April 3rd

April 3rd

Erik: 

Today was an emotional day.

We got into Rwanda pretty early. Getting through the border was kind of a nightmare. No plastic bags are allowed inside the country, so the border guards inspected all of our bags, and the whole truck for them, which took awhile. Security was much tighter at this time because it was a few days away from the anniversary of the beginning of the genocide. But ultimately no biggie I suppose.
We were all still on quite a high from the day before where we'd spent so much time with the orphans and had such a positive experience.

Rwanda is gorgeous. (just look at the pictures below). And the people friendly and exuberant. I haven't seen so many smiles in my life. Green rolling hills, misty and magnificent, and that didn't stop. For the 3 days we were in Rwanda, the scenery was constantly beautiful.

As we'd been driving I had been reading "Shaking Hands With the Devil" by Roméo Dallaire. He was the general in charge of the UN peacekeeping force during the Rwanda genocide. I'm not going to go in depth into the history, but I will say the book made me feel pretty ashamed of what my government did in '94. The book is a must read if you would like to understand the crisis from a first hand account.
So here we are, driving through a country that 20 years ago our country abandoned, and we still get nothing but smiles and waves.
Our first stop in Rwanda was in Kigali. The genocide memorial. At the site itself there are over 250 thousand people buried in mass graves. Walking around and reading more about it and seeing pictures, videos, belongings, skulls, it was all heart wrenching. But I don't think that is what got me. The killing knew no bounds, and children were very much involved in the killing and being killed. Looking at the soiled bloodied belongings of these kids made this real. This didn't happen to grandpa. This happened to my generation. The torn and bloody superman pj's next to a ninja turtle stuffed animal and pictures of the previous owner: a 5 year old.

They had pictures of the children up on the wall. They were all about the same age I would have been in '94.  This is Francine. Aged 12. 

Favorite sport: Swimming.
Favorite food: Eggs and chips.
Favorite drink: Milk and Tropical Fanta
Best friend: Claudette, her sister.
Cause of death: Hacked to death by a machete.

Or Patrick. Aged 4.
Favorite food: Chips and sauce
Favorite hobby: running
Best friend: Mom
Last thing he saw: Mother raped and hacked to death.

Over one million people were killed in just 100 days. It was brutal and efficient. That's 10,000 people a day. That is 6-7 people a minute for 3 months. 500,000 women were raped, and 67% of them were given HIV as a result. The rape by AIDs infected men was a planned method of delivering death, and those numbers are not factored into the million dead. It's not just the numbers, but the sheer brutality. People driven to rage and hysteria because of hateful media brainwashing and mob mentality. Recruiting the young and maleable into death squads. Could it have been prevented or slowed? Yes. Had any one government had the guts to stand up for people in a country with no strategic resources, had the UN been given Dallaire asked for, a difference would have been made. But instead we (the US and UK mostly) sat not even idly by, but actively torpedoed and defanged the UN mission. Driving through the country was devoid of any joy for me. Every smile and every wave, every hello and question, all the natural hospitality and kindness of a people was a stab of shame to me. I wish we would have the goal to spread humanity, not this false idea that democracy is the endgame. Just to give you an idea of where our national attention was: The headline on BBC was Rock musician Kurt Cobain 'shoots himself'. By this time 20,000 people had just been killed. Even after media attention those that could didn't. When history repeats itself, and it will, and we see politicians not supporting and saving humanity, we need to shout from the roof tops that it won't stand. 'Never again' didn't just mean the jews, it meant everyone.

Interhamwe

The next stop in Kigali was the Hotel de Mille Collins, better known in the US as "Hotel Rwanda". It was weird being there (nothing like the movie BTW) knowing that just outside where we were dropped off the interhamwe were right outside ready to kill. There were many stories like the Hotel Rwanda story, of bravery and rescue. Sometimes it seems like "just 20" people were saved, and in the wake of hundreds of thousands, it is easy to forget that even that 20 was amazing.

We ended the day out in Ruhengari, an important town during the genocide. I had ample food poisoning by this time, so I mostly just threw up a lot when we got there. The group ended up going out to eat somewhere. I don't think I would have been in the mood if I had been well.

Tea fields. The workers would stop, stand up and wave and shout to us. 

Just awe inspiring scenery

April 2nd, Bunioni

Erik:

So sorry it took so long to start blogging again! Steph and I have been back for awhile and transitioning back into real life. I am going to continue to finish out our trip over the next few days, as well as review the equipment we used and show what our final route ended up being. 

So here is where we left off:

We took a small motor boat across the lake to go to the Bunioni Village Orphans. We carried with us two large bags of clothing so that they could sell it at the local market to earn an extra income. Once in the village we went into the classes. The kids sang to us as we stood in front of them. But they sang it wrong and the teacher stopped them (they welcomed us from Canada, the teacher was trying to get them to say UK instead of Canada, which didn't flow as well). So about 5 times later, they succeeded. It was super cute. We then walked to the next class of older kids. Same deal. After that we made a huge dance circle. One kid would play the drum (like a boss, holy moly they were talented) and the other would lead a song. In her songs she would call people out from around the circle to dance. We did this for 3 hours straight. It was amazing. The kids were like energizer bunnies, they just never seemed tired. They would fight over holding our hands and dancing with us. At one point one of us had 3 kids on each side, each with their own finger to hold onto. I never managed more than 3 at a time. Their smiles are to die for, and the reason it was hard to say no to the hand hold wrangling that was going on.

The singing was followed up by a soccer match. Except for the pesky hand-ball rule, they were really good. I think it was a tie. While the boys played soccer, the girls all sat on the hill and sang and played drums some more.
Then, we walked up the hill a bit to get some food, made by the villagers  It was amazing (and gave me severe food poisoning, but it was worth it).
This place is amazing. It is set up entirely organically, and they do not except government money or NGO money, instead relying only on private donations. The treasury is completely transparent, all receipts and use of the moneys are available upon request. The book keeping is impecable. The one college grad started this about 10 years ago. He came back from university and the village leaders said he was the one to fix the problem of the street children. Due to the AIDs pandemic many children are left without parents, and live on the streets. He started by enticing them to go to school by bribing them with candy. He worked at a lodge and saved money and cooked for people while telling them his plight to raise money for them. Eddy became dissatisfied with the public school, because they didn't teach english, and built his own school. Right now they are working on getting water tanks and building a place for english teachers to stay.
I really want to figure out an anual way to raise money for them. Right now we are trying to get the info we need from them to make this all happen, but it is moving on african time.
I don't think my writing can do that day justice, so I've included lots of pictures. I will be maintaining this blog, and trying to make it a good source to find out what is going on in the village or how you can help. Stay tuned!

Lake Bunioni

Ishi, our scottish travel "guide"