last post, but that obviously didn't happen, and procrastination leads to final projects leads to final exams leads to more procrastination, and now I leave in just over 72 hours (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and still haven't written anything about it. So it's probably about time I explain.

We'll fly out of Des Moines on May 9th, changing planes in Chicago before hopping across the Atlantic to London. We have 13 hours in London, so the original plan was to go out into the city and see some sights while we're in town. I guess there are rumors circulating now that we might not be able to leave the airport due to Swine Flu... So we might end up becoming pretty well acquainted Heathrow Airport. Oh well.

We'll arrive in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, on May 11th. We'll spend the first day recovering from a very looooong travel time and getting settled in the hotel we will be staying in whenever we are in Kigali. Kigali is sort of our base of operations while in Rwanda - for the most part we will spend our weekdays in Kigali and our weekends traveling around the country. The next day we will be taking a tour of the city and hopefully making our first visit to Gisimba Orphanage, the place we will spend the most time at throughout our trip. Our typical routine while we are in Kigali involves waking up (early) and spending time observing a local setting. Usually this will be a school, but there is also opportunity for me to spend time in a hospital since my area of interest lies a little outside of education. The schools also vary quite a bit, and include a 'typical' school, a women's school, and the school where the president's children attend. After our morning sit-ins we'll have lunch, and then spend the afternoon with the kids at Gisimba. I think we'll usually be there until around 7, when we'll head back to the hotel for dinner and getting ready for our next day.

Our first weekend in Rwanda (May 15th) we will take a trip up to the Northwest corner of the country, to the Virunga National Park. If that name rings any bells, it's because it probably should.... as it's one of the only places in the world where you can see GORILLAS in their natural environment. And yes, that is exactly what we will be doing. If anyone has ever seen Gorillas in the Mist or heard of Diana Fawcey, these are the gorillas you're thinking of. After spending a day trekking through the forest we'll head to Lake Kivu for a day of relaxation. Then we head South to the Gishwati forest to do some conservation work with the Great Ape Trust of Iowa (which is doing some pretty big-time work in Rwanda right now) and some recon work for Engineers Without Borders. I won't elaborate right now, but hopefully I'll get around to it before I leave because it's pretty exciting. On our way back to Kigali from our long weekend we'll also stop at Mwiko, a rural school on top of a hill with 300-some students if I'm remembering correctly. It's also very, very poorly funded, so it should be really interesting to compare to the other schools we see.

Then we'll be back in Kigali countinuing our usual routine. Our second weekend in Rwanda we'll head down to Butare, in the South, to experience in another part of the country. One of the main features (I think use of the word 'attraction' would be poor taste) of our trip to Butare will be visiting memorials to the genocide there. We will actually visit quite a few memorials during our trip, since they are very common throughout the country. I'm sure it will be an unforgettable part of the trip... What's it like to see memorials to the killing of a million people that occurred only 15 years ago?

After our trip south we'll head back to Kigali to wrap up our time with the orphange and present to our hosts everything we have learned on our trip. Somewhere in there I will also be turning 21... Turning 21 in Rwanda - how cool is that?!

Since our program director doesn't think we'll willingly leave the kids at the orphanage in order to return to the US she's luring us out of Rwanda with 3 days in Tanzania. We'll be doing the stereotypical 'African Experience': safari, incredible nature, native tribes, etc. Cliche, but still very, very exciting. From Tanzania we'll finally make our long, most likely sad, trip home.

So there's a basic breakdown of our trip! Obviously I don't want to go into too much detail, otherwise I won't have anything to write while I'm there. Eh... that's probably not true, I'll probably have more to write than I'll have time. Oh well.

Only three days, one final exam, and a few trip prepartions I still have to make (like... everything) between me and the experience of a lifetime!

Concerning Rwanda - the most important entry I will write

Wow.
This is now something like my 3rd or 4th hour writing this entry. I'm obsessing over it, as I tend to do when something is important to me. I sat down thinking I would just write a little bit more about what I'll be doing in Rwanda, but I realized I needed to explain Rwandan history a little in order to do that. Three hours later I have not even thought about explaining my role in going to Rwanda. I knew I was going to have to write something like this at some point; I just didn't realize how hard it would be to get it right.

So here is the post about Rwanda the country. This is probably what most people have been curious about in the back of their heads whenever they hear I will be going to Rwanda, so I hope I didn't completely screw it up. I'm still not happy with it, but I can tolerate it.

