Blogs from Rwanda, Africa - page 38

reaching you from ruhengeri, rwanda. hello peoples. rwanda is beautiful. and the people are freindly. a little too much so at times, but its all good. since arriving in the capital kigali the 19th, we have been to ruhengeri, then gisenyi, kibuye, kigali again, and now ruhengeri again. i knwo it seems like a circle all done through buses...but its been picturesque hills, lovely lake kivu, sunsets, sunrises, lightning, fog and many smiling children the whole way. basically rwandan banks hate our cards, but eventually we got to kigali on a weekday and got money from our credit cards. all in order to pay for our adventure tomorrow...mountain gorilla trekking! this means that we will be hiking up the side of a mountain for up to 4hrs, looking for the rare mountain gorillas. then we spend ... read more

life moves fast here in africa. i feel like a second ago i was in uganda, now im in kigali, rwanda. lets look back....last weekend was the chaparty in merch. which is to say, fun times in merchison falls national park with clare (england), marieke (irelanda) and of course erin. we left early friday morn to get to the bus, only to have to wait another 4 hrs for our bus t fill and we headed north to masindi. it was one crammed bus and one bumpy road....but 6 hrs later we were in the small town of masindi, uganda. we slept there one night and were off for paraa in merchison falls national park at 630am. we arrived at the gates just as they opened at 730 (after paying the US$25 entry fee that is). ... read more

Dear adoring public, The very first thing that one notices when one gets picked up from the airport in beautiful, beautiful Rwanda is just how crazy all the drivers here are. Insane, crazy, suicidal maniacs, the lot of 'em. In the car and off you go! Flying down potholed roads at 60 km/h, passing mere inches (no exaggeration) from pedestrians, stopped vehicles and moving vehicles, dodging around lorries five times bigger than your car, frequently driving on the wrong side of the road for extended periods of time to get around obstacles, honking like the maniacs they are to get people out of their way. Oh yeah, and about half the vehicles here are of British design (ie. driver on the Right side), and the roads are North American (ie. cars on the Right side ... read more

Hey everyone! Welcome to the blog of Kevin B. I am super psyched to be leaving for a Rwandan adventure this Saturday! I have been preparing for this trip for some time now, but its only been in the last month that things have really started to come together. Here's the history: I was first introduced to the idea of travel to Rwanda in early 2005 by my friend Lua, who lived there for about 10 years with her family, starting in 1994 I believe. She showed me a video about an organization called Orien Aid that takes a group of youth to Rwanda every summer to do various volunteer work and activities. I was interested, but since I had no money, I couldnt go. My brother Daniel went that summer however, which of course ... read more

Interesting country Rwanda. If you didn't know what had happened here in very recent history you would think that it was the most developed and contented country in East Africa. The roads don't have a single pothole, there are roundabouts full of flowers, modern glass buildings beside broad, tree lined avenues, and everyone is smiling. For those of you that don't remember here is a very short account of what happened in Rwanda: Rwanda has two main tribal groups, Hutu and Tutsi. The two groups had coexisted and intermarried for centuries. They shared a language, a religion and were pretty much indistinguishable. This all changed when Rwanda became a Belgian colony after being taking from the Germans during World War One. The Belgians issued identity cards to distinguish the two tribes, and used the Tutsi minority ... read more