Location: Rwanda, Africa-8:15 PM
Friday:
First let me say that if you ever have an opportunity to travel with KLM do! My 8 hour trip to Rwanda was amazing. I was fed two meals, several beverages, unlimited movies at my request, and more!
I was a little bit baffled on my flight to Rwanda as I was expecting more locals to be returning to their homes rather than travelers/tourists. It was in fact, exactly the opposite. I found myself surrounded by adventurers, missionaries, as well as medical crews all headed to various locations, some in Rwanda and some in Uganda, to volunteer their time and effort. Unfortunately I didn't find any that were helping with Hope Shines, but I definitely wasn't the only one speaking English either.
When I landed I did the normal foreigner things such as fill out a customs form, visit customs, get questioned in customs, and then released into the capitol city of Rwanda. As I walked down the stairs I thought to myself, "what will happen if no one is here to pick me up?" I had only the hotel name in my pocket with no reliable address to connect it to. Fortunately all my worries were quickly washed away, when I heard my name called out from the massive crowd by Amy Sarch, a professor at SU.
Amy and I got to know each other more this past Christmas as her son, Leo, was in the show 'A Christmas Carol' with me. With this connection and various others during my time at SU, I was very excited to get to spend some time with this amazing woman in Africa. After a big hug from her, I also met, April Riegler, the founder of the organization I am helping with, 'Hope Shines'.
After we'd all said our hellos we moved onto meet William, our Rwandan contact/driver, who was taking us back to the hotel. William does speak English and you can tell when you immediately meet him that he is a complete sweet heart. April has been working with him since she came to Rwanda the first time in 2007, I believe, and he's always been so wonderful to volunteer his time and resources in an effort to help her ever since.
Let me take this moment to state that I do intend these journals of my day to soon be transformed into more moments of reflection. I know that my experiences in Rwanda as well as traveling on my own will be spectacular, but do not want to worry my readers with the trivial aspects of my day. The only reason I have been writing this way thus far, is to make sure you are aware of all of the people I'm interacting with as well as where I am exactly on the planet. Back to the story!
After I was shown my room in the Hotel we ventured for some food as April and Amy were very hungry. After fully stomachs we all retired to our separate rooms. I do have to say that I slept very soundly anxious to see what the next day had in store for me!
***
Saturday:
Today more volunteers arrived around 12:00 PM named Stephanie and Dan. They are a couple, but Stephanie just finished her doctorate in Colorado and Dan spent the past two years in Australia completing his MBA. They decided to meet for the first time in a long time in Rwanda and then they will both return to the USA together.
The most important thing to note that happened today besides exchanging money and eating is that we got to meet the kids today. As we walked into the school I didn't know what to expect, but when April rounded the corner I heard an explosion of cries and cheers. Within an instant we were all swarmed with children hugging us and then amongst all the chaos they started singing 'Amazing Grace'. I'm not the really emotional type, but that moment was really a tear jerker.
After we all said our hellos and 50 hugs later the boys and then girls performed things for us. For the next 15 minutes songs and dances were shown to us. I couldn't resist the urge to pull out my camera and film them. There's something about seeing boys shaking their hips that's just adorable!
After the show was done Amy, another volunteer named Clementine, and myself talked about ourselves. I then made the fatal mistake of telling them to ask the translator anything they wanted and I would answer it. This is the order of the questions I was asked.
Do you have a husband? no.
Are you a christian? yes.
Where are you from in the U.S? Virginia. Explanation followed.
Can you take me on the safari? I wish.
We want to visit you in Virginia someday. Ok!
How old are you? 22. (Lots of surprised faces)
Do you have a boyfriend? yes.
What's his name? Forrest.
Long story short they now know my boyfriends' name before they actually figured out mine. Next time I'll know better than to answer all of their questions!
We then took a few pictures and just sat with the kids. I ended up with the tiniest girl becoming my shadow. She even went so far to place my hand in hers. It's so amazing to come to a place where you don't have personal space to deal with. In the states I couldn't even hug a child for fear of being accused of molestation, but here all the kids really want is to be held. That I think I can definitely do this week and the weeks to come!
After the whole ordeal of meeting the kids, we then had to leave to start preparations for the camp on Monday. As I sat there with April, Amy, Dan, Stephanie, and Clementine going through all the supplies that had been brought over I began to finally become excited. I've been looking forward to this camp for so long, but to see it finally start to come together is all together another experience. I feel so blessed to be here and to be surrounded by such driven and dedicated people. To see people with a vision and to see how they work so hard to accomplish their goals is truly an amazing learning experience in itself.
Tomorrow we have orientation and then it's a go for the first camp! A mixture of emotions is swelling inside of me, but I know that no matter what everything will turn out ok!
Until internet decides to work again!
Chelsea
