Well, I just arrived in Sarajevo about an hour ago. First impression so far is really good!
I have to admit that over the last day of traveling here I was a little worried about what I’d be showing up to, but I don’t there are any problems now at all!
My hotel is about a block up the road from the Old Town Squire in what seems like a really cool part of town. I’ve already wandered around a bit and the city looks pretty awesome. And the Sarajevo Film Festivalis on right now and it’s literally just down the road from me, so from where I am the whole city looks like it’s alive and out... and it’s 11:30 at night!
I’ve found a nice little street side pub and I’m sampling the local bee, which is really good! ...impressed!!
In the taxi on the way over from the airport the driver was really nice and tried practicing his English with me the whole way over. He’s already pointed out a few of the things I want to see, which are all within walking distance of the hotel. According to him I won’t have any problems with the language if I’m talking with younger people, so that’s a big stress relief!
Well, I’m going to finish my drink, wander back to the hotel and wait to see what the city is like in the daytime. I don’t have internet in my room tonight, but I’ll be changing rooms in the morning apparently to a room with a connection. Like the last few posts, this one will be posted tomorrow, so this was actually written yesterday.
I’ll keep y’all posted on my travels as frequently as I can!!
(and just a ps that I’m writing now the next morning... I changed rooms and have internet, but the connection is in the bathroom. Weird. I may have to go out and buy a longer cord so I can actually use my computer in my bedroom, instead of on the toilet :p
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
My last days in Rwanda and Paris, Round 2!
Well, here I am... at another airport. A lot has happened since the last time I’ve posted, so hopefully this won’t be too long! And again... no internet right now, so this will be posted when I finally do have it...
My last couple days in Rwanda were amazing! We got to go out to Kayonza one more time to see the finished house that we built... well, almost finished. They were still working on the floor, doors and windows and the front porch, but overall it looked really good!
The highlight of the last days though was that I finally got to go visit Manude and his family! Serge and I went to go find him just before heading to the airport. He was actually really easy to find too. He lives with his mom, 4 year old sister and his grandparents just behind the house that my cousin and friend lived in while she was working in Kigali with World Vision. (Literally right behind your house, Laura!) Serge and I talked with them for a little while and we got to hear Manude’s story, a bit about his mom’s life and got to meet his little sister who has pretty much the exact same personality that Manude did when I first met him at 4 years old! I told his mom about how Manude has been a large part of my thoughts over the last few years and told them that I want him to go to school and would be paying for him. I think also that next year I’ll make sure his sister goes too... she already reminds me too much of him when he was younger and I don’t think I would be able to not get her in to school also! So, we visited for a little while, I told Manude that he needs to study hard and make sure that he practices his English (All schools in Rwanda now teach in English) so that next time I come we can talk without an interpretor... he seemed to really like that idea!
Another fun thing was that Friday night before we left was Serge’s birthday. We all went out together to a new restaurant that no one there had ever been to and it was a lot of fun and great food! It was good to be able to celebrate both Serge and Beni’s birthdays and go to a wedding while we were there! ...so many congratulations and celebrations!
After visiting with Manude and his family it was time to leave Rwanda We all had one last meal at Bourbon at the Kigali airport and loaded on to the plane. We had a 5ish long hour layover in Nairobi which was pretty uneventful and then after another long flight we made it to Paris in the wee hours of the morning. The first day in Paris was really cool, but very tiring! Most of us didn’t really sleep overnight on the plane, but we weren’t going to waste a full day there by sleeping. We found our hotel, dropped off our stuff and went out on the town! We spent the morning together, wandering the streets and taking care of a few things we needed to do together and then split up for the day. 5 of us took the train out to Versailles and spent the afternoon being amazed by the palace. It was INSANE! So much gold, so many paintings... it was huge! Lots and lots of French history and art. We didn’t have a huge amount of time, so we went through pretty quickly before walking out to the garden, which is massive and really nice. By the time that we got back in to Paris to meet everyone else for supper most of us were more than ready for bed. But we all went out for a really good supper just up the road from our hotel, across from Gard L’est Metro station. After supper, pretty much everyone just went straight to bed... it was the best night’s sleep I had had since leaving Canada!
Our second day was really good too. We went out for breakfast at a little cafe on St. Michel and then split up again. Some went on a walking tour of Paris, and some of us walked around St. Michel and did some shopping/browsing. After that we took the Metro to the Latin Quarters and walked around there for a bit. For some reason almost everything was closed, so we jumped back on the Metro and went back to St. Michel for a bit before heading over to the Chaps Ellyese, where we met up with everyone again under the Arc du Triumph. We walked down the Boulevard together for a bit, checking out the stores, doing the tourist thing. I had my fill of shopping, so I went off on my own to go see the Grand Palace, Small Palace, and a bunch of really cool things around there and then I just walked. For a long time. Got very lost. Eventually found a Metro station and headed back to the hotel to meet up with everyone again. By this time it was around 9pm and we had reservations to go up the Eiffel Tower. The view was really cool up there and I’m happy that we did it, but I don’t think I’d do it again... it’s just one of those things you have to do at least once if you’re in Paris. The coolest part about it was that 3 of us went up to the very top and up there they had signs pointing in the direction of different cities around the world and how far away they are. Toronto was 6,014km away and Sarajevo, where I’m heading to right now, was 1,355km... Kigali, where we just came from was 6,234km and Manila where I’m heading to in a week...10,761! Makes me wonder just how many kilometres I’m actually traveling this summer!
I have to admit... Paris is actually a lot better than I thought it would be!! But too much walking! I’m so sore and tired. I walked so much that a wore a hole through my socks, which could have passed as brand new at the beginning of the day! My first day or two in Sarajevo will be spent lounging around at local cafes with not much walking, me thinks.
But anyways, it’s about time to board my flight from Paris to Belgrade, Serbia where I have a 5 hour layover before flying to Sarajevo this evening, so hopefully there’s something to do and/or internet in the airport!!
I’ll let y’all know how things are going once I’m in Bosnia! So far, so good... and safe! See y’all in a few weeks!
My last couple days in Rwanda were amazing! We got to go out to Kayonza one more time to see the finished house that we built... well, almost finished. They were still working on the floor, doors and windows and the front porch, but overall it looked really good!
The highlight of the last days though was that I finally got to go visit Manude and his family! Serge and I went to go find him just before heading to the airport. He was actually really easy to find too. He lives with his mom, 4 year old sister and his grandparents just behind the house that my cousin and friend lived in while she was working in Kigali with World Vision. (Literally right behind your house, Laura!) Serge and I talked with them for a little while and we got to hear Manude’s story, a bit about his mom’s life and got to meet his little sister who has pretty much the exact same personality that Manude did when I first met him at 4 years old! I told his mom about how Manude has been a large part of my thoughts over the last few years and told them that I want him to go to school and would be paying for him. I think also that next year I’ll make sure his sister goes too... she already reminds me too much of him when he was younger and I don’t think I would be able to not get her in to school also! So, we visited for a little while, I told Manude that he needs to study hard and make sure that he practices his English (All schools in Rwanda now teach in English) so that next time I come we can talk without an interpretor... he seemed to really like that idea!
Another fun thing was that Friday night before we left was Serge’s birthday. We all went out together to a new restaurant that no one there had ever been to and it was a lot of fun and great food! It was good to be able to celebrate both Serge and Beni’s birthdays and go to a wedding while we were there! ...so many congratulations and celebrations!
After visiting with Manude and his family it was time to leave Rwanda We all had one last meal at Bourbon at the Kigali airport and loaded on to the plane. We had a 5ish long hour layover in Nairobi which was pretty uneventful and then after another long flight we made it to Paris in the wee hours of the morning. The first day in Paris was really cool, but very tiring! Most of us didn’t really sleep overnight on the plane, but we weren’t going to waste a full day there by sleeping. We found our hotel, dropped off our stuff and went out on the town! We spent the morning together, wandering the streets and taking care of a few things we needed to do together and then split up for the day. 5 of us took the train out to Versailles and spent the afternoon being amazed by the palace. It was INSANE! So much gold, so many paintings... it was huge! Lots and lots of French history and art. We didn’t have a huge amount of time, so we went through pretty quickly before walking out to the garden, which is massive and really nice. By the time that we got back in to Paris to meet everyone else for supper most of us were more than ready for bed. But we all went out for a really good supper just up the road from our hotel, across from Gard L’est Metro station. After supper, pretty much everyone just went straight to bed... it was the best night’s sleep I had had since leaving Canada!
Our second day was really good too. We went out for breakfast at a little cafe on St. Michel and then split up again. Some went on a walking tour of Paris, and some of us walked around St. Michel and did some shopping/browsing. After that we took the Metro to the Latin Quarters and walked around there for a bit. For some reason almost everything was closed, so we jumped back on the Metro and went back to St. Michel for a bit before heading over to the Chaps Ellyese, where we met up with everyone again under the Arc du Triumph. We walked down the Boulevard together for a bit, checking out the stores, doing the tourist thing. I had my fill of shopping, so I went off on my own to go see the Grand Palace, Small Palace, and a bunch of really cool things around there and then I just walked. For a long time. Got very lost. Eventually found a Metro station and headed back to the hotel to meet up with everyone again. By this time it was around 9pm and we had reservations to go up the Eiffel Tower. The view was really cool up there and I’m happy that we did it, but I don’t think I’d do it again... it’s just one of those things you have to do at least once if you’re in Paris. The coolest part about it was that 3 of us went up to the very top and up there they had signs pointing in the direction of different cities around the world and how far away they are. Toronto was 6,014km away and Sarajevo, where I’m heading to right now, was 1,355km... Kigali, where we just came from was 6,234km and Manila where I’m heading to in a week...10,761! Makes me wonder just how many kilometres I’m actually traveling this summer!
