Rwanda 2009!

Nineteen students will travel to Rwanda, from June 5-19, accompanied by chaperones Dave Kuntz, Anna Overdo and James and Molly Cave. Much of the focus will be on the history of the 1994 genocide, and the effect that it is still having on the country. In small groups, participants will also rotate through cultural activities, including a gorilla trek, an orphanage visit, brick making and more. As James states, “This kind of ‘out of comfort zone’ experience will provide a great and unique opportunity for personal, spiritual, and academic development. We hope that Rwanda 2009 will provide opportunities to foster tolerance and understanding of another culture by challenging comfort zones, encourages participation in the global community, and empowers future servant leaders.”

James and Dave traveled Rwanda each of the last two summers, initially as a way to add greater depth to curriculum for a junior high class, titled Genocide and Social Justice. They will now be leading others through similar experiences. Students going to Africa include Carmen Aguirre, Kelsey Bakken, Rachel Bilski, Katie Cashman, Mickey Caulfield, Emma Eldred, Julie Flannery, Drew Frenz, Glynnis Forsberg, Dann Fry, Emma Hafermann, Abby Haselman, Jane Huber, Sian Last, Mary Musilek, Alex Rothstein, Grace Ronning, Natalie Thomas, and Anna Viers.

Olebaho Rwanda!

Well, this is it. The end of the road so to speak. It is always with mixed emotion that we leave our mother country (Always=twice).

It is now 9:30am Rwanda time, 2:30am MLPS time. Kuntz is organizing his bags at the MC and Cave is blogging.

This morning we had our free breakfast buffet (Cave had African Tea. Yum) then headed to the Kenya Airways office on the main circle. Of course, what were we thinking. It is Tuesday. They are closed. Dah.

We cannot express enough how important it was that you all read and that we recieved so many e-mails and comments (must be bored this summer).

We have gained so much from our travels here. The more we come the more we feel at home and the more we learn. The people are so nice and curious and the land is truly beautiful.

We have worked hard to learn Kinyarwanda (our vocab has more than doubled) and we acutually can get a point across. (We don't just speak more slowing and yell in English).

We love motos, the red dust, goat brochette, avocados, Primus, Fanta in the bottle and calls home on our Rwandan cell phone (everyone in Rwanda has a cell BTW).

Please have a good summer and check back in 2 weeks for photos and videos.

Take care and think about us as we spend 7 hours in the worst airport in the world (Nairobi).

Muracozi Chane & Amahoro!

Kuntz and Cave

Lots of Hangin' Out

Shout out! Thanks for the e-mail and reading Sarah. We will see you at the cabin on Thursday morning.

Also, we know that many of you have been reading this and are not sure why. My wife thinks it gets too long but reads anyways. Devotion.

Yesterday we spent the early morning wrapping up some shopping. We purchased some Rwanda sandals at the wholesale district off the main circle in Kigali. Very crazy, loud, dusty but great. We then headed back to the MC, dropped off our bag-o-sandals and moto'd down to the Ciplaki art market. We purchased a few more things (the kids are always disappointed or uninterested with the gifts. Oh well). After saying good-bye to our art market friends (Francide loved us-we supported her family well the past 2 days) be moto'd back to the MC for rest and relaxation.

We spent the morning having water and Fanta Orange Aconje (cold) and reading. At 3pm we had an appointment for a 1 1/2 massage in the hotel spa. It was only $30.00. Nice. Afterwards we both agreed it was worth it but it was more like 1 1/4 gentle rub.

Still smelling of massage oil we went back to the pool and had a cheeseburger. Delish! We cannot express enough how good that burger and fries were.

After reading for an hour so we decided because we are so wild and crazy that we would head back to our room, pack and watch TV.

After a crazy night of watching Ugly Betty and that Bill Murray movie where he is an underwater documentarian we had the best night sleep of the trip.

Thanks for reading.

Amahoro.

