So, my sore-throat turned out to be strep throat. Woohoo. Sam pointed out the white spots on my tonsils and the nurse at the clinic confirmed. She put me on anti-biotics for a week. I really hate taking them, but I didn’t have much of an option.

We just got back from a 3-day trip to Nyagisagara, which is another 3-hour drive from Kigali. Rwanda is small enough that you can drive from the northern tip to the southern in six hours. Because of the strep, I was considering staying back. Emilia had already come down with something the week before, so I would have stayed back with her at the Parsah’s home. The Parsah’s are this amazing Persian/Italian couple who’ve lived in Rwanda for almost 3o years. They’ve had us over for dinner 3 times so. She makes some goooood authentic Persian polo.

Anyway, I’m glad I went to Nyagisagara because it turned out to be the most exciting trip we’ve made thus far. We stayed at the Baha’i Center in Nyagisagara for all 3 nights. The first night was really bad for me. I was so nauseous and basically passed out on a mattress when we arrived. I think it was the side-effects from the meds I was taking. I felt really good the next morning, and during the day we met up with the locals who had prepared this amazing dance for us.

The next day we went on one of the most strenuous hikes that I have ever experienced. It took us over 3 hours to climb around 3 huge mountains. For the first hour, the incline was 40 degrees up hill. We were going pretty fast too, and the first 3o minutes felt like an eternity. We had a guide who was so hard-core that he scales these hills bare-foot. Our feet would have been completely destroyed by the jagged rock. We passed a lot of people whose daily routine was going up and down and these mountains, which made me realize that I really had no right complaining. I even saw someone walking down in crutches. How?? Anyway, the last two hours were pretty easy. Once we got up to the first hill/mountain, we basically looped around the mountain tops till we got to our destination, which was a small community of people that the group had visited the year before.

I’ve been told that many of the communities we visit are a lot more vibrant than the previous years. Many communities were so visibly disaffected from the genocide that smiles were hard to come by. It’s very different now. In most communities, it’s hard to tell that they’ve had this bloody past. Tomorrow we’re going to the Rwandese version of Auschwitz, and I hear that this is one of the few communities that remains to be extremely depressed. There’s a memorial site there that has been left almost completely intact.

The people here always tell me that I should take good news home with me. To them, the genocide is a big shame and I get the impression that many don’t fully understand how it all happened. I don’t either. The genocide wiped out 1/8^th of its current population, and I cannot even begin to fathom how that must have been. They want people to know that Rwanda is safe now. And, it is safe. It seems to be one of the safest and most forward-thinking countries in Africa.

I’m enjoying the trip a lot more now. I feel like I’ve transitioned into the pace of things here, and I’m beginning to really be here mentally, rather than just going along with everything.

We’re going to Kampala on the 7^th for 3 days!

Shout outs to John Michael, who just found out he’ll be in Haifa for 2 ½ years! And to Bejan, Melle, Laila, Dibo, Jacki Ambe, Mona Ziems, Bryant, and Sahar. And to everyone else :)