Ruhengeri

(Dann, Mickey, and Drew)

We arrived in Ruhengeri today. Jetlagged, none of us boys slept the first night, so we slept like logs last night. It's hard to stay asleep after the sun comes up and the cars start though. We left on a photogenic bus ride through the Rwandan countryside at 10:00 and arrived in Ruhengeri in time for lunch. We stopped at a petrol truck depot to take pictures of the beautiful vista and were greeted by excited eight-year-olds with sickles taking the arrival of 20-some muzungus to stop gathering food for the goats.

In Ruhengeri, we unpacked into two guest houses. The girls are all crowded into one owned by Greg and Amahoro Tours, and the boys are in one down the street owned by a friend (it's nicer). We ate lunch at a buffet-style restaurant where I (Mickey) was told that, "if [I] was interesting, there was a dance tonight." We also met Mr. Cave and Mr. Kuntz's friend Bosco. Later, we went to see the Intori dancers in some basketball court. While we watched the dancers, a crowd of Rwandans gathered to watch us. Apparently, Rwandans don't clap after every song, and laughed when we cheered. Near the end they invited some of us to dance with them. Bosco later explained to me that they were singing about how unfortunate it was that we didn't understand Kinyarwandan and we couldn't understand what they were saying.

Later, we had time to explore. We (the boys) met a Japanese volunteer worker and a German English teacher. He mixed up his V's and his W's -- I wonder if his Rwandan students have adopted that. We found a bicycle repair "shop" (gathering) on a dirt road next to a patch of potatoes or something. We met up with the girls later and walked half a mile so Katie could buy a banana awkwardly. More people in Ruhengeri speak French rather than English, according to Bosco. Communication is harder than it was in Kigali, but a few pleasantries in Kinyarwanda go a long way. Cave's group went to the market and bought dinner and tomorrow's breakfast, which they are preparing now. It gets dark really early because Rwanda is on the same time zone as Belgium, which they are not geographically lined up with (and the sun comes up correspondingly early).

Maramuche (good night).

If you would like just one guy's opinion about this voyage, visit Drew's travelblog at http://intransitmpls.blogspot.com.

All of the kids are healthy, safe and doing very well in Rwanda. All smiles after the Intore Dancers.