I have to admit... Paris is actually a lot better than I thought it would be!! But too much walking! I’m so sore and tired. I walked so much that a wore a hole through my socks, which could have passed as brand new at the beginning of the day! My first day or two in Sarajevo will be spent lounging around at local cafes with not much walking, me thinks.
But anyways, it’s about time to board my flight from Paris to Belgrade, Serbia where I have a 5 hour layover before flying to Sarajevo this evening, so hopefully there’s something to do and/or internet in the airport!!
I’ll let y’all know how things are going once I’m in Bosnia! So far, so good... and safe! See y’all in a few weeks!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Kayonza, Kigali, Kibuye and Kiziba
Sorry, this was written two days ago, but I just got internet now!!
Hey all, so first I have to apologise to anyone who actually checks this blog out regularly... it’s been a few days since I’ve had time to write anything... sorry! Also, this post is very very long, so if you finish it all, you win a prize!*
We’ve had a really busy, but awesome last few days. Last time I updated we had just come back from our week in Kayonza building the mud house. We came back to Kigali for the weekend and had a pretty awesome time. On Saturday we had the morning to ourselves to hang out downtown Kigali, check out some shops, a lot of the girls bought gitange (African print material) and then we all hung out at Bourbon Coffee Shop for lunch. That afternoon we were invited to join our hosts for a wedding reception. Weddings in Rwanda are ridiculous! There are 5 different ceremonies that go with a wedding and they happen within about 3 weeks of each other. The reception that we went to was pretty fancy to say the least. I won’t to in to too much detail about it except that it went on for ever and there was AMAZING traditional Rwandan dance and drumming. We were told that the dance troupe that was there was Rwanda’s best traditional dance troupe, and it showed!
Sunday morning we went to the English service at Vivante church and then went to visit two different memorial sites outside of Kigali. The first site that we went to was a church in the village of Ntarama where more than 5000 people were killed. The second one was at a church in the village of Nyamata. At Nyamata there were over 10,000 people who were killed in genocide. At both sites the people from the area fled to the churches for refuge as they had been doing ever since the first killings started in 1959. The militias and genocidal government caught on to this and used the churches to gather everyone together. At both sites as soon as the churches were full of people seeking refuge they were locked in and the militias were brought in to slaughter everyone trapped inside. The sites have been kept almost the same as the day that the killings happened, and at both sites there are remains of the victims out on display or in mass graves on site. Both sites are very graphic and are very heavy and emotionally difficult to see.
On Monday we headed back to Kayonza for the day to help finish up with some of the building. We spent the day throwing mud on the walls, preparing them to be covered with concrete. We didn’t really do too much that day... we ran out of water pretty early on in the afternoon, so for the last few hours that we were there we pretty much just sat around and played with the village kids, which was just fine for us too! Tomorrow we will be going back to check out the, hopefully, final product. Yesterday the floors and outside walls were being done and today the doors and windows should have been put in, so we’re all hoping that the house is done tomorrow when we get there!
Tuesday was a really good day too! We spent the morning at Kigali’s city market buying and bartering for food for 83 households. The market was crazy, bartering for prices that are fair and not doubled because we’re white, porters fighting over who got to carry our 65 Kg bags across the market to the van, everyone trying to sell us things and yelling to us as we walked by... good times!! All of this food was then divided up and we took it with us when we visited Ubuzima. Ubuzima is a support group run by Vivante for people with HIV/AIDS. We spent an afternoon with the group, getting to know them, helping with a craft project they’re working on to gain income and just being with them helping to break down the huge stigmas around HIV in this area. After spending time with the Ubuzima group we went and met the family of a friend who has been in Canada on and off for the last couple of years. Fabrice has an amazing story with a lot of amazing people in it, and it was awesome to be able to met his mom and brothers here in Kigali after getting to know him over the last few years in Canada.
Wednesday was actually really laid back and relaxed. We took the morning to go shopping at an artisan’s market. As I’m sure a lot of you know, I’ve been collecting masks for the last 8-ish years... I was in heaven! I did really good and got some really good deals, and one not so good deal, and left the market with 5 masks!! Two of them came together in a set, so it’s not really as crazy as it sounds... but still... 5! Awesome. In the afternoon we loaded up some Jeeps and headed to Kibuye. Kibuye is a town on the edge of Lake Kivu in Western Provence. Just over the lake from Kibuye is DR Congo. It was a 3 hour long drive to get out there, so the rest of the evening was just spent enjoying each other’s company around the dinner table while waiting a couple of hours for our food. A few of us hung out and talked for a while after we did finally get our food before heading to bed. OH! That’s something crazy that’s been happening this trip... I’ve actually been going to bed at a “normal” time!! There have been many nights that I can’t sleep well, but I think I’ve been in bed by midnight every night but one!
Today we got up to a VERY strange sight... RAIN! In the middle of the dry season! It poured almost the whole time we were eating breakfast and for about an hour after that. The staff at the guest house we were staying at, which was beautiful!! And not the hotel that we usually stay at in Kibuye... but they said that it’s the first rain they’ve had for a couple of months now, and no one was expecting any rain in any part of the country until the end of August. But yeah, the rain actually was really nice. The country usually stays really green the whole dry season anyways, but on top of all the green there is a layer of red dust. Because of the rain today, the dust was washed away and kept down. Instead of things being very dusty with wind blowing it everywhere, it was actually really nice.
So anyways, beside the rain it was a really cool day. We went up to Kiziba Refugee Camp just outside of Kibuye. This was my third time going up to Kiziba. As soon as our Jeeps stopped I was greeted by about 5 of the members of the youth team that we work with who recognized me as the Jeeps were pulling in. It was awesome to see all of them again and hear about all the projects and things that the group has been doing over the last 2 years. We met shortly with the leaders of the youth team and then split up and walked through the camp. We were fist shown the two new projects that the group has started. 2 years ago, with money from the Ride for Refugees, my team brought the youth team a generator. Since then they have set up a barber shop and a cell phone charging station. Before this the people from the camp had to walk for hours down the mountain in to Kibuye, pay to charge their phone, and then walk for hours back up to the camp. Now the youth team charge less than what people paid in town and charge phones right in the camp. With the money that they make with the barber shop and cell phone charging they have started a community garden where they grown food to share with people in the camp who don’t have money to eat the days that the UN food rations run out. They are also using the money to fund many different programs with the youth in the camp around sports, recreation and education. During our tour we saw the camp’s market, the home of our tour guide, the primary school where she works, the football (soccer) field and climbed to the highest peak in the camp for an overview of the camp where 20,000 Congolese refugees have been living for the last 13 years.
One thing that I have noticed in myself this trip is that things aren’t really hitting me like that have in the past. Being in a refugee camp my first year in Rwanda was a very significant thing. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing for not, but this time being in the camp was more familiar and routine. In a way I think that this is because I have a very good understand now of life in the camp, I’ve seen the positive things that have happened within the youth group, I know people there who have been becoming friends over the last years. On the other hand, I know that with all the reading and research I’ve been doing the last few years I’ve become very desensitized. There is not a lot that I’ve seen this trip that has hit me like it has in the past. I’ve seen almost all of it already, there’s not that shock factor that there has been in the past. I’m not sure yet if this is something that I should be worried about or not. It’s not like I’m becoming less sensitive or caring about things, actually I kind of feel like I’m able to get past the shock of things now and build a better understanding and better relationships. There are upsides and downsides to it I guess.
Anyways, my time in Rwanda this time around is very quickly coming to an end. Tomorrow is our last full day here and it feels like we just arrived a couple of days ago. Tomorrow will be a very full day. We will be helping out with a meal for the street kids in the morning and during that time I’ll be going off to find Manu’s parents to finally meet them and work out getting him in to school when the new school year starts in January. In the afternoon we are driving back out to Kayonza to see the finished house and then coming back to Kigali for our team debrief. Once we get all of that done (which I have the feeling we won’t get all of that done in one day) we will be celebrating our host Serge’s birthday! It should be an awesome evening, out for a good meal and hanging out with everyone before we pack up and leave for the airport on Saturday morning. BAH! I can’t believe we are leaving already!! But I am excited for what’s coming up too!! Paris should be a lot of fun with the team for two days after we leave Kigali. We already checked out some of the city on our layover two weeks ago, so I think we have a pretty good idea of what we want to do with our two days there. At the end of those two days I’ll be sending the team back home and then jumping on a different plane heading the opposite way to Sarajevo, Bosnia! I’ve got a week of puttering around Bosnia with nothing really planned yet but I have a few ideas of things I want to do... but that’ll be their own blog posts next week... who knows, maybe one of them will be from Kosovo? And then finally after Sarajevo I get to go visit one of my best friends in Manila, Philippines! I can’t wait to finally see John again, and this time in one of his favourite places where he has been working with ITeams since November. Can’t wait!!... So much awesome stuff coming up, but on the other hand it sucks hard core that I’m almost done here in Rwanda again. I love it here so much... two weeks just isn’t enough!
Well, that was a monster post, but I hope that it was interesting enough to keep you reading! We’ll see if I get another chance before we leave Rwanda to post again, but if not... I’ll catch up with you in Europe!!
~Mike
...favourite quotes from the kids at Kiziba:
-“Good morning, Teacher.” (at 3pm)
-“What is my name?” ...how should I know that?!?
-“Where do you from?”
-“Give me money!”
-“Give me pen!”
-“What year are you?”
-“Give me my water!”
-“What this?” ...while constantly pulling my shirt sleeves up to look at my tattoos and trying to rub them off...
*All prizes must be purchased with your own money, on your own time. Mike Goerz is not responsible for the lack of tangible prizes. No purchase necessary, prizes costing money may be swapped for a self given high five or pat on the back.
