Rwanda - Arrival

On May 3rd Grant and I traveled to Rwanda, East Africa. We sponsor two
children here, whom we will meet, through Compassion International. We
have been advocating Compassion for some time and we are excited to
learn more about their work in the 3rd world. We farewell Max and
Grant's wonderful parents who mind him while we are away. This is my
first time apart from him and it is heart-wrenching! We know he is in
excellent hands! We travel as a group of 10 from the USA - all
advocates or workers for Compassion. We meet at different stages of
the journey - Nashville, Chicago, Brussels - until we all check in to
our hotel in Kigali, Rwanda's capital.
Our visit to Rwanda very nearly finished before it began! We arrived
at the Kigali airport Customs line to find that Australian and Kiwi
nationals need visas to enter Rwanda! You would think that our
experiences with visas would have made us scour the web for that
information... but it was never obvious to us that we needed to this
time. "What can we do?" we asked, only to be told "you will have to
leave - you cannot come in". We detected a warning of the seriousness
without being 100% serious in the young customs officer's voice so we
began apologizing profusely and explained that we were here to see and
help the work of Compassion. Next time you apply beforehand, he said
as he stamped our documents!

And so we are here. We are guests, observers of this fascinating
nation. I feel as though I am a sponge, ready to absorb all I can so I
do not forget. We drive through Kigali with our faces glued to the
windows. The city is very tidy and welcoming with landscaped "main
artery" streets which are sometimes made of cobblestones revealing
Rwanda's colonial history. We are fascinated by the culture. Rwandan
people are quiet, respectful, proper. Many people speak 3, 4 or 5
languages, English is usually one of them, particularly now that they
have adopted it (and dropped French) as an official language. Men wear
long pants and collared shirts. Women wear long skirt or dresses which
make climbing on the back of a motorcycle taxi or bicycle a remarkable
sight! People are either barefoot or wear their best (often their
only) pair of shoes. There are people everywhere - the roadsides
stream with people walking, carrying their loads (a basket of fruit, a
backpack, suitcase, banana trunk, or a door) on their heads. It is not
uncommon to walk several miles to school or work. Those who can afford
might take a bicycle taxi which means sitting on the back of the bike
and taking turns pedaling along the way! It might even mean getting
off to walk or push the bike up a steep hill. And hills are a-plenty.
Rwanda is known as the land of a thousand hills - a lump sum that
falls far short of the country's curvaceous terrain. Those hills are
terraced with banana, maize, coffee, bean and sweet potato crops as
the land produces food for 10,000,000 people in a space the size of
Maryland or Otago.

We are immunized against Typhoid, Tetanus, Hepatitis A, Cholera,
Yellow Fever. We are well-stocked with antibiotics should the worst
happen. We take pills to prevent malaria. We cover up at night and
have a new appreciation for DEET. We don't drink the water, we brush
our teeth with bottled water and use body wipes to cleanse our faces. We stay in a nice hotel with safe food... yet half our team
wind up reaching for the peptobismal and immodium. The locals thrive
in spite of the mosquitos that carry disease and the substandard water
- they are tough but not immune. We are humbled by their endurance.
Diarrhea and malaria have been serious killers in Rwanda, but disease
is nothing compared to the most sinister character in Rwanda's story.
When we think of Rwanda, we think of Genocide. 1994. One million
people, murdered.
Our itinerary is as well thought out as a film script. In nine days
that will feel like months, we are taken on a journey from grief,
despair, hopelessness to compassion, love, hope to the future, Rwanda
- a miracle.