rwanda

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Hi Again!! Jess I;ve officially kicked Matt off blog duty hahahaha.... OK so: We are now back in Uganda after about a week in Rwanda. We went to the genocide memorial centre in the capital, Kigali (which is the most civilised city we've been to thus far; the moto-taxi drivers all wear helmets and people obey the speed limits!!), which was incredibly emotional. The first floor gives amazing details and stories on the genocide - how it happened, what went on during it, the aftermath.... very hard to watch but really interesting. The second floor was devoted to education on other genocides that have happened around the world, and then there's another room (and this sent me over the edge) that is just full of pictures of children who passed away during the genocide, along with their favourite toys, foods, what they wanted to be when they grew up, etc... as well as the way that they died. It was almost too much to handle. especially reading about the 12 year old boy who wanted to be a doctor who was killed by a machette. really, really sad. In the gardens outside are mass graves where over 250,000 bodies are buried. It was overall an incredible place but obviously really hard to be at. I'm glad we went though.

The next day we went down to Park Nationale Nyungwe Forest where we had our first hitchiking experience that basically almost started a knife fight among a minibus driver who was mad that the driver of the jeep stole his business. We made it out without getting shanked (Matt wants me to note that I'm exaggerating slightly about the severity of the situation - DON'T WORRY MOM!!!!) and got to the park at night where we proceeded to set up our tent over a nest of army ants... which we didn't realize till the next day when they were all over everything. Anyways, we set out at 5:00 a.m. to track chimps through the forest, which we found but not very many and they were pretty far away... still very cool though, the highlight was probably climbing way down into a valley to watch a baby chimp eat flowers from a tree... When we arrived back at the campsite we met an American woman who works for the US embassy and she offered to drive us back to the nearest town where we spent the night... she even took us out for dinner that night at her really nice hotel!! She was definitely heaven-sent after 7 hours of trekking in the bushes and numerous ant bites!!

The day after that (Yesterday I think) we went back to Kigali and then had to backtrack into Uganda in order to get into Tanzania, which we're going to tomorrow via ferry across Lake Victoria... we're in Masaka right now, and the highlight of the day today has been getting chased by a stick-wielding town crazy this morning on our way to breakfast. (matt would like to point out that he didnt chase us nor was he any threat to us....he was merely speaking really fast, saluting us frequently and kinda followed us up the street.....shannon loves to buff up our stories...) As a MATTER OF FACT, I saw him push a little kid off a bike so I stand by my original statement.

Anyways we're off for now!! Missing everyone!!

xoxoxoxoxo

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Comments

[Keely]

wow
Hey Guys Just wanted to let you know that i've been reading your blogs and your trip thus far sounds amazing! I hope you're having the time of your lives - thinking of you always, Keely.