Hey all, so first I have to apologise to anyone who actually checks this blog out regularly... it’s been a few days since I’ve had time to write anything... sorry! Also, this post is very very long, so if you finish it all, you win a prize!*
We’ve had a really busy, but awesome last few days. Last time I updated we had just come back from our week in Kayonza building the mud house. We came back to Kigali for the weekend and had a pretty awesome time. On Saturday we had the morning to ourselves to hang out downtown Kigali, check out some shops, a lot of the girls bought gitange (African print material) and then we all hung out at Bourbon Coffee Shop for lunch. That afternoon we were invited to join our hosts for a wedding reception. Weddings in Rwanda are ridiculous! There are 5 different ceremonies that go with a wedding and they happen within about 3 weeks of each other. The reception that we went to was pretty fancy to say the least. I won’t to in to too much detail about it except that it went on for ever and there was AMAZING traditional Rwandan dance and drumming. We were told that the dance troupe that was there was Rwanda’s best traditional dance troupe, and it showed!
Sunday morning we went to the English service at Vivante church and then went to visit two different memorial sites outside of Kigali. The first site that we went to was a church in the village of Ntarama where more than 5000 people were killed. The second one was at a church in the village of Nyamata. At Nyamata there were over 10,000 people who were killed in genocide. At both sites the people from the area fled to the churches for refuge as they had been doing ever since the first killings started in 1959. The militias and genocidal government caught on to this and used the churches to gather everyone together. At both sites as soon as the churches were full of people seeking refuge they were locked in and the militias were brought in to slaughter everyone trapped inside. The sites have been kept almost the same as the day that the killings happened, and at both sites there are remains of the victims out on display or in mass graves on site. Both sites are very graphic and are very heavy and emotionally difficult to see.
On Monday we headed back to Kayonza for the day to help finish up with some of the building. We spent the day throwing mud on the walls, preparing them to be covered with concrete. We didn’t really do too much that day... we ran out of water pretty early on in the afternoon, so for the last few hours that we were there we pretty much just sat around and played with the village kids, which was just fine for us too! Tomorrow we will be going back to check out the, hopefully, final product. Yesterday the floors and outside walls were being done and today the doors and windows should have been put in, so we’re all hoping that the house is done tomorrow when we get there!
Tuesday was a really good day too! We spent the morning at Kigali’s city market buying and bartering for food for 83 households. The market was crazy, bartering for prices that are fair and not doubled because we’re white, porters fighting over who got to carry our 65 Kg bags across the market to the van, everyone trying to sell us things and yelling to us as we walked by... good times!! All of this food was then divided up and we took it with us when we visited Ubuzima. Ubuzima is a support group run by Vivante for people with HIV/AIDS. We spent an afternoon with the group, getting to know them, helping with a craft project they’re working on to gain income and just being with them helping to break down the huge stigmas around HIV in this area. After spending time with the Ubuzima group we went and met the family of a friend who has been in Canada on and off for the last couple of years. Fabrice has an amazing story with a lot of amazing people in it, and it was awesome to be able to met his mom and brothers here in Kigali after getting to know him over the last few years in Canada.
Wednesday was actually really laid back and relaxed. We took the morning to go shopping at an artisan’s market. As I’m sure a lot of you know, I’ve been collecting masks for the last 8-ish years... I was in heaven! I did really good and got some really good deals, and one not so good deal, and left the market with 5 masks!! Two of them came together in a set, so it’s not really as crazy as it sounds... but still... 5! Awesome. In the afternoon we loaded up some Jeeps and headed to Kibuye. Kibuye is a town on the edge of Lake Kivu in Western Provence. Just over the lake from Kibuye is DR Congo. It was a 3 hour long drive to get out there, so the rest of the evening was just spent enjoying each other’s company around the dinner table while waiting a couple of hours for our food. A few of us hung out and talked for a while after we did finally get our food before heading to bed. OH! That’s something crazy that’s been happening this trip... I’ve actually been going to bed at a “normal” time!! There have been many nights that I can’t sleep well, but I think I’ve been in bed by midnight every night but one!
Today we got up to a VERY strange sight... RAIN! In the middle of the dry season! It poured almost the whole time we were eating breakfast and for about an hour after that. The staff at the guest house we were staying at, which was beautiful!! And not the hotel that we usually stay at in Kibuye... but they said that it’s the first rain they’ve had for a couple of months now, and no one was expecting any rain in any part of the country until the end of August. But yeah, the rain actually was really nice. The country usually stays really green the whole dry season anyways, but on top of all the green there is a layer of red dust. Because of the rain today, the dust was washed away and kept down. Instead of things being very dusty with wind blowing it everywhere, it was actually really nice.
So anyways, beside the rain it was a really cool day. We went up to Kiziba Refugee Camp just outside of Kibuye. This was my third time going up to Kiziba. As soon as our Jeeps stopped I was greeted by about 5 of the members of the youth team that we work with who recognized me as the Jeeps were pulling in. It was awesome to see all of them again and hear about all the projects and things that the group has been doing over the last 2 years. We met shortly with the leaders of the youth team and then split up and walked through the camp. We were fist shown the two new projects that the group has started. 2 years ago, with money from the Ride for Refugees, my team brought the youth team a generator. Since then they have set up a barber shop and a cell phone charging station. Before this the people from the camp had to walk for hours down the mountain in to Kibuye, pay to charge their phone, and then walk for hours back up to the camp. Now the youth team charge less than what people paid in town and charge phones right in the camp. With the money that they make with the barber shop and cell phone charging they have started a community garden where they grown food to share with people in the camp who don’t have money to eat the days that the UN food rations run out. They are also using the money to fund many different programs with the youth in the camp around sports, recreation and education. During our tour we saw the camp’s market, the home of our tour guide, the primary school where she works, the football (soccer) field and climbed to the highest peak in the camp for an overview of the camp where 20,000 Congolese refugees have been living for the last 13 years.
One thing that I have noticed in myself this trip is that things aren’t really hitting me like that have in the past. Being in a refugee camp my first year in Rwanda was a very significant thing. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing for not, but this time being in the camp was more familiar and routine. In a way I think that this is because I have a very good understand now of life in the camp, I’ve seen the positive things that have happened within the youth group, I know people there who have been becoming friends over the last years. On the other hand, I know that with all the reading and research I’ve been doing the last few years I’ve become very desensitized. There is not a lot that I’ve seen this trip that has hit me like it has in the past. I’ve seen almost all of it already, there’s not that shock factor that there has been in the past. I’m not sure yet if this is something that I should be worried about or not. It’s not like I’m becoming less sensitive or caring about things, actually I kind of feel like I’m able to get past the shock of things now and build a better understanding and better relationships. There are upsides and downsides to it I guess.
Anyways, my time in Rwanda this time around is very quickly coming to an end. Tomorrow is our last full day here and it feels like we just arrived a couple of days ago. Tomorrow will be a very full day. We will be helping out with a meal for the street kids in the morning and during that time I’ll be going off to find Manu’s parents to finally meet them and work out getting him in to school when the new school year starts in January. In the afternoon we are driving back out to Kayonza to see the finished house and then coming back to Kigali for our team debrief. Once we get all of that done (which I have the feeling we won’t get all of that done in one day) we will be celebrating our host Serge’s birthday! It should be an awesome evening, out for a good meal and hanging out with everyone before we pack up and leave for the airport on Saturday morning. BAH! I can’t believe we are leaving already!! But I am excited for what’s coming up too!! Paris should be a lot of fun with the team for two days after we leave Kigali. We already checked out some of the city on our layover two weeks ago, so I think we have a pretty good idea of what we want to do with our two days there. At the end of those two days I’ll be sending the team back home and then jumping on a different plane heading the opposite way to Sarajevo, Bosnia! I’ve got a week of puttering around Bosnia with nothing really planned yet but I have a few ideas of things I want to do... but that’ll be their own blog posts next week... who knows, maybe one of them will be from Kosovo? And then finally after Sarajevo I get to go visit one of my best friends in Manila, Philippines! I can’t wait to finally see John again, and this time in one of his favourite places where he has been working with ITeams since November. Can’t wait!!... So much awesome stuff coming up, but on the other hand it sucks hard core that I’m almost done here in Rwanda again. I love it here so much... two weeks just isn’t enough!
Well, that was a monster post, but I hope that it was interesting enough to keep you reading! We’ll see if I get another chance before we leave Rwanda to post again, but if not... I’ll catch up with you in Europe!!
~Mike
...favourite quotes from the kids at Kiziba:
-“Good morning, Teacher.” (at 3pm)
-“What is my name?” ...how should I know that?!?
-“Where do you from?”
-“Give me money!”
-“Give me pen!”
-“What year are you?”
-“Give me my water!”
-“What this?” ...while constantly pulling my shirt sleeves up to look at my tattoos and trying to rub them off...
*All prizes must be purchased with your own money, on your own time. Mike Goerz is not responsible for the lack of tangible prizes. No purchase necessary, prizes costing money may be swapped for a self given high five or pat on the back.
Kayonza, Kigali, Kibuye and Kiziba
Sorry, this was written two days ago, but I just got internet now!!
Hey all, so first I have to apologise to anyone who actually checks this blog out regularly... it’s been a few days since I’ve had time to write anything... sorry! Also, this post is very very long, so if you finish it all, you win a prize!*
We’ve had a really busy, but awesome last few days. Last time I updated we had just come back from our week in Kayonza building the mud house. We came back to Kigali for the weekend and had a pretty awesome time. On Saturday we had the morning to ourselves to hang out downtown Kigali, check out some shops, a lot of the girls bought gitange (African print material) and then we all hung out at Bourbon Coffee Shop for lunch. That afternoon we were invited to join our hosts for a wedding reception. Weddings in Rwanda are ridiculous! There are 5 different ceremonies that go with a wedding and they happen within about 3 weeks of each other. The reception that we went to was pretty fancy to say the least. I won’t to in to too much detail about it except that it went on for ever and there was AMAZING traditional Rwandan dance and drumming. We were told that the dance troupe that was there was Rwanda’s best traditional dance troupe, and it showed!
