Rwandan Word of the Day:
Muzungu: White Person
Friday was an interesting day. We were all EXHAUSTED by this point. It had been an incredibly busy week with very little sleep, so it was pretty understandable. I got up around 8:20am (yay sleeping in!), and moved all of my luggage to Gina’s room to prepare for homestays and check out. Then we were supposed to have tea, but it was running late. Instead, we did another human rights ice breaker thing. Finally tea came, and we were able to relax again. I’m SO thankful for our tea times. They deliver a much appreciated break time where we don’t have to think about deep and intense subjects and we can all just leisurely hang out.
After tea, we went down to our conference room to start our half-day workshop about development and how it relates to human rights. We started off in large group discussing where we see the term development, and later split into small groups to try and decide whether development is a part of human rights or if human rights are a part of development. It was like the chicken vs the egg argument. VERY circular.
I was in a group with Jacky, Queen, Remy, Jessica (who was slightly hung over from the night before), and Alexandra. It was a very interesting group, and we were split right down the middle in our opinions. The Rwandans in the group believed that development was a part of human rights, while the Americans believed that the two were interconnected and one couldn’t really be above the other. We had some really good discussions about what we would define as development, if there was a difference between the right to development and development itself, and so on. I love hearing the Rwandan participants share their opinions. I feel like I have learned so much already, and we’ve only been here a week.
When we finished with our small group discussion we came back as a large group and shared our findings. It was a pretty mixed opinion conclusion. It seemed like every group had come to a different end opinion than everyone else. Surprising? Not with our delegation haha!
After we finished that discussion we broke up into our volunteer groups and decided which site we as individuals wanted to visit on our trip to Kibuye. I decided I wanted to visit Kibiza, the Congolese refugee camp. I’m really looking forward to the visit, but I know it is going to be sad. There are over 19,000 refugees living on 27 acres of land, which is on top of a remote mountain close to the DRC border. At home, I own 45 acres of land, so that would be like having an entire refugee camp on just half(ish) of my property. That is insane to me. The people there don’t just accept aid from others without working for it either. Many have set up their own shops, and have gone out around Rwanda to get jobs in order to support their families. They are only given one biweekly ration of beans by the UN per family. Dear Lord. Rwandan beans aren’t exactly the best food either. At least I’m not a fan of them. Nearly 90% of all the children in the camp attend primary school, but their secondary education only covers three of the years so even if they attend school all the years available to them they are still under educated and therefore can’t get decent jobs and will continue to live in poverty. Yet, these people are extremely grateful for all they are given and thank the UN and Rwandan government profusely for allowing them to have refuge. I can’t imagine that life. It makes me never want to complain about mine ever again, and after this experience I probably will never complain again. I’ve seen too much at this point to not thank God every second of the day for the life I have been given. I don’t visit the camp until Tuesday, so I’ll make sure to put up a detailed account of my experience there.
Then it was lunchtime. I started not feeling very well, so I didn’t eat much. I updated my blog, and uploaded pictures instead. We didn’t have very much downtime, because immediately after lunch we left to visit the Norwegian Peoples Aid or NPA. It was in the same building as UNICEF, so I kind of wanted to sneak away and talk to them instead but I refrained. The meeting with the representative was kind of boring, mostly just because I was exhausted and didn’t feel very good. I would much rather have been in bed. I felt bad though, since I kind of was dozing off. I tried to fight it, but it was very difficult to keep my eyes open. The building had a great view, so on the bright side, I got some really good pictures of Kigali.
Our next stop was to go back to St Paul’s and wait for cars to take us to our homestay. My homestay car was the last to arrive. I didn’t mind though, because I got to play with the little boy named Peter who is staying at St Paul’s. He is too adorable for words and he loves my stuffed turtle. He did cover her in dirt though, haha! Poor Muwayva, she needs a bath. Our car came around 6:30ish, along with our homestay host, Philippe. The cab took us just a couple miles from St Paul’s and drove down this very steep street with huge ruts and rocks all over it’s wet dirt surface. I never would have taken my car down such a trail, but these Rwandan cars are used to it I suppose. When we stopped we followed Philippe down some small allies made of the same material as the road. It was dark and kind of scary to be honest, but all the people were very nice. I lost my flip flops a couple times, and it was really slick. By this point I was regretting not putting tennis shoes in my daypack. I would regret this even more later on it turns out.
We finally made it to the house, and got settled in. Philippe showed us around, and we got introduced to everyone who lived around us. The first part of the house included the sitting room, and a few bedrooms. Then it opened out into an alley that took you down to the kitchen and where you could do laundry. There you could either go into their neighbor’s house, or turn right down an extremely narrow alley to the toilet and shower areas. The toilet consisted of a room with a hole in the floor. At this point, I realized I was truly in Africa. The shower room included a shower and a sink, but both were broken and did not have running water. One had to shower from a bucket of water instead. Needless to say, I did not use the bathroom or shower the entire time I was at the homestay. It is now Sunday morning right before I leave for St Paul’s, and I have not showered since Thursday. Gross, I know, buuuuut I’ll shower when I get back to the hotel. Haha!