Disclaimer - this is a long post, and it is not a happy post. However, I think it is a very, very important post. I think it is just as important for me to put this into my words as it is for everyone in the world to know this story. So please, take the extra time to read this.
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To start, here is a short description of Rwanda which you can read if you choose, from the Kigali Genocide Memorial's website:
http://www.kigalimemorialcentre.org/old/about/index.html

Now to the history, and the history cannot begin without discussing the genocide. To a certain extent, the history of Rwanda is the genocide - what led to it, how it took place, and recovering from it. On the scroll of Rwanda's history, saying the genocide is like an ink blot is an understatement beyond reality. It is more as if the entire inkwell was dumped out, methodically staining every part of the scroll. But genocides do not happen by accident, so I will explain the origins to the best of my knowledge.

Not much is known of Rwanda before it was colonized - a fair summary would be that indigenous people lived there, and colonizers came and set in motion the cogs that would eventually produce the genocide machine. Pre-colonially, people belonged to one of 18 or so tribes. There was also a socio-economic classification in place: the Twa were indigenous pygmies, the Tutsis were the wealthy minority, and the Hutus were the poorer majority. While there were some traits that generally separated Tutsis and Hutus, they were certainly not considered different races. People could move between being a Tutsi and Hutu based on their personal situation.

The colonial era in Rwanda began in the late 1800s, first by Germany and then by Belgium. The colonizers, in true Western World spirit, saw fit to organize Rwanda their own way. They formed Tutsi and Hutu into ethnical groups and classes, based largely on the number of cattle a family owned. More than 10 = Tutsi, Less than 10 = Hutu. Since the Tutsi were considered a nobler race by the colonizers (because they believed them to share ancestral blood with the Western World) they were made the ruling minority over the Hutu commoners. The Tutsis were forced by colonizers to rule unfairly and deprive Hutus of full basic human rights. It took the Western World to bring race to Rwanda.

As colonialism began to crumble in the second half of the 1900s, Belgium gave in and held democratic elections in 1960. Not surprisingly, the Hutu majority took power completely. This sudden 180 degree shift threatened the stability of the country. Belgium took the moral high road (voice dripping with sarcasm here) and basically vacated the country as fast as possible, granting Rwanda independence in 1962. Needless to say, this completely irresponsible behavior left the country in turmoil. While this sounds despicable enough, it was actually much worse. Before leaving, Belgium helped draft a manifesto encouraging the 'ethnic cleansing' of Rwanda, turning it into a Hutu nation.

Over the next couple decades, around 1,000,000 Tutsis were forced into exile from Rwanda. This 'cleansing' was also accompanied by a significant amount of killing done by both groups. Many Tutsi exiles began to form the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and train as an army. In 1990, the RPF invaded Rwanda, starting a civil war. Does that sound strange? Invaded...starting a civil war. As messy as this sounds, keep in mind I am vastly simplifying this as well. After years of guerilla warfare, a peace treaty was signed in 1993, although it was not very well enforced.

In April 1994, as the effects of the peace treaty were still yet to be seen, the tiny nation of Rwanda exploded into violence. Propoganda had been spread calling for the violence against the Tutsi 'cockroaches' and for a united Hutu front. On April 6th, the Hutu president's plane was shot down and he was killed. Within hours roadblocks were set up throughout Kigali and killing of Tutsis began. This moment had been carefully prepared for, down to the lists of names to kill. Propoganda was immediately sent out calling for everyone to unite in the purging of the 'cockroaches'. There is much mystery surrounding the president's death, and many believe it was actually organized by the Hutu Power group, the driving force of the genocide, in order to provide the right spark to start the elimination of Tutsis in Rwanda.

I am in no position to attempt to properly describe a genocide... it feels wrong even attempting. I will share some details I feel are important, and encourage you to do some independent research as well. For the next 100 days, somewhere between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Rwandans were murdered. As a book I read began, "Decimation means the killing of every tenth person in a population." It was the most efficient mass murder since the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Five and a half people were killed every minute, a rate about three times higher than the Jewish Holocaust. However, as the Kigali Genocide Memorial website says, "the genocidaires did not kill a million people. They killed one, then another, then another..." Women, children, elderly... all killed indiscriminately and brutally. Machetes and clubs were the common tool of death. Whole families would watch as they were raped, murdered, and cut to pieces.

I am sorry if the graphic level of this description is disturbing to anyone, but I think you should know I want to disturb, shock, and horrify you. I think it is our obligation to know about this, and it is certainly something that I think should be both shocking and horrifying. After the Jewish Holocaust, the US promised 'Never Again'. Fifty years later, the entire world sat by as Rwandan Tutsis were nearly eliminated from the planet. The United States was too caught up in semantics to bother with actually doing something. If a genocide was taking place, the US was required by the Convention of 1948 to intervene. The US government didn't want to have to intervene, leading to this now famous exchange at a press briefing:

Christine Shelley, US State Dept: ...we have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred.