Sunday morning we went to the English service at Vivante church and then went to visit two different memorial sites outside of Kigali. The first site that we went to was a church in the village of Ntarama where more than 5000 people were killed. The second one was at a church in the village of Nyamata. At Nyamata there were over 10,000 people who were killed in genocide. At both sites the people from the area fled to the churches for refuge as they had been doing ever since the first killings started in 1959. The militias and genocidal government caught on to this and used the churches to gather everyone together. At both sites as soon as the churches were full of people seeking refuge they were locked in and the militias were brought in to slaughter everyone trapped inside. The sites have been kept almost the same as the day that the killings happened, and at both sites there are remains of the victims out on display or in mass graves on site. Both sites are very graphic and are very heavy and emotionally difficult to see.
On Monday we headed back to Kayonza for the day to help finish up with some of the building. We spent the day throwing mud on the walls, preparing them to be covered with concrete. We didn’t really do too much that day... we ran out of water pretty early on in the afternoon, so for the last few hours that we were there we pretty much just sat around and played with the village kids, which was just fine for us too! Tomorrow we will be going back to check out the, hopefully, final product. Yesterday the floors and outside walls were being done and today the doors and windows should have been put in, so we’re all hoping that the house is done tomorrow when we get there!
Tuesday was a really good day too! We spent the morning at Kigali’s city market buying and bartering for food for 83 households. The market was crazy, bartering for prices that are fair and not doubled because we’re white, porters fighting over who got to carry our 65 Kg bags across the market to the van, everyone trying to sell us things and yelling to us as we walked by... good times!! All of this food was then divided up and we took it with us when we visited Ubuzima. Ubuzima is a support group run by Vivante for people with HIV/AIDS. We spent an afternoon with the group, getting to know them, helping with a craft project they’re working on to gain income and just being with them helping to break down the huge stigmas around HIV in this area. After spending time with the Ubuzima group we went and met the family of a friend who has been in Canada on and off for the last couple of years. Fabrice has an amazing story with a lot of amazing people in it, and it was awesome to be able to met his mom and brothers here in Kigali after getting to know him over the last few years in Canada.
Wednesday was actually really laid back and relaxed. We took the morning to go shopping at an artisan’s market. As I’m sure a lot of you know, I’ve been collecting masks for the last 8-ish years... I was in heaven! I did really good and got some really good deals, and one not so good deal, and left the market with 5 masks!! Two of them came together in a set, so it’s not really as crazy as it sounds... but still... 5! Awesome. In the afternoon we loaded up some Jeeps and headed to Kibuye. Kibuye is a town on the edge of Lake Kivu in Western Provence. Just over the lake from Kibuye is DR Congo. It was a 3 hour long drive to get out there, so the rest of the evening was just spent enjoying each other’s company around the dinner table while waiting a couple of hours for our food. A few of us hung out and talked for a while after we did finally get our food before heading to bed. OH! That’s something crazy that’s been happening this trip... I’ve actually been going to bed at a “normal” time!! There have been many nights that I can’t sleep well, but I think I’ve been in bed by midnight every night but one!
Today we got up to a VERY strange sight... RAIN! In the middle of the dry season! It poured almost the whole time we were eating breakfast and for about an hour after that. The staff at the guest house we were staying at, which was beautiful!! And not the hotel that we usually stay at in Kibuye... but they said that it’s the first rain they’ve had for a couple of months now, and no one was expecting any rain in any part of the country until the end of August. But yeah, the rain actually was really nice. The country usually stays really green the whole dry season anyways, but on top of all the green there is a layer of red dust. Because of the rain today, the dust was washed away and kept down. Instead of things being very dusty with wind blowing it everywhere, it was actually really nice.
So anyways, beside the rain it was a really cool day. We went up to Kiziba Refugee Camp just outside of Kibuye. This was my third time going up to Kiziba. As soon as our Jeeps stopped I was greeted by about 5 of the members of the youth team that we work with who recognized me as the Jeeps were pulling in. It was awesome to see all of them again and hear about all the projects and things that the group has been doing over the last 2 years. We met shortly with the leaders of the youth team and then split up and walked through the camp. We were fist shown the two new projects that the group has started. 2 years ago, with money from the Ride for Refugees, my team brought the youth team a generator. Since then they have set up a barber shop and a cell phone charging station. Before this the people from the camp had to walk for hours down the mountain in to Kibuye, pay to charge their phone, and then walk for hours back up to the camp. Now the youth team charge less than what people paid in town and charge phones right in the camp. With the money that they make with the barber shop and cell phone charging they have started a community garden where they grown food to share with people in the camp who don’t have money to eat the days that the UN food rations run out. They are also using the money to fund many different programs with the youth in the camp around sports, recreation and education. During our tour we saw the camp’s market, the home of our tour guide, the primary school where she works, the football (soccer) field and climbed to the highest peak in the camp for an overview of the camp where 20,000 Congolese refugees have been living for the last 13 years.
One thing that I have noticed in myself this trip is that things aren’t really hitting me like that have in the past. Being in a refugee camp my first year in Rwanda was a very significant thing. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing for not, but this time being in the camp was more familiar and routine. In a way I think that this is because I have a very good understand now of life in the camp, I’ve seen the positive things that have happened within the youth group, I know people there who have been becoming friends over the last years. On the other hand, I know that with all the reading and research I’ve been doing the last few years I’ve become very desensitized. There is not a lot that I’ve seen this trip that has hit me like it has in the past. I’ve seen almost all of it already, there’s not that shock factor that there has been in the past. I’m not sure yet if this is something that I should be worried about or not. It’s not like I’m becoming less sensitive or caring about things, actually I kind of feel like I’m able to get past the shock of things now and build a better understanding and better relationships. There are upsides and downsides to it I guess.
Anyways, my time in Rwanda this time around is very quickly coming to an end. Tomorrow is our last full day here and it feels like we just arrived a couple of days ago. Tomorrow will be a very full day. We will be helping out with a meal for the street kids in the morning and during that time I’ll be going off to find Manu’s parents to finally meet them and work out getting him in to school when the new school year starts in January. In the afternoon we are driving back out to Kayonza to see the finished house and then coming back to Kigali for our team debrief. Once we get all of that done (which I have the feeling we won’t get all of that done in one day) we will be celebrating our host Serge’s birthday! It should be an awesome evening, out for a good meal and hanging out with everyone before we pack up and leave for the airport on Saturday morning. BAH! I can’t believe we are leaving already!! But I am excited for what’s coming up too!! Paris should be a lot of fun with the team for two days after we leave Kigali. We already checked out some of the city on our layover two weeks ago, so I think we have a pretty good idea of what we want to do with our two days there. At the end of those two days I’ll be sending the team back home and then jumping on a different plane heading the opposite way to Sarajevo, Bosnia! I’ve got a week of puttering around Bosnia with nothing really planned yet but I have a few ideas of things I want to do... but that’ll be their own blog posts next week... who knows, maybe one of them will be from Kosovo? And then finally after Sarajevo I get to go visit one of my best friends in Manila, Philippines! I can’t wait to finally see John again, and this time in one of his favourite places where he has been working with ITeams since November. Can’t wait!!... So much awesome stuff coming up, but on the other hand it sucks hard core that I’m almost done here in Rwanda again. I love it here so much... two weeks just isn’t enough!
Well, that was a monster post, but I hope that it was interesting enough to keep you reading! We’ll see if I get another chance before we leave Rwanda to post again, but if not... I’ll catch up with you in Europe!!
~Mike
...favourite quotes from the kids at Kiziba:
-“Good morning, Teacher.” (at 3pm)
-“What is my name?” ...how should I know that?!?
-“Where do you from?”
-“Give me money!”
-“Give me pen!”
-“What year are you?”
-“Give me my water!”
-“What this?” ...while constantly pulling my shirt sleeves up to look at my tattoos and trying to rub them off...
*All prizes must be purchased with your own money, on your own time. Mike Goerz is not responsible for the lack of tangible prizes. No purchase necessary, prizes costing money may be swapped for a self given high five or pat on the back.
Hey all, so first I have to apologise to anyone who actually checks this blog out regularly... it’s been a few days since I’ve had time to write anything... sorry! Also, this post is very very long, so if you finish it all, you win a prize!*
We’ve had a really busy, but awesome last few days. Last time I updated we had just come back from our week in Kayonza building the mud house. We came back to Kigali for the weekend and had a pretty awesome time. On Saturday we had the morning to ourselves to hang out downtown Kigali, check out some shops, a lot of the girls bought gitange (African print material) and then we all hung out at Bourbon Coffee Shop for lunch. That afternoon we were invited to join our hosts for a wedding reception. Weddings in Rwanda are ridiculous! There are 5 different ceremonies that go with a wedding and they happen within about 3 weeks of each other. The reception that we went to was pretty fancy to say the least. I won’t to in to too much detail about it except that it went on for ever and there was AMAZING traditional Rwandan dance and drumming. We were told that the dance troupe that was there was Rwanda’s best traditional dance troupe, and it showed!
Sunday morning we went to the English service at Vivante church and then went to visit two different memorial sites outside of Kigali. The first site that we went to was a church in the village of Ntarama where more than 5000 people were killed. The second one was at a church in the village of Nyamata. At Nyamata there were over 10,000 people who were killed in genocide. At both sites the people from the area fled to the churches for refuge as they had been doing ever since the first killings started in 1959. The militias and genocidal government caught on to this and used the churches to gather everyone together. At both sites as soon as the churches were full of people seeking refuge they were locked in and the militias were brought in to slaughter everyone trapped inside. The sites have been kept almost the same as the day that the killings happened, and at both sites there are remains of the victims out on display or in mass graves on site. Both sites are very graphic and are very heavy and emotionally difficult to see.