Kuntz and Cave

The Milles Collines, Politicians, Super Slivers and the Souvenir Cooperative

Shout outs! Thanks for the reassuring words Lisa, Drew, we are excited to bring you all here as well. It will be great. Melissa, we knew some and didn't know some. We did not know tonsils was an elective surgery!

Wardrobe Update-We're on day two of our second set of pants. We did get some laundry done so our wardrobe will be more versatile as we finish off this adventure.


Ever have one of those days that is extremely busy but at the end you feel like you have accomplished nothing? This was our day.

We woke up early at the Isimbi (If you call not sleeping really much because of mosquitos, mosque call and busy working noises...) and quickly made our way to the Hotel Milles Collines (Hotel Rwanda. BTW-Our check-in early for free breakfast scheme was sniffed out pretty quickly). Last year we stayed here at the end of the trip as well. Purely for the historical significance of the site. The hotel has an excellent view of the hills surrounding Kigali and was at one time the tallest building in Kigali. It has since been dwarfed by bank buildings and the Serena Hotel (See last year's post about meeting Senator Dave Durenberger).

The room we were origninally assigned was not overlooking the pool. We switched to pool side and are now happy.

Last night, we were finally able to make an appointment with Mr. Charles Murigande, former Minister of Foreign Relations for Rwanda. He is now a special advisor to the Prime Minister. Mr. Murigande has been very busy the last couple of days as Rwanda has hosted the East African Economic Conference.

It was very good of him to work us into his schedule (It would be like meeting Condy!).

We met Mr. Murigande in the lobby of the Milles Collines and went to the pool. He and James ordered African tea and Dave ordered coffee. It was good that it took a long time for the beverages to arrive as it was clear that Mr. Murigande was meeting us as a favor. We exchanged pleasentries about his country and how much we loved Rwandas people. The conversation was marked with several periods of uncomfortable silence.

We finally had to talk about the weather (Can you believe we went to the weather after only 15 minutes!!).

Mr. Murigande was a very nice man but very quiet and probably pretty uninterested in us. But really, why would he be? (We had clean pants on so it could not have been the smell, right?!)

We do seriously want to thank Senator Durenberger for arranging this meeting. It was great for us even though it was not so great for Mr. Murigande.

After our meeting we quickly hopped motos and made our way to the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Last summer when we visited there were just over 280,000 victims of the Genocide buried in mass graves on the hill below the memorial building. As of now, there are close to 300,000 victims buried there. We filmed the outside of the memorial but we were unable to take pictures inside. Next year this memorial will be a great first stop for a good history of Rwanda leading to the Genocide.

There were several survivors and families of victims visiting the memorial today. One woman entered the building and started to sob uncontrollably while her family helped her up the stairs into the section of the memorial that honors the lives of the children lost during the Genocide. Unfortunatley, this is something that is probably not an uncommon occurrence at the Kigali Genocide Memorial.

(For a more detailed description of the Kigali Genocide Memorial, you can look at our entries from last year).

We made our way from the memorial to our favorite Italian restaurant, the O Sole Luna for a pizza and refreshments. It had been a long day already. We enjoyed our lunch and quickly continued with our day (Meaning off to the Centre Marembo which is just a short 5 minute walk from OSL).

Once there we were greeted by some of the boys who rely on CM for their schooling and other needs (Centre Marembo provides housing and school for 33 street boys and other services for another 66 or so). It was just a short time that we waited (and hugged many kids we remembered from last year) before Nicole (and her American friend Emily from VA), Nicollette and Santi joined us. Santi and Nicolette were the first 2 people we met in Rwanda last year and the first ones to bring us to have brochettes.

It was very good to see them.

As we were saying goodbyes and gathering up 2 duffles bags we needed to bring back to the states, Kuntz started to scream very loudly (uncomfortably loud actually). Cave looked over and Kuntz had reached to pick up his backpack that he had laid on the side of a wicker chair and rammed a sliver the size of a stake you would kill a vampire with under one of his fingernails! Ack!

