Batwa, AIDP, Soldiers, and back to Kigali

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Left Ruhengeri this morning to make a few stops in the area around Kinigi, the town closest to the Verungas, on the road to the DRC. On our way out we saw two trucks of soldiers headed to the border. The Imababazi group from yesterday had seen a convoy of seven trucks full of UN soldiers also headed to the border. Hmm.

We stopped at a Batwa settlement a couple miles outside Kinigi. The Twa are a race of pygmies that live in Rwandas forests. They make up about 2% of the population. We watched them perform a dance, and once again someof us joined in.

After that we headed down to AIDP (Amahoro Intergrated Development Program), the "One" organization from the common basket program. We were there to drop off the $1,500 in donations from BSM, along with several bags of used books. AIDP works to unite genocide/aids widows with genocide/aids orphans. They run a large orphanage as well as build homes in which they place one widow and 5 orphans each to create new families. We visited the mainorphanage as well as two of the homes. One home can be built for $2,400. I played soccer with three orphans for about 30 minutes while the teachers met with someof the workers.

On our way back to Ruhrngeri we passed a column of over 500 Rwandan soldiers marching towards the border. I would not be surprised if more Rwandan operations in the DRC are announced soon. Search "FDLR" on GoogleNews.

When we arrived in Ruhengeri we found the main street packed with a wall of people and the northbound side of the divided boulevard closed. As we were sitting at lunch we heard sirens coming up in the distance. It was a professional cycling race coming through town. A member of the Rwandan national team was in third place and the huge crowd was going crazy. It was pretty cool.

We said goodbye to Ruhengeri and set off for Kigali again. It was beautiful to see the Kigali skyline down below us, the city sprawling as far as we could see as we came over the last mountain.

We go to Nyamata tomorrow. As part of the memorial they have over 2,000 skulls of genocide victims on display in open crypts. I'm not sure how I'll respond to that

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