On Monday we headed back to Kayonza for the day to help finish up with some of the building. We spent the day throwing mud on the walls, preparing them to be covered with concrete. We didn’t really do too much that day... we ran out of water pretty early on in the afternoon, so for the last few hours that we were there we pretty much just sat around and played with the village kids, which was just fine for us too! Tomorrow we will be going back to check out the, hopefully, final product. Yesterday the floors and outside walls were being done and today the doors and windows should have been put in, so we’re all hoping that the house is done tomorrow when we get there!
Tuesday was a really good day too! We spent the morning at Kigali’s city market buying and bartering for food for 83 households. The market was crazy, bartering for prices that are fair and not doubled because we’re white, porters fighting over who got to carry our 65 Kg bags across the market to the van, everyone trying to sell us things and yelling to us as we walked by... good times!! All of this food was then divided up and we took it with us when we visited Ubuzima. Ubuzima is a support group run by Vivante for people with HIV/AIDS. We spent an afternoon with the group, getting to know them, helping with a craft project they’re working on to gain income and just being with them helping to break down the huge stigmas around HIV in this area. After spending time with the Ubuzima group we went and met the family of a friend who has been in Canada on and off for the last couple of years. Fabrice has an amazing story with a lot of amazing people in it, and it was awesome to be able to met his mom and brothers here in Kigali after getting to know him over the last few years in Canada.
Wednesday was actually really laid back and relaxed. We took the morning to go shopping at an artisan’s market. As I’m sure a lot of you know, I’ve been collecting masks for the last 8-ish years... I was in heaven! I did really good and got some really good deals, and one not so good deal, and left the market with 5 masks!! Two of them came together in a set, so it’s not really as crazy as it sounds... but still... 5! Awesome. In the afternoon we loaded up some Jeeps and headed to Kibuye. Kibuye is a town on the edge of Lake Kivu in Western Provence. Just over the lake from Kibuye is DR Congo. It was a 3 hour long drive to get out there, so the rest of the evening was just spent enjoying each other’s company around the dinner table while waiting a couple of hours for our food. A few of us hung out and talked for a while after we did finally get our food before heading to bed. OH! That’s something crazy that’s been happening this trip... I’ve actually been going to bed at a “normal” time!! There have been many nights that I can’t sleep well, but I think I’ve been in bed by midnight every night but one!
Today we got up to a VERY strange sight... RAIN! In the middle of the dry season! It poured almost the whole time we were eating breakfast and for about an hour after that. The staff at the guest house we were staying at, which was beautiful!! And not the hotel that we usually stay at in Kibuye... but they said that it’s the first rain they’ve had for a couple of months now, and no one was expecting any rain in any part of the country until the end of August. But yeah, the rain actually was really nice. The country usually stays really green the whole dry season anyways, but on top of all the green there is a layer of red dust. Because of the rain today, the dust was washed away and kept down. Instead of things being very dusty with wind blowing it everywhere, it was actually really nice.
So anyways, beside the rain it was a really cool day. We went up to Kiziba Refugee Camp just outside of Kibuye. This was my third time going up to Kiziba. As soon as our Jeeps stopped I was greeted by about 5 of the members of the youth team that we work with who recognized me as the Jeeps were pulling in. It was awesome to see all of them again and hear about all the projects and things that the group has been doing over the last 2 years. We met shortly with the leaders of the youth team and then split up and walked through the camp. We were fist shown the two new projects that the group has started. 2 years ago, with money from the Ride for Refugees, my team brought the youth team a generator. Since then they have set up a barber shop and a cell phone charging station. Before this the people from the camp had to walk for hours down the mountain in to Kibuye, pay to charge their phone, and then walk for hours back up to the camp. Now the youth team charge less than what people paid in town and charge phones right in the camp. With the money that they make with the barber shop and cell phone charging they have started a community garden where they grown food to share with people in the camp who don’t have money to eat the days that the UN food rations run out. They are also using the money to fund many different programs with the youth in the camp around sports, recreation and education. During our tour we saw the camp’s market, the home of our tour guide, the primary school where she works, the football (soccer) field and climbed to the highest peak in the camp for an overview of the camp where 20,000 Congolese refugees have been living for the last 13 years.
One thing that I have noticed in myself this trip is that things aren’t really hitting me like that have in the past. Being in a refugee camp my first year in Rwanda was a very significant thing. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing for not, but this time being in the camp was more familiar and routine. In a way I think that this is because I have a very good understand now of life in the camp, I’ve seen the positive things that have happened within the youth group, I know people there who have been becoming friends over the last years. On the other hand, I know that with all the reading and research I’ve been doing the last few years I’ve become very desensitized. There is not a lot that I’ve seen this trip that has hit me like it has in the past. I’ve seen almost all of it already, there’s not that shock factor that there has been in the past. I’m not sure yet if this is something that I should be worried about or not. It’s not like I’m becoming less sensitive or caring about things, actually I kind of feel like I’m able to get past the shock of things now and build a better understanding and better relationships. There are upsides and downsides to it I guess.
Anyways, my time in Rwanda this time around is very quickly coming to an end. Tomorrow is our last full day here and it feels like we just arrived a couple of days ago. Tomorrow will be a very full day. We will be helping out with a meal for the street kids in the morning and during that time I’ll be going off to find Manu’s parents to finally meet them and work out getting him in to school when the new school year starts in January. In the afternoon we are driving back out to Kayonza to see the finished house and then coming back to Kigali for our team debrief. Once we get all of that done (which I have the feeling we won’t get all of that done in one day) we will be celebrating our host Serge’s birthday! It should be an awesome evening, out for a good meal and hanging out with everyone before we pack up and leave for the airport on Saturday morning. BAH! I can’t believe we are leaving already!! But I am excited for what’s coming up too!! Paris should be a lot of fun with the team for two days after we leave Kigali. We already checked out some of the city on our layover two weeks ago, so I think we have a pretty good idea of what we want to do with our two days there. At the end of those two days I’ll be sending the team back home and then jumping on a different plane heading the opposite way to Sarajevo, Bosnia! I’ve got a week of puttering around Bosnia with nothing really planned yet but I have a few ideas of things I want to do... but that’ll be their own blog posts next week... who knows, maybe one of them will be from Kosovo? And then finally after Sarajevo I get to go visit one of my best friends in Manila, Philippines! I can’t wait to finally see John again, and this time in one of his favourite places where he has been working with ITeams since November. Can’t wait!!... So much awesome stuff coming up, but on the other hand it sucks hard core that I’m almost done here in Rwanda again. I love it here so much... two weeks just isn’t enough!
Well, that was a monster post, but I hope that it was interesting enough to keep you reading! We’ll see if I get another chance before we leave Rwanda to post again, but if not... I’ll catch up with you in Europe!!
~Mike
...favourite quotes from the kids at Kiziba:
-“Good morning, Teacher.” (at 3pm)
-“What is my name?” ...how should I know that?!?
-“Where do you from?”
-“Give me money!”
-“Give me pen!”
-“What year are you?”
-“Give me my water!”
-“What this?” ...while constantly pulling my shirt sleeves up to look at my tattoos and trying to rub them off...
*All prizes must be purchased with your own money, on your own time. Mike Goerz is not responsible for the lack of tangible prizes. No purchase necessary, prizes costing money may be swapped for a self given high five or pat on the back.
Friday, July 16, 2010
There's Mud Everywhere!! GAHH!
Well folks, it’s been a long, hard couple of days. We’ve been out in a village in the district of Kayonza in the Eastern Provence for the last 4 days building a mud brick house for an 80-ish year old widow who lived in a hut made of banana leaves. In 4 days we’ve managed to build, or I should probably say assist locals to build, almost all of a house out of mud bricks. We’ve still got the roof and then floors to finish. Also on Monday when we go back for the day we will be covering all of the walls with mud to protect them and then cover them all with concrete. There will be a few last things that the local builders will be doing through out the week while we’re doing other things and then on Friday we will go back to check out the final product.
There’s really not a whole lot to say about what we’ve been up to... we were basically slinging mud and carrying 30 pound mud bricks for 4 days straight, although it is worth mentioning the crazy amounts of work that the locals did. We had a few problems finding enough bricks and water to complete the project, so that meant that there was a lot of work to go through out the village and bring back the materials needed. Our second day on site the place that we were getting our blocks from just down the road decided that we weren’t paying them enough, so they jacked the prices up by double. (This usually happens in Rwanda then people see that mzungus, or white people, are involved.) We decided to get our bricks from someone else who was willing to trade his bricks for ours, which were just being made, so they could not be used for at least 3 days until they dried. The problem with this was that it was about a kilometre long walk away from the house. We tried to hire a truck to help us get them there, but again, they doubled the price when they found mzungus there. So, we ended up hiring some local people who were just finishing another job just down the road. They were paid 100 Rwandan Francs per 3 blocks that they carried. That works out to be about 20 cents per every 90 pounds carried 1km... it sounds like nothing, but most people out in the village consider 100 RWF to be a good days wage, and they can feed their family on that... so really, some of them made almost a month’s wage in 2 days. The craziest part about this was that there were a couple of guys who would put 3 blocks (90Lbs) on there HEAD, JOG the whole way there and back and do it all over again... for over 4 hours without a break, for 2 days in a row. I had to carry 2 20L jerry cans full over water over a kilometre and could barely handle that... these guys put all of us to shame. Too bad the one that worked the most also tried to break in to our van as the group of them was getting paid. Luckily my custody eyes can’t be easily turned off and I noticed him very sneakily checking to see if the doors were locked and caught him sliding one of the windows open half an inch at a time over 10 minutes. Bah, a well... you can’t really blame them, they live in such poverty and there in front of all of them were all our back packs full of things they could never even imagine owning.