Kuntz excused himself to go vomit (he was now sweating like a large man in a sweater in July and was the color of snow-in January).

We tried to get the stake out with a forecepts and alcohol wipes but to no avail.

At this point Kuntz just wanted to go to our hotel. Santi (who BTW is the worst driver in all of Rwanda er, wait, maybe the world) offered us a ride.

Now, for a very long reason Kuntz had told Santi we were still in the Isimbi Hotel. So we had ato fib (Children, fibbing is wrong. Do as I say not as I do!) and say we were meeting someone at the MC.

Once in our room, Kuntz used a nail clipper to cut down his nail to expose the stake. With a huge pull and a yelp, the stake was out! (Kathy, I made Dave keep it to show you but that may make his check on too heavy. We will see).

Well, I must say that Kuntz rebounded rather nicely and we were on motos down to the handicraft cooperative within a few minutes.

After about 2 hours of shopping (BTW-When a large bus of Muzungu missionairies from south Georgia, USA shows up, prices go up for everyone!). After a good time practicing our Kinyarwanda and learning new phrases (Thanks Francine and Deo for taking all of our shopping money-"good price for you because it is a Sunday") we took a cab back to the MC (we had 2 large duffle bags full of gifts that our kids won't like anyway).

The Euro Futbol championships are tonight in about an hour so we plan on eating by the pool at the Milles Collines, having a Fanta and a snack and enjoying the match (and some good people watching).

We will sign off tomorrow. We anticipate a full 12+hours of free breakfast buffet overlooking Kigali, wearing pants by the pool, the best cheese burger in Rwanda, reading, napping and reflecting a great trip.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Amahoro!

Kuntz and Cave

National Day of Community Service, Nyamata, Ntarama

National Day of Community Service, Nyamata, Ntarama, and the Hotel Isimbi

I wish we had a hit calculator on this blog. We are sure it would be up to 8 by now!

Shout-outs to Melissa Abrams (always great to read your e-mails), Kitty Prentice our best new teacher friend at BSM, and Lisa Lenhart-Murphy (We thought about just exchanging pants not just underwear. We will see).

A special shout out to Zoe Cave. Zoe broke her foot on the last day of her arts camp at Cretin-Derham Hall on Friday. What a bummer to have to wear a cast all summer! I am thinking of you Zoebert and you are a strong girl who will be cruising around on your crutches in now time. I love you.

Here it is, today's big announcement: WE HAVE CHANGED OUR PANTS! They really could have gone several more days, but we thought we would consider the senses of those around us. Our new pants have both started out green. Stay tuned for changes. You know they will.

Silence, noise, we just can't win. We decided to change hotels after waking up after a fitful night's sleep at the Iris guesthouse. Hard boiled eggs were on the menu for breakfast at the Iris along with the usual, a dinner roll, some jam, and fresh fruit. The breakfast is included with the night's rate at the Iris. After paying for our room we stashed some of our luggage in the hotel's office and set out for a busy day. Our plan was to travel to the Genocide sites of Nyamata and Ntarama, two sites we visited last year. We wanted to get them on film. We would then return to Kigali to visit the Genocide Memorial and the Belgian Troop Memorial and then switch hotels.

Three hundred and fifty three days a year, Kigali is a busy and loud city. On one Saturday a month, Rwandans drop their normal routines to participate in the National Day of Community Work. All shops are closed, public transportation ceases, and people spend their time making Rwanda look more beautiful than it already is. Last year, we were very surprised at how clean and orderly Rwanda was/is. This is because of these monthly days of work and because Rwandans take pride in their homes and country.

Our plan for our busy day came to a crashing halt. Kigali was like a ghost town this morning. There were people here and there sweeping sidewalks and picking up trash, and that's about it. There was no traffic on the streets, no people, no yelling, no honking. It was very strange. We wandered aimlessly around the city trying to get out to Nyamata without any luck.

