Rwanda II

This is our last day in Kigali. Tomorrow we will spend the day in airports and then arrive home in Harare tomorrow night. Being here has been surreal, and incredible. Rwanda is so beautiful. The hills, the green, the smiling children yelling "muzungu!", the banana trees, the gorillas, toilet paper in public washrooms ... and people are so kind. If you ask someone for directions, they will stop whatever they are doing, and take you to your destination.

A lot about Rwanda seems new. There is construction everywhere. There are lots of new houses, and new buildings, and new roads, and new signs. There is a new flag and a new national anthem. The message is that this is a new country - it is not the same land that was covered in blood in 1994. But you still see some signs - literal signs that are covered in bullet holes; mass graves and memorial sites all around the country, etc.

It's just so hard to believe. We were at the Mille Collines hotel the other day. It's hard to believe that it's not a movie set - but actually the place where "Hotel Rwanda" took place - 2 minutes away from where we're sitting right now. It's a new country, but how can you ever forget atrocities from the past? John saw a truck full of prisoners wearing the infamous pink prison clothes of the genocidaires the other day. There's no way you can forget. But I guess the question is how you make sure that "never again" really is never again.

Mountain gorillas

First off; a very Happy Birthday to Dad McAlister who turns 60 today! Also a belated Happy Birthday to Sir Johnny Guida for yesterday. We wish we were there to celebrate with you two, but we are in the middle of Rwanda!

To celebrate these special birthdays; we went trekking through the rainforest to track the almost extinct mountain gorillas. It was INCREDIBLE! We got within a metre of them and they were huge and beautiful and humanlike and so majestic! It was totally worth getting completely covered in mud! This has been the vacation of a lifetime. Today we came to Butare to visit the national museum and the university. Sunday we fly home to Zim. All I can say is come to East Africa, because it is gorgeous!!! (Oh, and of course you will stop by and visit us in Zimbabwe, right?) :)

Rwanda

We're in Rwanda. This has been on the top of my "countries to visit" list for years. It feels like a miracle that we are here, and it is actually quite a surreal experience for me. This morning we went to the National Memorial Site for the genocide in 1994. It was very powerful to see the mass graves, and the thousands of pictures or people who were killed. There was this one wall just of photos of children who were slaughtered. I was humbled and I wept. We also went to the Ste. Famille church, where hundreds fled for protection and then were betrayed by their priest to the genocidaires. As we walked through the church, we heard the youth choir practising their beautiful hymns. I felt overwhelmed as I prayed on one of the benches where people had been killed; waiting for God.

I think Rwanda is the most beautiful country I have ever been in. It's the country of a thousand hills, and it's so green. There are banana trees everywhere. We just took a 2 hour drive, and I wish I could have taken a photo each minute - it's that beautiful. On the way here, we also flew into Bujumbura (Burundi) and that was the most beautiful descent in a plane I've ever been in. What a gorgeous, tragic part of this continent.