Tonight after getting back to Kigali we all got cleaned up (which was nice, considering we’ve been playing in the mud for 4 days straight) and went out for Indian food at an amazing restaurant. (Thanks for the tip Laura!!) The food was awesome and it was great to just relax and hang out with everyone again, knowing that we weren’t getting up early again in the morning to physical, muddy labour.
So... like usual, I’m still waiting for a decent connection to post pictures. The one I have here is sketchy, at best. Tomorrow we will be relaxing, sleeping in and doing some shopping and exploring of downtown. We have been here for a week now, and I’m the only one who has been downtown so far and that’s because I left the team... that’s not very usual. Most of the time the teams would be very familiar with downtown by now. After the shopping and time to explore we have been invited to a wedding tomorrow afternoon. It should be a lot of fun and we will get to experience all of the culture of a Rwandan wedding... which is a lot of fun! I went to one in Gisenyi last time I was here.
Well, it’s 12:30am here now... I’m not so much on my normal schedule where this would be early still for me, so I’m off to bed! Looking forward to a nice relaxing, fun day tomorrow in town and at the wedding... should be good times!
Hope you all are doing well!!
There’s really not a whole lot to say about what we’ve been up to... we were basically slinging mud and carrying 30 pound mud bricks for 4 days straight, although it is worth mentioning the crazy amounts of work that the locals did. We had a few problems finding enough bricks and water to complete the project, so that meant that there was a lot of work to go through out the village and bring back the materials needed. Our second day on site the place that we were getting our blocks from just down the road decided that we weren’t paying them enough, so they jacked the prices up by double. (This usually happens in Rwanda then people see that mzungus, or white people, are involved.) We decided to get our bricks from someone else who was willing to trade his bricks for ours, which were just being made, so they could not be used for at least 3 days until they dried. The problem with this was that it was about a kilometre long walk away from the house. We tried to hire a truck to help us get them there, but again, they doubled the price when they found mzungus there. So, we ended up hiring some local people who were just finishing another job just down the road. They were paid 100 Rwandan Francs per 3 blocks that they carried. That works out to be about 20 cents per every 90 pounds carried 1km... it sounds like nothing, but most people out in the village consider 100 RWF to be a good days wage, and they can feed their family on that... so really, some of them made almost a month’s wage in 2 days. The craziest part about this was that there were a couple of guys who would put 3 blocks (90Lbs) on there HEAD, JOG the whole way there and back and do it all over again... for over 4 hours without a break, for 2 days in a row. I had to carry 2 20L jerry cans full over water over a kilometre and could barely handle that... these guys put all of us to shame. Too bad the one that worked the most also tried to break in to our van as the group of them was getting paid. Luckily my custody eyes can’t be easily turned off and I noticed him very sneakily checking to see if the doors were locked and caught him sliding one of the windows open half an inch at a time over 10 minutes. Bah, a well... you can’t really blame them, they live in such poverty and there in front of all of them were all our back packs full of things they could never even imagine owning.
Tonight after getting back to Kigali we all got cleaned up (which was nice, considering we’ve been playing in the mud for 4 days straight) and went out for Indian food at an amazing restaurant. (Thanks for the tip Laura!!) The food was awesome and it was great to just relax and hang out with everyone again, knowing that we weren’t getting up early again in the morning to physical, muddy labour.
So... like usual, I’m still waiting for a decent connection to post pictures. The one I have here is sketchy, at best. Tomorrow we will be relaxing, sleeping in and doing some shopping and exploring of downtown. We have been here for a week now, and I’m the only one who has been downtown so far and that’s because I left the team... that’s not very usual. Most of the time the teams would be very familiar with downtown by now. After the shopping and time to explore we have been invited to a wedding tomorrow afternoon. It should be a lot of fun and we will get to experience all of the culture of a Rwandan wedding... which is a lot of fun! I went to one in Gisenyi last time I was here.
Well, it’s 12:30am here now... I’m not so much on my normal schedule where this would be early still for me, so I’m off to bed! Looking forward to a nice relaxing, fun day tomorrow in town and at the wedding... should be good times!
Hope you all are doing well!!
Monday, July 12, 2010
FIFA, Manu, Memorials and Kayonza
Ok... so I’m going to make this very quick. It’s after 11 pm here already and I’m very tired.
So Sunday morning we went back to the airport to check and see if our luggage made it... and it did! It had all come in at 3 am that night and was waiting for us in the morning. We found all our bags that were scattered around the lost baggage room and were just about out the door when a customs agent came running over, pointed at one specific bag and said that he needed to see inside of it. What he saw, but we didn’t was a little red sticker on the side marking it from someone who had gone through the bag already. Inside the bag were about 50 some odd pairs of shoes. Since the last time I’ve been here Rwanda has changed their laws, so now charities and donations are no longer exempt from taxes. They tried to tell us that we could not take the bags without having an invoice shipped from Canada with the exact value of all the shoes. We talked them first, in to letting us take all the other bags, then we had to explain to them that there were no value to us because they were all donated, so we couldn’t provide an invoice. After quite a bit more negotiating we just told them, ok, we only care that these will go to Rwandans, so if we can’t take them, just please make sure that you guys do something of good use with them. What I think it pretty much came down to was that we were ready to just leave them all in the middle of the airport and them, knowing that we would not pay the taxes on them, eventually just told us to take them and go. So, we got all of our luggage.
After the whole baggage issues were resolved we all went to church later that morning. Not going to get in to too many details, but it was a LONG service... almost 4 hours... but a good one overall. After church we went to our Rwandan leader’s house for a birthday party for their one year old son. I got to see some friends from my last times here, meet some of Serge’s family and we all had a chance to just hang out and relax as a team before going to see the FIFA finals with the street kids.
I really could care less about football (soccer to us north American folks), so I took off on my own to go see my friend David at Bourbon Coffee Shop uptown. It was great to see him again! We got to catch up after not seeing each other for 2 years and it was really cool to hear what life has been like for him since the last time we’ve met.
After seeing David I headed back down the hill and caught the last five minutes and the overtime of the football match. That part I don’t care about, but one of the best moments of this trip so far was that sitting there watching the game when I got there was my Manu!! Manu has been my favourite street kid* (not actually a street kid... snuck in to our program the first day and ever since then I’ve been sneaking him back in..hehe) since I first met him 4 years ago. Now he is 8, has become very shy, but still I could tell he was very excited to see me. After the game was done I had Serge come over and interpret for me. I found out that although he does have a mom that he lives with, his family is too poor to pay his school fees, which end up being about $50 American a year. He should be in his 3rd year of school now, but has never been. This kid is SO smart! I asked him if he wanted to go to school. He said yes, but there is no way that he can, so I told him that before I leave again I will come, meet his mom with Serge and we will get him in school, and I’ll make sure that it’s all paid for. He didn’t say anything. After Serge asked him what he thought of that he just said that he didn’t know the words, even in his own language, to thank me. I’m sooo happy that I can finally do this for him! I’ve wanted to for a few years now, but my trip last year fell through and 2 years ago we still weren’t sure exactly what his situation was.
Ok... this is taking way too long and I’m starting to fade here... sooo tired.
Today: -woke up, sorted through all the donations we brought and decided what will go to who... street kids, refugee camp, HIV support group, etc.
This morning before lunch we went to the Kigali Memorial Center. It’s a site here in the city that has been set up as a memorial to the victims of the genocide. The memorial is done very well by the same people who created the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. They added hand held audio tours last month which has added a lot to the experience. There’s lots of new info in the audio tour now, on top of tones of written information already there. I didn’t spend too much time going through the memorial because I’ve been through it 3 times now, but I did want to hear the audio tour, so I went through it quick... I still did not go through the section dedicated to the children who died in the genocide though. Once was enough and I know that I can not handle that part of the exhibits again.
After lunch we drove an hour out of Kigali in to the Eastern Provence to the district of Kayonza where ITeams has a fairly large piece of property where they will be building a conference center, guest house, store, school and will be running vocational training programs and animal husbandry programs for the community. Our main project that we will be working on all this week is building a mud brick home for a widow who lives in a banana leaf hut with 8 grandchildren that she looks after because of her daughters dying of AIDS.
We got to walk the land, meet the woman that we will be building for and enjoy some time with the local kids who will be our audience while we work for the next week. We will be leaving for Kayonza again in the morning and staying out there for the week, so this may be the last update until I’m back in Kigali on Saturday.
And with that done, I’m off to bed. ‘Nite all!
So Sunday morning we went back to the airport to check and see if our luggage made it... and it did! It had all come in at 3 am that night and was waiting for us in the morning. We found all our bags that were scattered around the lost baggage room and were just about out the door when a customs agent came running over, pointed at one specific bag and said that he needed to see inside of it. What he saw, but we didn’t was a little red sticker on the side marking it from someone who had gone through the bag already. Inside the bag were about 50 some odd pairs of shoes. Since the last time I’ve been here Rwanda has changed their laws, so now charities and donations are no longer exempt from taxes. They tried to tell us that we could not take the bags without having an invoice shipped from Canada with the exact value of all the shoes. We talked them first, in to letting us take all the other bags, then we had to explain to them that there were no value to us because they were all donated, so we couldn’t provide an invoice. After quite a bit more negotiating we just told them, ok, we only care that these will go to Rwandans, so if we can’t take them, just please make sure that you guys do something of good use with them. What I think it pretty much came down to was that we were ready to just leave them all in the middle of the airport and them, knowing that we would not pay the taxes on them, eventually just told us to take them and go. So, we got all of our luggage.
After the whole baggage issues were resolved we all went to church later that morning. Not going to get in to too many details, but it was a LONG service... almost 4 hours... but a good one overall. After church we went to our Rwandan leader’s house for a birthday party for their one year old son. I got to see some friends from my last times here, meet some of Serge’s family and we all had a chance to just hang out and relax as a team before going to see the FIFA finals with the street kids.