After an hour and a half, we ended up at the Belgian Troop Memorial. As luck would have it, the docent was just showing up and let us in. He was kind enough to show us around as James filmed the memorial.

On the night the Genocide started, the FAR (military arm of Hutu extremism) surrounded the home of the acting Prime Minister who was a moderate Hutu. She was assassinated and the nine Belgian soldiers guarding her were captured by FAR troops. They were tortured for hours before finally being killed. The Interhamwe believed that if the Belgian troops who were part of the small UN force were killed, the west would stay out of the conflict. They were right.

The Memorial honors their service in Rwanda and their lives. As is the norm in Rwanda, the memorial is a military barracks that has been left as it was in 1994. Bullet holes and blood stains in the walls, family writing on the walls and a small genocide "museum" in the back. This site is simple but adds a dimension to the story of genocide. (BTW-The site of this killing is just across the street from the 2nd most popular hotel in Kigali at the time of the genocide (the Dipolmat).

Finally after visiting the Memorial, things started to pick up again (the National Day of Community Work only lasts half the day). We made our way to the chaotic main taxi and bus station in Kigali at Nyarbogogo (See video from 2007 in the right side-bar). We secured a mini-bus to Nyamata. The town is about a one hour drive south of the capital. Once off at the main road we had about a 30 minute walk to the memorial.

The Nyamata Genocide Memorial has changed in the past year. On all of the pews inside the small church, the clothing of the victims of the massacre have been laid out for viewing. Bullet holes still let shining streams of light in through the ceiling and the blood soaked altar cloth still lies in its place. There is a memorial below the sanctuary to a woman who was separated from the group and raped innumerable times before being killed. Behind the Church are two crypts that hold the remains of many of the people that were killed. One of the crypts holds coffins and the other holds skulls and femur bones.

Even though we were here last year, the impact of the Memorial is no less moving.

We decided to take moto-taxis back down the road to the town of Ntarama. After the 5k moto trip to Ntrama we asked the moto guys to stay (the memorial was about 2 miles off the of main road and we were both hungry and tired of the heat--it was the hottest day in Rwanda on the coolest day in Minnesota) and did not want to get stuck in the small, small village of Ntrama.

We entered the memorial and were met by the docent. We remember her from last year. When we asked if we could film inside the memorial she told us only outside.

Ntrama was the site of a massacre of 5,000 Tutsis. The members of this village fled to the church when the Genocide started and waited, locked inside for 3 days. When the Interhamwe arrived the found 5,000 Tutsis hiding in a place about the size of an SA. The gates and windows were locked. The Interhamwe threw grenades into the windows killing many. When the survivors tried to flee from the church they were hacked by machettes (If you had money you could pay to be shot with a gun).

Inside the memorial (see the side videos of our 2007 trip where we filmed both Nyamata and Ntrama) clothes have been hanged from the rafters and personal effects like pens, rosaries, eye glasses, etc. are on display.

As stated before, seeing if for a second time has just as much impact as last year.

After leaving the memorial we negotiated with the moto guys to take us to Kigali. We originally decided we would take a mini-bus but since we were in the middle of nowhere we had better secure two motos.

For about $10 were were able to get a ride, via moto, 20k into the center of Kigali and we were stopped by the police only once (We know that our moms are not too happy to hear about all of this moto talk. What can we say, we are rebels!). This was a good deal since we were more than happy with paying only $10 and both moto guys, from the small village of Nyamata, were over-top-happy to get $6,000 rwf.

On the Office Michael Scott calls that Win-Win.

We arrived the Iris Guest House about 3:30pm, got our bags and took a cab (TaGeeSee) to the Isimbi Hotel in the noisy, busy central part of Kigali. It will cost us half and will be not quieter.

We have been invited to eat at Chez Lando with Greg from Ruhengeri.

