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!