Please note, however, that under these circumstances everyone in the homestay is still incredibly clean. They do not smell at all, and are very tidy.
After the tour, we sat around the sitting room and chatted with Philippe and his friends. He showed us some of his music videos. He works for RAPP, but is also a musician and songwriter. He is incredibly talented, and his videos are amazing. The quality is out of this world. I showed him some of my little brother’s music, and he was impressed. Zach’s band now has fans in Rwanda! Haha! We took turns listening to each other’s music. I’m really liking all the East African music I hear. I plan on coming back with an extensive collection. Next was dinner, and more chatting, then bedtime for me and Frances because we were exhausted and had to wake up at 5am the next morning.
We woke up at five the next morning to go on a trip outside of Kigali with Philippe and some of his friends. We were running late though, so we took Motos to the bus stop. Motos are motorcycle taxis. Yeah. I sat on a dirt bike thing as a form of transportation with a random guy. Well, not random. He is a certified Moto driver (don’t freak out too much, mom). We also wore helmets. I had a bandana on, so my head didn’t touch the surface of the helmet that other people had worn. I think ahead. It was scary at first, but it actually ended up being pretty fun, and it was a cheap form of transportation. It cost my fifty-cents to go across town. Nice!
When we got to the bus stop, we had missed the first bus so we took another set of Motos to the other bus stop. Our efforts were of no avail though, because we had missed that bus too. The next bus didn’t leave until 11am, and it was 6:30am. We took a bus back to a place to get breakfast, but it was closed because it was the last Saturday of the month, which is a nation wide service day here in Rwanda. People don’t work and go out and clean the streets and do service projects instead. So, we walked the rest of the way home and got a tour of the neighborhood.
We got back the house a little after 7am, and just watched Glee episodes until it was time to try take two. This time was a success. We had to walk to the bus stop instead of taking
Motos, because all the Motos had stopped working due to the service day. It was a nice walk. Then we took the bus out of town to Musanze. The way there was gorgeous. We passed jungle, mountains, valleys, and villages. I should have slept on the way there, but the scenery was way too pretty. We made it to the town at around 1pm, and then took Motos to the waterfall. All the children we passed tried running after the Motos, and hollering “Muzungus!” For those of you who do not know Kinyrwadan, Muzungus means white people. Haha! It was comical, because we had come to see the waterfalls and the children all gathered around to see us. Not many white people travel to this town, so we were quite a sight for them I’m sure.
The waterfall was gorgeous. Luckily, Frances let me borrow her converse so I had a little better shoes than flip flops, but they still weren’t up to par with the landscape. We couldn’t walk all the way down to the waterfall, because it was too slick. We got some really good pictures anyway, though. Then we started hiking other trails to the river. We had to backtrack once, because on trail was covered with water. The next trail was also covered with water, but it had “stepping stones,” and by that I mean there were rocks far apart that you could jump to. I thought I was going to die. I obviously didn’t, nor did I fall into the river at any point. Yay me! I did fall once on the trail, but that was it. Haha!
We got to a stopping place by the river and sat on some rocks and chatted. Some villagers were doing laundry in the river and there were a lot of children running around. After we rested for a bit, we crossed the precarious looking bridge made of three thin logs tied together with what looked to be t-shirt material. I went really slowly across, because I refused to fall down the rocks into the river. Luckily, we all made it across safely and then hiked up the mountain into the main part of the village. All the children swarmed around us and they held our hands. It was the cutest thing I had ever seen. They were so friendly and curious. I love African children for this reason. American children are afraid of what they don’t know or aren’t familiar with. African children, on the other hand, want to learn all about what they don’t know. They don’t have fear. They are friendly and loving. I wanted to snatch all of them up and take them home. I think the cutest children I have ever seen are from Rwanda. I loved all of them. I’m now heartless, because Africa has stolen it. I would live in that village if I could. I love the people SO much.
After we walked through the village, we had to say goodbye to the kids. I was sad to see them go, and they waved at us until we walked around the corner. Then we walked around a market full of clothes from the US that are donated by Goodwill. I didn’t buy anything obviously, but it was interesting to see. After that we went and got lunch. I still wasn’t feeling very well. I just got a huge water.
Then it was time to take the bus back to Kigali. It was another 2 hour drive. We had to take Motos to Philippe’s house, and when we got home I was exhausted. Me and Frances stayed up and talked for a bit, had a small dinner, and then went to sleep. I slept for a good tenish hours. Our bed broke in the middle of the night, and that was scary haha but other than that it was a good night’s sleep. We got up a little after 8am and packed.. We had breakfast and hung out this morning until around 10am. Then we made it back to St Paul. It was good to be home. I showered finally! Yay! When I started this blog, I hadn’t. But now I’m squeaky clean and packed for Kibuye!
Goodbye for now!
