As missiles fly between Israel and Lebanon, there’s a small village in Rwanda where the people don’t know what Africa is. Steve realized this when his translator said that he’d have a hard time explaining the concept of Africa as a continent.

Anyway, our group has been pretty low key this past week. We head out for Chyangugu at dawn tomorrow for a couple of days, return to Kigali on Thursday, and fly out on Sunday. It almost feels like I arrived in Rwanda last week. It’s really been a blessing being here and having had the opportunity to meet some amazing people. It’s going to be hard leaving all this, but at the same time I’m pretty excited about finishing up my last semester back in NC. Anyway, I wish I was able to write more on here, but circumstances haven’t allowed me to write as much as I would have liked to. Even the pictures aren't able to really capture the awe-inspiring beauty of the places we visited.

The car's been breaking down a lot in the past week and the Anderson's are back for a few days from their UN job in Nepal, so we cancelled some of our village trips and went to their lake house in Muhazi for a few days. It's only an hour drive away from Kigali. Also, the government here has been pushing the courts to finish up with the genocide trials. They're called gachacha (probably spelt differently). So, on gachacha days, everything is closed and cancelled, which means we lay low and do nothing. Its been a relaxing few days filled with scrabble games and endless conversations.

We have one last big trip to Kamachi (close to Congo) lined up at the end of the week, but that might change. What's new, right?

Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then unto that for which thou wast created. - Baha'u'llah

So, we got back from Uganda on Monday evening. It was definitely an exciting trip, and it took all day to go back and forth. Two hours to the Ugandan border and an additional six hours after that. We took a beast of a bus, which felt kind of like a roller coaster ride around the countless bendy roads that scale the Rwandese mountains. This was the slower of the buses that do the Kigali-Kampala ride. There’s another one that leaves at six in the morning and returns with passengers later the same day. I’m so glad we didn’t take that one, because ours was definitely an intense experience. They showed us a couple of Nigerian films for the first half of the trip and later exposed us to the music of Celine Dion, Michael Bolton, Backstreet Boys, S-Club 7, Enrique Iglesias. You get the idea. Where were you John Michael?

At the border, we had to get off the bus, get through the Rwandese check point, walk to the Ugandan border where we purchased visas for $30 a piece. All the while, the bus was waiting for us, and because we had so many passports to get done, were the last group holding up the bus. So, we all hurried to fill our forms hoping the bus wouldn’t ditch us. Definitely a hectic experience. Anyway, we made it in time and the rest of the trip went pretty smoothly. The landscape drastically changed soon after we entered Uganda. It was pretty much Savannah the rest of the way. Really amazing scenery.

We arrived before dark, bargained with a mutato taxi to take us to the Baha’i temple land, arriving just over an hour later. Kampala is a pretty chaotic city, and is considered to be the New York of East Africa. At the temple, we were met by the care-taker, Mr. Woldu, and his family, who were so warm and welcoming, offering us tea and the dinner they had prepared for themselves (I love your parents Melle). The next morning, Sam and Steve were woken up by Mr. Woldu throwing rocks on the roof of their dorm.

Our time at the temple flew by way too quickly. It was really peaceful walking around the gardens and seeing some of the volunteers performing their particular tasks. A noticeable contrast from the crazyness of the city only a few miles away. We also hung out with another super cool group of girls from Canada. I had an interesting conversation about “flooding” with Farideh. Flooding is what happens to a guy when he’s in the middle of a conversation, and it’s an over-load of information for him that he zones out, and his thoughts wonder off. Flooding guys, flooding! :) It’s so true, right?

Anyway, our trip back ended well, despite a few minutes of nerve-wracking hell. We also had an encore of Celine Dion and all that jazz. An hour before we got to Kigali, we were delayed by an oil-tanker truck that had some how broken down in the middle of the road and was leaking gas. Sam and Steve walked over to get a closer look, and found out that there was a guy standing by the gas leak smoking a cigarette! So, we figured it will either take all night for them to move the truck, or we’ll all die from 3^rd degree burns before then. After an hour of lounging by the roadside, our bus honks for us to go back in, and the traffic begins to slowly move. The cars were driving around the oil truck, and off the side of the road. All this while, I’m thinking of the worst scenario possible. This seems to be something I’m good at. What if the truck blows up right as we’re going around it? Not a stretch of the imagination after what Sam and Steve saw. So, I said a quick prayer, like I’ve said a thousand times since I’ve been on this trip. After it was over, I looked over at Djamshid and we both smiled with relief. Ahhhhh… it’s good to be alive!

Yesterday, we got back from a three-day trip from some villages that we had already been to before. They were like the previous trips, except the car didn't break down this time so that was good. We had 3 other youth from Kigali go with us, which made it even more fun. These trips are exhausting because you're basically driving off-road most of the time, so your body bounces around for hours. Emilia was feeling better so she decided to come, which was good because it gave us a sense of wholeness to the group. I haven't mentioned this before but the group has definitely had sime unity challenges. A lot of the challenges have to do with personality differences and people misunderstanding eachother. I guess, its bound to happen on projects like these. Things always seem to come to a boil when days go by without the group consulting. So, the consultations are definitely a big help.

These trips are also a little scary at times because the roads are not always that great and the Toyota Hiace is always on the verge of breaking down. And then some of the cliffs are pretty steep so sometimes there's the tipping effect. We're pretty careful though and once we turned around realizing the car wouldn't make it.

I'm really excited about the Uganda trip. We leave on Friday for 3 days.

Sorry, I don't have any pictures today! I forgot my camera back at the house. So, some of you are wondering what exactly my group is doing in Rwanda. The organization I'm with (Orien Aid) basically organizes this whole trip for anyone who's interested. It's a cultural exchange program. We travel to villages around the country, spend a few nights with the people and in this way we get a sense of how life is for the Rwandese. Orien Aid is run by students and is really a small organization. It has a 5 year plan of having these summer trips, where it asseses the needs of the country, gathering information so it can then decide on how to better assist Rwanda. It's really a learning experience, and it's especially helpful for those of us in the group who want to pursue a career in humanitarian work. And since Orien Aid was started by Baha'i youth, most people who know about it are Baha'is and so all the volunteers happen to be Baha'is. Our Rwandese contacts are a big help for us since they know what the different communities need. They help us find places to stay in the villages and with logistics in general.


We spent the last couple of nights at the Parsah's. It's been a short holiday for us from our chaotic schedule. They have some amazing stories from their different experiences in Rwanda.

Anyway, I have to go in a few minutes. Two days ago, we went to a genocide memorial site an hour away from Kigali. It was really surreal. It was basically a Church where 5000 people were slaughtered. As a trap they were told that they would be safe at the church and the rebels came with grenades, guns, and machetes and all hell broke lose. Anyway, some of the skeletons are arranged on shelves and others are still left acattered on the floor. We said a few prayers with a man who's whole family was killed in that church. Another man with us had lost all his children as well. Anyway, sorry to end on such a sad note. It's just reality....