Umuzungu Tours

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Hey everyone -

I am back in the States now, safe and sound, and I'm finally posting about the rest of my trip. The computers were too slow there! For the second half, we continued to do interviews and work at the Village of Hope. We also took time for travel and sightseeing, and learned about some of RWN's work outside Kigali while we were at it. So here goes.

One of our first travels outside Kigali was to a place called Butare. Butare is noted as the district with the largest number of fatalities during the genocide, and there is a rather infamous memorial there that we all went to see. We also visited the history museum and did some craft shopping at a co-op there - I bought a lot of stuff made out of wood and cow horn. On our last day there, we went to the memorial at Murumbai. This was probably one of the most difficult experiences during my time in Rwanda. The caretaker of the memorial is a survivor of genocide, and his family is on display amongst 44,000 other bodies in the various school rooms. We were taken on tour of a school where about 50,000 people were told they could be safe, and were later murdered and buried in mass graves. We were shown around to different areas of the school, and then brought to the side where they kept all of the bodies. Room after room (there are 24 total, but we only went to 5), there are men women and children that have been exhumed from the mass graves and sprinkled with lime for preservation. Looking outside, the surroundings are beautiful. It was so peaceful in the hills, children were playing just a few yards away - and yet, we were standing in front of hundreds of dead bodies. Some were the same size as the children playing close by. And the strange mixture of smells in the air - I had to hold my breath. I'll never forget it. We were all glad to go to the memorial, though, to give ourselves and new perspective and grasp on what happened in Rwanda.

Our next trip outside Kigali was to Ruhengeri and Gisenyi. Ruhengeri is where the famous Parc National des Volcans lies (where you can go gorilla tracking), and also where some of RWN's efforts reach out to. There was an program in Ruhengeri that receives funding and aid from RWN, very similar to the Village of Hope. Most of the women in the village lost their husbands to genocide or AIDS, and most of the children lost their parents for similar reasons. The women there are now taking care of the orphans, in an effort to take care of each other - building families and community. There are also work projects that they have going on there, including soap-making, candy-making, shoe cobbling (cobblery?), tailoring, etc. Ruhengeri is different from Kigali. Every area not protected by the government has been used for agriculture; the rich soil from the volcanoes yields many different crops. There is poverty here that Kigali's development doesn't allow for. We met a family who's house was kept together with old clothes, and the woman's child was her first to survive past a few months (she had many before him), due to her living situation. She and her husband were waiting for a new house, which RWN was helping them with. The trip gave us a new understanding of what it takes to help, and the variety of situations throughout Rwanda. In Gisenyi, we saw Lake Kivu (borders the DRC!) and went to the monthly event called the "Jungle Party." Kivu was gorgeous, and Gisenyi would remind me of a beach town in West Palm, if it weren't for the roads. There are hot springs, the Primus and Coca-Cola factory, lots of hills (where aren't there hills in Rwanda?), amongst other things. And the Jungle Party was fun, too.

Our next trip was to Akagera National Park, in the East. It borders Tanzania and Uganda, and is home to lots of different animals. We went on safari for a couple of days, making two big trips and getting a nice meal and hot shower at our hotel. This was the most expensive part of the trip, for sure, but it was worth it. It was such a great weekend, and a welcome break from Kigali. Then, we went back to Ruhengeri one last time to see the gorillas.

