Blogs from Rwanda, Africa - page 9

"Lord I have seen your goodness and I know the way you are. Give me eyes to see you in the dark." This morning I was meditating on Matthew 20:29-34. Jesus is on his way out of Jericho with a crowd following him. And he is passing by two blind men who are begging him to have mercy on them. Jesus stops and asks them what they want him to do for them. They respond....Lord, we want to see. I often wonder what I would say to Jesus if he asked me what I wanted him to do for me. I honestly don't know how I would answer. However, I am pretty sure my first thought wouldn't be that I want to see. I mean "I can already see....right?" Maybe.......I can literally....but can I REALLy see ... read more

A couple of the emails said, “Rwanda . . . huh”. The skepticism was palpable. The messages plainly implied that this decision was significant in so far as it indicated deteriorating mental capacities and an alarming uptick in questionable decision making. Oprava’s email was more blunt: “Christmas in Rwanda sounds like, well, hell, but what does the white man know.” Precisely. What does the white man know? The media’s business is infotainment. It breathlessly recounts the horrific apocalyptic flavor of the moment for riveted audiences before rushing on to the next catastrophe in the heart of darkness. The news’ steady diet of natural disaster, civil war, famine, disease, and public uprising liberally indulges the schadenfreude of the fickle observer. Consequently, the Rwanda of public imagination is, and perhaps forever will be, rooted in the undeniably hellish ... read more

First off, love, love, love Africa so far!!! Second, thanks to all best wishes and comments so far - PhillyLama, Firth, Tim, Paul F. (yes I am barely keeping up with the PGA Tour!), Paula, David S. (thanks for the ice visual), A&D (yes that coffee was very drinkable), Phil O'R, Anna and Sherri. It is so good to hear from you all and glad to know that you are enjoying our adventure. Sorry that we have not responded to date via the blog - internet access a bit dicey and we are putting all efforts into just writing and 'posting', often late at nite (e.g. we have been completely out of internet range for the last 4 days - yet many here have cell phones). But know that we are thrilled to see them and ... read more

The pictures would be too brutal and heartbreaking for many people so we have decided not to put any photos from these places but just from Huye. It is something you need to see on your own and not pictures shown by others. It is hard to imagine the horrors that happened in Rwanda 17 years ago but after our visit to Huye we have come as close to what happened as possible. How? Two reasons, 1st is the visiting the Gikongoro Genocide Memorial you still see and smell the remains off 800 odd bodies that still lay around the rooms of the secondary school, 50,000 people killed in eight hours here. 2nd we stayed with a family who were deeply effect by the events of what happened and were more than willing to share their ... read more

Sun shining, bags in the back of the ute, we jump in and off we go heading to see the Mountain Gorilla in the Parc Des Volcans. After a very early start and hoping to get a lift to see any of the Gorilla families we were very lucky to be offered a lift to see the Susa family which we were hoping to see and which is the largest, but also the most difficult to reach. It is very strange when you arrive at the head quarters for the morning check in and finding out that we need to organize our own transport as well as for the guide. We asked around the forty of so people and finally found a group of young travelers and we all stuck together. For each family only eight ... read more