Wildlife

On a lighter note, Rwanda certainly had some interesting wildlife!  Birds of various sizes and colours, lizards (including ones that liked to jump on my stuff at 2am), monkeys...  The worst was probably the insects that occasionally invaded our rooms during a rainstorm.  They just seemed to appear out of nowhere, fly straight at your face and then continue to wriggle around even after being battered to the ground with whatever book was nearest (often a Bible, redefining the term 'Bible-bashing').  My catch phrase became 'shut the door, you'll let the beasties in!!'

 

Chameleon

Monkeys in Butare

The only monkey we saw in Nyungwe forest

 

I loved these birds - they could teach me a thing or two about making tall look graceful!

A wee nest just outside our room.  The mother bird liked to swoop at us if we got too close!

Nyungwe and Kigeme

Rwanda may be a fairly small country, but journeys can sometimes take a while given the twisty roads and hills.  In our month of travelling we spent quite a lot of time in our minibus with our driver Freddie (how he coped with us 5 girls, I don't know!) and I think the best of these long journeys was going through Nyungwe forest on the way to and from Cyangugu.  It's like another world, with trees as far as you can see, dramatic skylines, the buzz of insects, roadworks, landslides, monkeys...  As I wrote at the time, I spent a lot of the journey through Nyumgwe leaning out of the window taking it all in and listening to some good music on my ipod.

 

Amazing sky

Banana break

Nyungwe forest

Kigeme was our next and final stop in our month of travelling.  I survived more teaching, this time doing lessons on conjunctions in a high school and triangles in a nursery.  We also visited a hospital, a hydroelectricity plant, went to Rwanda's version of X Factor, played basketball, carried bricks and planted potatoes.  The realities of life for many Rwandans hit home when we visited a lady who was really struggling to provide for herself and the 3 children and grandchild who lived with her, and who had next to nothing in her house.  She worked in fields for other people when she could, but had hardly any money and couldn't afford the health insurance for herself or her family.  It was upsetting and felt so unfair that I could just drive away and go back to my cosy, comfortable life.  Where is the justice in your place of birth having such an impact on your life?  As I sit in my nice room, with my laptop and other 'things' around me, I still feel unsure how to respond to this.  The pursuit of justice and challenges faced by those living in poverty can be overwhelming.

I'm still amazed by the beauty of the Rwandan hills - honestly, these photos do not do it justice!

 

Rwanda Superstar!

 

Some local kids enjoying the show (the wee lad on the right has a chicken tucked under his arm!)

Hydroelectricity plant

Who needs health and safety anyway?!!

Cyangugu

After Butare, we headed south west to Cyangugu, down by the border with the DRC and Burundi.  I think I had some of my most challenging experiences here, in terms of the activities we were doing and how I was was feeling personally.  I often felt totally inadequate and invisible (and that's saying something given how much I stood out as a white person).  At times I felt judged for being a quiet person and found it very difficult to get over my shyness.  Going into schools and leading assemblies with singing and a drama was also not my idea of fun!  But despite feeling intimidated, I managed it (hugely helped by being with the other girls) and can look back now and say I did it.  It's the same with teaching - I found it so tough and stressful but I got through it every time.  It's helped me to feel just that wee bit more confident about myself.

 

Cyangugu definitely had some highlights too.  Our friend Ilva (who was in Rwanda for a year and lived down the road from us in Cyakabiri) joined us for our time in Cyangugu and fitted right into the team - it was great to have her with us.  I enjoyed seeing more of Rwanda and spending time down by Lake Kivu.  I felt humbled by a woman we met who prayed big prayers with complete faith.  And I loved taking part in umuganda (the community day) where we moved rocks and stones to make a new church foundation.  It was so good to do something practical and helpful, and to be able to show that I wasn't a total wimpy white girl after all!

 

On the border

Looking over to DRC

Hot springs!

The house we were staying in, complete with a veranda for eating breakfast or playing games of ligretto on.

Sarah, Ilva, Becca, Alice and Katie C.

The Rwandan flag with the hills of the DRC in the background

Lake Kivu

Our gift from the Bishop on behalf of the diocese - some beautiful fabric!

(last photo by Sarah)

Butare

Most of our time in Rwanda was spent in Cyakabiri, near Gitarama, about one hour from Kigali.  RDIS (the partner organisation we were working with) are based in Cyakabiri, but also work in 3 other diocese, which we spent a month visiting.  The first place we went to was Butare, Rwanda's second largest city and home of the National University of Rwanda, the National Museum of Rwanda and an amazing ice cream shop.  It was here that I took advantage of the lack of running water to not wash my hair for a week, had an invasion of tiny spiders in my room and ate some incredible chapatis at the Bishop's house (whose wife went to QMU in Edinburgh for her masters...small world).  We also helped build a house, got to know some of the students and went to a wedding.

 

On a hunt for monkeys around the uni campus

It was so amazing to see these monkeys just roaming around, being ignored by the Rwandan students.  We, of course, did the classic foreigner/ tourist thing and took loads of photos of them!

Imagine having this as your uni campus!

A wedding in the local church, where we were asked to come and sit behind the choir... after the service had started!

Enjoying some ice cream at Inzozi Nziza (Sweet Dreams).

The house we helped to build for a woman and her 4 children, who had been homeless

and living in the local church for the past 7 months after their home was destroyed. 

A definite reality check for me.

Washing our clothes in a basin with a jerry can and soap.  Trying to prove

that we didn't totally rely on machines at home!

(Last 3 photos by Sarah Pickup)

Trip to Kibuye

These are a selection of photos from the wee trip we made to Kibuye in April.  On the way there we enjoyed the scenery, stopped off at an impressive waterfall and were entartained by a couple of boys who appeared from the woods playing an unusual violin type instrument, drank incredibly sweet passionfruit juice, laughed a lot and marvelled at the beauty of Lake Kivu as it came into view.  The next day we took a boat trip out to Napoleon Island (I think it was meant to look like his hat or something) and came across thousands of fruit bats!

 

Land of a Thousand Hills

While I was away, I often wrote about how beautiful Rwanda is... well here is some photographic proof!!  These are only a small number of landscape photos that I have of Rwanda, and I will have a blog post in the next few days dedicated to sunrises and sunsets as further evidence of how amazing this country is!  Rwanda is known as 'the land of a thousand hills', and the majority of it is lush and green.  The final two photos are to show that it wasn't all sunshine - we had lots of rain and some amazing thunder storms too.  Remember you can click on the photos to see larger versions of them.

 

Moments

As with most of life, the special and most memorable bits are often the little things that happen.  Or the people you meet and share these moments with.

 

My lovely team - Becca, Alice, Sarah & Katie - in their fabric from Gitarama market

 

 At a graduation ceremony for a local college/ university.  It started pouring!!

 

 Making pancakes for our 'girls night'

 

On top of Zion hill, with the local Compassion project just in the background

 

 Doreen, our beautiful friend & translator

 

 Gatesi - cook, cleaner, clothes & dish washer and provider of much entertainment

 

 On Mpushi hill, enjoying the view

 

 In our room, enjoying some homemade doughnuts with pineapple jam