Journalist: How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?

Christine Shelley: Um, Allan, that's just not a question that I'm in a position to answer.

She went on to explain that "There are formulations that we are using that we are trying to be consistent in our use of."

Of course, if the entire briefing took twelve minutes, that means an average of 66 Rwandans were murdered in that time.

UN Commander Dallaire, in charge of the UN forces in Rwanda, estimated that as few as 5,000 troops would have been enough to enforce peace.

While most of the international community was content to have philosophical debates about what legally constitutes a genocide, some countries actually took the initiative to facilitate the genocide, supplying weapons to the genocidaires.

Overall, I'd say it's one of the most embarrassing moments for the so-called 'international community' in history.

I won't go into too much detail about post-genocide Rwanda, as the politics start to get extremely complicated. To summarize, millions of Hutus (both innocent and guilty of genocide) fled the country when the RPF took power, fearing retaliation. Refugee camps were set up just outside Rwanda's borders, which then became bases of operation for the displaced Hutu extremists to continue recruiting and murdering. They were conveniently supplied by dozens of different international aid agencies. The international community had finally decided to act, so what if they were a little ambiguous on who they helped? The new government attempted to bring everyone back to Rwanda in order to begin rebuilding the country. Over the next year about a million people came back to Rwanda, creating complete chaos in the process. This also created a completely unheard of and to my mind unimaginable situation: the Rwandan people now had the task of living normal lives alongside the very people who had just caused the murder of millions.

I should also take time to clarify at this point. The genocide was not a war; it was not Hutus vs. Tutsis. It was an effort by a radical group of Hutu extremists to bring the Tutsi population to extinction. Not every Hutu was a genocidaire, and in fact many, many Hutus were murdered for being too moderate, or too Tutsi friendly. If the attitude in Rwanda after the genocide had been retribution against the Hutu population as a whole, an endless cycle of ethnic hatred would have been set in concrete. I think this is a very important distinction.

Amazingly, Rwanda was successful. While violence continued for years and tensions were often high, somehow Rwanda stabilized. Rwandans acknowledge the horror of their country's past, and use that as a force to drive them forward. Rwanda has embraced the Millenium Development Goals initiative, and is one of the leading nations in Africa in achieving them. Rwanda is a very safe country now, and tourism is starting to develop. All in all, it is a truly incredible achievement.

I do not want you to finish reading this and define Rwanda to yourself as a genocide. I think it would be an insult to the people of Rwanda today. While the genocide is the dominant part of it's history, Rwanda is moving on. I hope you think of the genocide as what it is: history. Very important history. Here are a few statistics of interest that I've taken from the CIA factbook about present day Rwanda.

Population of Rwanda: 10,473,282 people
Land Area: 10,169 square miles
(Comparatively, Rwanda is about 1/5 the size of Iowa and has about 3 times the population. Or, Rwanda is slightly smaller than Maryland with about double the population.)
The capital city, Kigali, has a population of roughly 1,000,000 people.
Languages: Kinyarwanda, French, English, and Swahili
Religion: Predominantly Christian, in particular Catholic
Life expectancy at birth: 50 years (US: 78 years)
GDP per capita: $900 (US: $47,000)

In short, I hope when you think of Rwanda today you think: up and coming country, very densely populated and lushly vegetated, quite different from the Westerner's stereotypical image of Africa. Common nicknames are 'Land of a Thousand Hills' and 'Land of Eternal Spring'.
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If this history has caused any strong feelings in you, I strongly encourage you to do some of your own research. If you have any questions or have anything you would like to talk to me about please feel free, I would love to talk about this further. Two books I have read that I highly recommend are:

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, by Philip Gourevitch - An incredibly fascinating analysis of the genocide in Rwanda, what caused it, why it wasn't stopped, etc. It's basically a much better version of what I've typed here. I read it in a couple days; I couldn't stop myself. At times I was sickened, at times I had tears in my eyes, and at times I almost laughed. One of the best books I've read, period.

Left to Tell: Finding God in the Rwandan Holocaust, by Immaculee Ilibagiza - A powerful and emotional first hand account of the genocide and an inspirational story of how one person (and hopefully a nation) can recover.

I think I'll call an end to my writing for now. I know this was a long post, but to be honest it's taken me hours to try and condense it this much. I still have much, much more I would like to say. I'll save that for a later date... and feel free to contact me about anything.

Take care