I really could care less about football (soccer to us north American folks), so I took off on my own to go see my friend David at Bourbon Coffee Shop uptown. It was great to see him again! We got to catch up after not seeing each other for 2 years and it was really cool to hear what life has been like for him since the last time we’ve met.
After seeing David I headed back down the hill and caught the last five minutes and the overtime of the football match. That part I don’t care about, but one of the best moments of this trip so far was that sitting there watching the game when I got there was my Manu!! Manu has been my favourite street kid* (not actually a street kid... snuck in to our program the first day and ever since then I’ve been sneaking him back in..hehe) since I first met him 4 years ago. Now he is 8, has become very shy, but still I could tell he was very excited to see me. After the game was done I had Serge come over and interpret for me. I found out that although he does have a mom that he lives with, his family is too poor to pay his school fees, which end up being about $50 American a year. He should be in his 3rd year of school now, but has never been. This kid is SO smart! I asked him if he wanted to go to school. He said yes, but there is no way that he can, so I told him that before I leave again I will come, meet his mom with Serge and we will get him in school, and I’ll make sure that it’s all paid for. He didn’t say anything. After Serge asked him what he thought of that he just said that he didn’t know the words, even in his own language, to thank me. I’m sooo happy that I can finally do this for him! I’ve wanted to for a few years now, but my trip last year fell through and 2 years ago we still weren’t sure exactly what his situation was.
Ok... this is taking way too long and I’m starting to fade here... sooo tired.
Today: -woke up, sorted through all the donations we brought and decided what will go to who... street kids, refugee camp, HIV support group, etc.
This morning before lunch we went to the Kigali Memorial Center. It’s a site here in the city that has been set up as a memorial to the victims of the genocide. The memorial is done very well by the same people who created the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. They added hand held audio tours last month which has added a lot to the experience. There’s lots of new info in the audio tour now, on top of tones of written information already there. I didn’t spend too much time going through the memorial because I’ve been through it 3 times now, but I did want to hear the audio tour, so I went through it quick... I still did not go through the section dedicated to the children who died in the genocide though. Once was enough and I know that I can not handle that part of the exhibits again.
After lunch we drove an hour out of Kigali in to the Eastern Provence to the district of Kayonza where ITeams has a fairly large piece of property where they will be building a conference center, guest house, store, school and will be running vocational training programs and animal husbandry programs for the community. Our main project that we will be working on all this week is building a mud brick home for a widow who lives in a banana leaf hut with 8 grandchildren that she looks after because of her daughters dying of AIDS.
We got to walk the land, meet the woman that we will be building for and enjoy some time with the local kids who will be our audience while we work for the next week. We will be leaving for Kayonza again in the morning and staying out there for the week, so this may be the last update until I’m back in Kigali on Saturday.
And with that done, I’m off to bed. ‘Nite all!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Kigali, the Land of One Thousand Missing Bags
Hey all,
So it's my first evening here in Kigali. We all made it here safe with almost no issues. The main thing that we're dealing with right now is the fact that ALL 18 of our checked bags are still apparently in Nairobi. Boo. So, other than the fact that we all have pretty much just what we carried in on our backs, it's been a not too bad day. We've been told that the reason our bags didn't make it was because the plane was loaded too heavy and we were originally told that our bags would be at the Kigali airport by 2 in the afternoon. We went back. They were not there. "Oh, they will be here at midnight, no problem." We're sending a couple of us back to the airport in 4 hours to see if that's true... probably not, but we're hoping!
It's been overall, other than the luggage, a pretty uneventful, laied back kinda day. We got coffee at the new Bourban in the airport... hands down, best coffee in the world!... headed to our guest house, unpacked... no wait... no unpacking, nothing to unpack!! and then did some intros with our on-site leaders, I took a nap after not sleeping for 2.5 days and some of the others took their first walk through a kigali neighbourhood before our first Rwandan supper of chips (fries), rice and chicken... oh, and can't forget the Fanta! I'm sure what is the first of many to come!
Now we're all settling in to watch the Uraguay-Germany match before "hopefully" picking up our bags at midnight and then off to church in the morning. Depending on how the team is doing after their first marathon African church service in the morning we may go to the Kigali Memorial Center. If we do, it'll be a long, thoughtful day. I'm not even sure if I'll be going through it again myself... I think twice is enough. It's a VERY emotionally draining, but very important, part of what we make sure the team are exposed to while here. After seeing how the team does with KMC we'll take them out in to the country to Nyamata and Ntrama church memorials. Again, not sure if I'd go in again myself... we'll see what type of a mood I'm in. These sites are very real, unchanged places where thousands of people were masacared by the interhamwe malitias and have been left vertually untouched as a memorial to those who were killed. On Monday we'll be heading in to Kayonza district, Eastern Provence to check out the land that ITeams ownes there, meet the people we'll be working with, the local leaders and mayor and then head back on Tuesday to start the building.
...I should go... I've got a football match to watch! Pictues soon to come, hopefully... probably will start adding some to fa'book here and there!
Thanks again for reading!!
So it's my first evening here in Kigali. We all made it here safe with almost no issues. The main thing that we're dealing with right now is the fact that ALL 18 of our checked bags are still apparently in Nairobi. Boo. So, other than the fact that we all have pretty much just what we carried in on our backs, it's been a not too bad day. We've been told that the reason our bags didn't make it was because the plane was loaded too heavy and we were originally told that our bags would be at the Kigali airport by 2 in the afternoon. We went back. They were not there. "Oh, they will be here at midnight, no problem." We're sending a couple of us back to the airport in 4 hours to see if that's true... probably not, but we're hoping!
It's been overall, other than the luggage, a pretty uneventful, laied back kinda day. We got coffee at the new Bourban in the airport... hands down, best coffee in the world!... headed to our guest house, unpacked... no wait... no unpacking, nothing to unpack!! and then did some intros with our on-site leaders, I took a nap after not sleeping for 2.5 days and some of the others took their first walk through a kigali neighbourhood before our first Rwandan supper of chips (fries), rice and chicken... oh, and can't forget the Fanta! I'm sure what is the first of many to come!
Now we're all settling in to watch the Uraguay-Germany match before "hopefully" picking up our bags at midnight and then off to church in the morning. Depending on how the team is doing after their first marathon African church service in the morning we may go to the Kigali Memorial Center. If we do, it'll be a long, thoughtful day. I'm not even sure if I'll be going through it again myself... I think twice is enough. It's a VERY emotionally draining, but very important, part of what we make sure the team are exposed to while here. After seeing how the team does with KMC we'll take them out in to the country to Nyamata and Ntrama church memorials. Again, not sure if I'd go in again myself... we'll see what type of a mood I'm in. These sites are very real, unchanged places where thousands of people were masacared by the interhamwe malitias and have been left vertually untouched as a memorial to those who were killed. On Monday we'll be heading in to Kayonza district, Eastern Provence to check out the land that ITeams ownes there, meet the people we'll be working with, the local leaders and mayor and then head back on Tuesday to start the building.
...I should go... I've got a football match to watch! Pictues soon to come, hopefully... probably will start adding some to fa'book here and there!
Thanks again for reading!!
...In the shaddows of Paris Giants!...
Well all... We made it!
I’m writing this from the airport in Nairobi, Kenya, I have no internet here, but I do have a few moments to write down what my last two days have been like. That probably means that this was written hours ago and by the time you read this, I’ll already be in Kigali.
Our trip started on a very uneventful half hour or so delay. Not much to say about that... Had a decent flight from Toronto to Paris, sat beside some pretty cool brothers from LA on their way to an Epic backpacking tour... but that’s their story, not mine... The flight was long, boring and like usual, I didn’t sleep AT ALL! We got to Paris at around 9 am, so at this point in time I was still pretty awake actually, seeing as how if I was working that night I’d still be up and at work for another 6 hours. Once we got to the airport we fumbled our way around the airport, found an information desk, bought a day pass to the train and Metro and we were on our way out in to Grand Ol’ Paris!
We had a pretty awesome first day in Paris. We’ll be stopping for 2 days on the way home, so we didn’t feel that we needed to cram a crap load of things in to our 10 hour layover. We jumped on the train and headed in to the center of the city, transferred on to the Metro line, with the help of a very helpful and short French guy after wandering around the Notre Dame Metro station for about 10-15 minutes and then we jumped on our Metro to the Eifel Tower! Once we got out of the Metro and started heading towards the tower we found out something that would be a giant thorn in our sides the whole day... It was HOT! 36+ degrees!! AND...we were wandering around with all of carry-on bags. Let me tell you... by the end of the day we were NOT a group of people you wanted to walk downwind from!! But anyways, other than the fact that we were melting, we meandered our way over to the tower, did the usual pictures and ooohhing and awwwwwing about it... and then we took a nap. Well, some of us did... I didn’t. We pretty much just hung out at the Eifel Tower for about 2.5 hours in the shade, not wanting to move. It was pretty sweet. AND We got BAGUETTES!! (insert stereotypical French laugh) After lounging in the shadow of the Eifel Tower for a few hours, eating baguettes, napping and people watching we decided to drag ourselves out of the shade, back in to the heat of mid-day and jump back on to the Metro to head back towards Notre Dame.
Once we got to Notre Dame, again we did the typical ooohhing and awwwwing and the pictures thing. We wandered through the church, which was actually Very cool. A lot of very detailed stained glass, paintings and everything else you’ll find in an old European Catholic church. We looked in to climbing the towers, but it turned out that we wouldn’t have had enough time, and if you’re not a member of the EU it costs a tone of money, as opposed to free if you’re European. After going through the church and doing the whole tourist at Notre Dame thing, we wandered over to a park across the street and... crashed in the shade again for another substantial amount of time. After hanging out there for a while and bathing ourselves at a public water tap we split up a bit. 2 of the team members headed back to the airport for a break from the heat and the other 7 of us decided to take a wander up the river along the banks beside Notre Dame. After walking for a while, we decided to once again, lounge in the shadow of another great Paris landmark and have a glass of wine on a river boat turned piano lounge.
