Reunification!

Reunification occurred at 6:05a.m. Nairobi time which is 10:05 p.m. CST. The next couple of hours were filled with stress as we tried to transfer Dave's bags from airline to airline and pick up his boarding pass from Kenya Airways. While Dave had a 2 hr layover in Nairobi, most of this happened in the last 10 minutes. James offered no sympathy because he had just spent 8 hours trying to sleep behind a bank of chairs, on the floor of the main (and only) concourse in the Nairobi airport.

The flights to Burundi then to Kigali went very smoothly and our dynamic duo was very relieved and very surprised to find that all 9 bags they were traveling with (2 of their own and 7 of soccer equipment for Centre Marembo) made it through to Kigali.

D and J were met at the airport by Nicolle, a trustee of Centre Marembo, and brought to drop off the soccer gear and meet the boys. (Centre Marembo is a center for 33 boys who have been orphaned because of the Genocide. It is also a drop-in center for other street kids.) The boys were curious and loved poking fun at our Kinyarwanda (although we think it is pretty good).

Our new friends, Nicolette, Santiana, and Nicola (a Brit from the Ministry of Finance), took D and J to a cabaret for lunch. We ate a traditional Rwandan meal called a brochette. This consists of goat and beef meat, and vegetables roasted on a skewer. The meal came with chips (fries) and bananna crisps. YUM!

Cultural note: whenever a drink is ordered in a bottle, the bottle is brought with the cap on and opened in front of you to prove that the drink has not been tampered with in any way.

Kigali is a busy city unlike any place we've ever been. There is lots of traffic with motorcycle taxis, children, people in wheelchairs, buses, and trucks all trying to share the same road. The hills surrounding the city are beautiful. The people so far have been very curious and friendly. We heard the word myzungu several times tonight as we walked around central Kigali. We saw the ORTPN headquarters where we will pick up our gorilla permits in the morning, the Hotel de Milles Collines (Hotel Rwanda), the US Embassy and dined on, "the best burger in Kigali." It wasn't.

We're both pretty tired from our travels and very much in need of a shower. We'll hopefully write more tomorrow as we are on our way to Kinigi Guest House near Parc National Volcans to see the mountain gorillas on Thursday.

Muramukeho