While half our group was willing to pay the $540 (US) to go gorilla tracking for an hour, not all of us were. So we split up. Half of us paid $75 to go hike Mt. Bisoke instead. Well, I definitely got my $75 worth... the hike took 5 hours going up. We were basically climbing mud and roots, always clamoring for something to hold on to so we wouldn't fall. It was steep, and tiring, and difficult. And when we got to the top, all we could see was mist. You could barely even see the people standing 5 feet from you. The elevation was 3, 750 meters, and it was hard to breath. Just as we were about to leave to go back down the mountain, the mist started to clear. And there it was... we were standing on the edge of the crater of the volcano, the huge ring of it's mouth encasing a lake in the very center. Bisoke is on the edge of the DRC, so we weren't allowed to go to the other side of the ring - but it was absolutely beautiful. On our way back down the mountain, we saw a family of gorillas on our path. They are such amazing creatures! As we continued to hike around them, I got stung by nettles all over my upper body. This was possibly one of the worst experiences I've ever had; it's like being stung by 30 bees all at once. My arms were swollen, and then stinging, and then itchy for days. If you ever go to Rwanda to hike, wear long sleeves. Wear a jacket. And that was Bisoke! I couldn't walk properly for a few days afterward, because my hip had popped out of place a few times on the hike, and I was really sore, but it was worth it. Oh, and the girls who went to see gorillas had a good time, too. They all want to be Dian Fossey, now that they saw the family she worked with.

I believe that was all of the traveling we did, and that was almost all on weekends. Work at the village was the same, for the most part. We tried to branch out and interview women and youth that "weren't targeted during the war" (a.k.a. Hutus), and ended up learning a lot from their experiences as well. In the past weeks, I realized just how much I was going to miss going to the Village every day - it's really an amazing place. We also got to visit the Polyclinic (another facet of RWN), and learned their holistic approach to medicine. At the Polyclinic, they provide counseling, group activities, medication, treatment, ARVs for AIDS patients, and food. This is something I thought was really cool. They provide food to people who need it to take their ARVs, because without food the medicine is very difficult to take. However, you can imagine that a woman with 6 children is not going to take all of that food for herself and watch her children starve. So for the program to work, they provide food for everyone in the family so that she will take her ARVs. That's part of the reason I think RWN is so great. They don't leave any stone unturned. They cover everything, and their organization is working. There are so many smart people and inspiring individuals there - it's really remarkable.

Once we finished interviewing, we typed up all of our stories into narratives, and we each edited each others. That's when the real work began for Andrea and I, who were elected as the group leaders of the project (how this happened, I'm not sure). We put the final project together, taking photos of different activities at the village, getting information about any random facts we could think of that would be good to know about the village, formatting all of the documents and inserting pictures and facts into all of them, etc. And at the end, we had a really cool finished product, which RWN will use to make a booklet out of for future donors and to spread the word about the organization. So that is that! I know it's a long post, but it was a long trip. Hope you enjoyed reading, and I hope you all go to Rwanda some day. It's an amazing place.

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Photos

Dancers at the Village of Hope
The youth participate in many different activities, traditional dancing being one of them.

Women in Ruhengeri
These are many of the widows at the organization we visited.

Tailoring is Fun!
While I tried my hand at it, I'm leaving the sewing up to these girls. That's Regina - her father and brothers were killed in the genocide.

Workin' all day long
Nick is working on our project, while Cicolastic (right) and some other women work on a bed cover. While the women are all mixed together on a general basis, the Village also has separate programs (like this one for HIV positive women) for people to come to and bond together through the common problems they share.

Elephant in Akagera
We were told this was a male elephant, even though there are no tusks. Apparently, many elephants were hunted during the genocide (maybe because the country was in chaos?). While this one survived, he'll never get his tusks back.

Bisoke
The lake at the top (proof that I made it) as the mist cleared.

At the Top
Yes, further proof I was at the top of Mt. Bisoke. It took 7 hours total, and I literally walked like an 80 year old woman for three days after this picture was taken. There aren't any warnings when you sign up, but there should be.

Two Amazing Women
Annette (left) and Peninah (right) are both remarkable women. Annette was/is the head of her own child-headed household, and she now works at RWN. Her job is to come up with innovative programs and foresee any problems that those programs may face. Peninah is a mother of three and "Activities Coordinator" at RWN. So naturally, she counsels women, decides who gets funding for education, who is accepted into the various programs, how many people the Village can support in a given year, etc. Peninah's the one who said she sometimes calls the head office asking for more money and they have to tell her, "You can't save everyone."

Mmm Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is the only company I've found to be truly international. No matter where you go...