After hanging out there for a while, we realized that we were pushing it close for time, jumped back on the Metro and made it back to the airport, found our check-in, gate, other team members and all that jazz and had about 15-20 minutes to relax before boarding the next flight.
As with the first flight, the over night flight from Paris to Nairobi was nothing special. I met a Catholic Priest who worked in CAR (Central African Republic) for 26 years as the head of a school just outside of the capital who was heading in to Nairobi for a leadership conference. Really nice guy, hard to talk with but I got to practice my French a bit more and he got to practice his English. Once again, I did not get any more than maybe 2 minutes of nodding off before being woken up for the meal... and that was the last of that. Nothing else really to say... we landed in Nairobi and 5:30 am local time, I’m sitting at the gate right now, writing to you, waiting to board the plane in the next half hour to finally get to Kigali!
Well, I think that about sums up what my travels in to Paris and Africa so far have been... Thanks for reading! I hope to hear from some of you throughout the next 6 weeks!! Keep checking in... I’ll have fairly regular internet access and will probably end up writing in the evenings before I go to sleep and then posting the next day when we hit a wireless connection. I’ll FINALLY be back in Rwanda in about 2 hours!! (which is actually hours ago, remember, I won’t be posting this until I get internet access after landing and settling in to our guest house...) I’m So Excited!!! GAHHHHHH!!!
I’m writing this from the airport in Nairobi, Kenya, I have no internet here, but I do have a few moments to write down what my last two days have been like. That probably means that this was written hours ago and by the time you read this, I’ll already be in Kigali.
Our trip started on a very uneventful half hour or so delay. Not much to say about that... Had a decent flight from Toronto to Paris, sat beside some pretty cool brothers from LA on their way to an Epic backpacking tour... but that’s their story, not mine... The flight was long, boring and like usual, I didn’t sleep AT ALL! We got to Paris at around 9 am, so at this point in time I was still pretty awake actually, seeing as how if I was working that night I’d still be up and at work for another 6 hours. Once we got to the airport we fumbled our way around the airport, found an information desk, bought a day pass to the train and Metro and we were on our way out in to Grand Ol’ Paris!
We had a pretty awesome first day in Paris. We’ll be stopping for 2 days on the way home, so we didn’t feel that we needed to cram a crap load of things in to our 10 hour layover. We jumped on the train and headed in to the center of the city, transferred on to the Metro line, with the help of a very helpful and short French guy after wandering around the Notre Dame Metro station for about 10-15 minutes and then we jumped on our Metro to the Eifel Tower! Once we got out of the Metro and started heading towards the tower we found out something that would be a giant thorn in our sides the whole day... It was HOT! 36+ degrees!! AND...we were wandering around with all of carry-on bags. Let me tell you... by the end of the day we were NOT a group of people you wanted to walk downwind from!! But anyways, other than the fact that we were melting, we meandered our way over to the tower, did the usual pictures and ooohhing and awwwwwing about it... and then we took a nap. Well, some of us did... I didn’t. We pretty much just hung out at the Eifel Tower for about 2.5 hours in the shade, not wanting to move. It was pretty sweet. AND We got BAGUETTES!! (insert stereotypical French laugh) After lounging in the shadow of the Eifel Tower for a few hours, eating baguettes, napping and people watching we decided to drag ourselves out of the shade, back in to the heat of mid-day and jump back on to the Metro to head back towards Notre Dame.
Once we got to Notre Dame, again we did the typical ooohhing and awwwwing and the pictures thing. We wandered through the church, which was actually Very cool. A lot of very detailed stained glass, paintings and everything else you’ll find in an old European Catholic church. We looked in to climbing the towers, but it turned out that we wouldn’t have had enough time, and if you’re not a member of the EU it costs a tone of money, as opposed to free if you’re European. After going through the church and doing the whole tourist at Notre Dame thing, we wandered over to a park across the street and... crashed in the shade again for another substantial amount of time. After hanging out there for a while and bathing ourselves at a public water tap we split up a bit. 2 of the team members headed back to the airport for a break from the heat and the other 7 of us decided to take a wander up the river along the banks beside Notre Dame. After walking for a while, we decided to once again, lounge in the shadow of another great Paris landmark and have a glass of wine on a river boat turned piano lounge.
After hanging out there for a while, we realized that we were pushing it close for time, jumped back on the Metro and made it back to the airport, found our check-in, gate, other team members and all that jazz and had about 15-20 minutes to relax before boarding the next flight.
As with the first flight, the over night flight from Paris to Nairobi was nothing special. I met a Catholic Priest who worked in CAR (Central African Republic) for 26 years as the head of a school just outside of the capital who was heading in to Nairobi for a leadership conference. Really nice guy, hard to talk with but I got to practice my French a bit more and he got to practice his English. Once again, I did not get any more than maybe 2 minutes of nodding off before being woken up for the meal... and that was the last of that. Nothing else really to say... we landed in Nairobi and 5:30 am local time, I’m sitting at the gate right now, writing to you, waiting to board the plane in the next half hour to finally get to Kigali!
Well, I think that about sums up what my travels in to Paris and Africa so far have been... Thanks for reading! I hope to hear from some of you throughout the next 6 weeks!! Keep checking in... I’ll have fairly regular internet access and will probably end up writing in the evenings before I go to sleep and then posting the next day when we hit a wireless connection. I’ll FINALLY be back in Rwanda in about 2 hours!! (which is actually hours ago, remember, I won’t be posting this until I get internet access after landing and settling in to our guest house...) I’m So Excited!!! GAHHHHHH!!!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
...leaving on a jet plane... TOMORROW!!!
Well y'all, tomorrow is the day!
Finally after two years of no travel, my depature date has finally come! This trip has been a long time in the planning and has evolved over and over since I first started planning it. I've known for over a year now that this summer was going to be used for travel. I origianlly wanted to just travel on my own through Eastern Europe, hitting Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro. A few weeks after starting the planning of this Eastern European tour the opportunity to go back to Rwanda come up... and of course, if you know me at all, you'll know that I jumped on that right away!
So then I had some other decisions to make... I was more than excited to get back to Rwanda, you all know that Rwanda has been a passion of mine for 4 years now! BUT, I also still wanted to travel on my own... I've been to so many different places around the world, but NEVER on my own, just enjoying travel and doing my own thing. And then as I started looking in to things, it all started to click. My 10 month long work contract ended last week, just days before leaving for Rwanda, so technically right now I'm back on relief, which means I can go for 3 months without working a shift before I lose my job. So I took this as a sign... This may be one of my last opportunities to travel for a long period of time, so I took it!!
Within days I was pondering and planning what to do after Rwanda. The team that I'm going to Kigali with decided that we would hang out in Paris for 2 days after Rwanda and just extend our layover. I thought about where I should go after that, and picked Bosnia. I've always wanted to see Sarajevo, so after Paris, that's where I'm going! I'll be in Sarajevo for a week, just checking out the city, meeting people and soaking in the local culture.
BUT... THAT'S NOT IT! I figured since I'm out and traveling for that long, and I'm already half way there, I may as well go and visit my childhood best friend. So from Sarajevo it's a quick jump from Belgrade to Istanbul to Dubai and finally to hang out with John for a week and a half in Manila, Philippines!
This is going to be an AMAZING trip and a once in a life time opportunity!! I'll be hitting 4 continents, stepping foot in 9 countries and will be traveling for just under 6 weeks!
I'll be updating this blog throughout my trip... depending on where I am I may not have internet, but I'll keep y'all up to date as much as I can. Hope you all enjoy reading about my travels!!
Finally after two years of no travel, my depature date has finally come! This trip has been a long time in the planning and has evolved over and over since I first started planning it. I've known for over a year now that this summer was going to be used for travel. I origianlly wanted to just travel on my own through Eastern Europe, hitting Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro. A few weeks after starting the planning of this Eastern European tour the opportunity to go back to Rwanda come up... and of course, if you know me at all, you'll know that I jumped on that right away!
So then I had some other decisions to make... I was more than excited to get back to Rwanda, you all know that Rwanda has been a passion of mine for 4 years now! BUT, I also still wanted to travel on my own... I've been to so many different places around the world, but NEVER on my own, just enjoying travel and doing my own thing. And then as I started looking in to things, it all started to click. My 10 month long work contract ended last week, just days before leaving for Rwanda, so technically right now I'm back on relief, which means I can go for 3 months without working a shift before I lose my job. So I took this as a sign... This may be one of my last opportunities to travel for a long period of time, so I took it!!
Within days I was pondering and planning what to do after Rwanda. The team that I'm going to Kigali with decided that we would hang out in Paris for 2 days after Rwanda and just extend our layover. I thought about where I should go after that, and picked Bosnia. I've always wanted to see Sarajevo, so after Paris, that's where I'm going! I'll be in Sarajevo for a week, just checking out the city, meeting people and soaking in the local culture.
BUT... THAT'S NOT IT! I figured since I'm out and traveling for that long, and I'm already half way there, I may as well go and visit my childhood best friend. So from Sarajevo it's a quick jump from Belgrade to Istanbul to Dubai and finally to hang out with John for a week and a half in Manila, Philippines!
This is going to be an AMAZING trip and a once in a life time opportunity!! I'll be hitting 4 continents, stepping foot in 9 countries and will be traveling for just under 6 weeks!
I'll be updating this blog throughout my trip... depending on where I am I may not have internet, but I'll keep y'all up to date as much as I can. Hope you all enjoy reading about my travels!!
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