We plan on checking out tomorrow as early as possible and checking into the Milles Collines Hotel (we hope early enough so we can eat the free breakfast buffet).

Take care and keep thinking about us (Bueller, Bueller, tumbleweed, cricket, tumbleweed, Bueller...)

Amahoro.

Kuntz and Cave

Butare, The Virgin Mary, and a Lot of Red Dust

First, today's shout outs:

Thanks to Janna-it was probably just the hormones. Kern-Thanks for the great questions. We'll be expecting a call from Pulitzer. Are you nominating? Unc-Can't wait to decorate for the 4th. M,Z,Z,E,P,I and K,A,L,F,-we miss you very much. We think and talk about you all the time. All of our love.

Pants Update-Still got 'em (the same ones on we mean).

Funny, after a while you get used to sleeping with the sounds of the developing world outside your door or window. There is usually sweeping, honking, yelling, laughter, diesel engines, etc. At the Hotel Faucon (which used to be the home of the Belgian colonial governor) the walls are about two feet thick. The rooms are 100 yards from the street. Last night was eerily quiet. We both had trouble sleeping without the familiar sounds of life in Rwanda directly outside.

After waking up we went to the hotel restaurant for omelettes. We both ordered tomato and cheese in our eggs since that is what was offered. We enjoyed some delightful hot dog buns with honey and tea and coffee as we waited. After waiting for about a half an hour, we were informed that they were out of cheese. We said that that would be fine, a tomato omelette sounded delightful. We then ate some fresh fruit and received our bill. No eggs either I guess. Oh well.

Butare is considered the cultural capitol of the country. The National Museum is there as well as the National University. Until the change of power in 1959, it was the capital city and home of the Mwami Kings.

We made our way to the National Museum. It had seven rooms that exhibited Rwanda's history from prehistory to present. It actually took us only about 45 minutes to walk through and we weren't necessarily rushing. The museum exhibited very little about the Genocide. Interesting.

We decided to go the village of Kibeho which has been famous for the last 25 years because people have seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary on top of the hill. After debating about whether or not to hire a cab for about $30 U.S., or take a mini-bus, we decided to travel with the locals. We walked to the bus station in town and we were directed to the Kibeho bus. It was non-stop party bus from then on. We exhibited our skills in Kinyarwanda and showed everyone on the bus pictures of our families. We felt very fortunate to get this bus when we did, it is the only one going to Kibeho today.

As we started to drive we realized that we were not going to be traveling on paved roads. As we wound throught neighborhoods then villages, then country sides the red dust started wauffeding (sp) up through the holes in the floorboards and through the cracks in the windows and doors. After about 15 minutes we both were covered with red dust; our teeth, our arms, our clothes, and our pants!

After a drive of about 1 1/4 hours we arrived. Arrived where we were not sure. Nothing. So we started walking.

Dave turned to James and said "good thing we managed to get on the last bus to Kibeho." Both started laughing, James said, "that means that we just got off the last bus departing from Kibeho!" We would problem solve that one later.

As was mentioned Kibeho is internationally famous among Christians because of the Mary sighting 25 years ago. It is the only Catholic church approved apparition site in Africa. Needless to say, many from around the world have pillgrimaged to see the site.

When we arrived at the top of the hill we saw two churches. The first was one was newer as it was created to honor the Virgin Mary. We walked in and spent some quiet time in this holy place.

We left the church and found a small memorial in the back and just before a school. We met a girl named Jean or Margaret (we are not sure) who was studying at the foot of Mary (a statue). We asked her about the Virgin and about the Genocide memorial site. She lead us to a small chapel where perpetual adoration was taking places before leading us the the original Kibeho church.

As she led us up to Genocide site, she informed us that her mother and father had been killed during the Genocide in Kibeho. She is still living in the town on top of this remote hill. The Genocide memorial was closed when we got up there but we did get to go inside the church. During the Genocide there were 25000 people killed inside the church. The inside was about the size of a quarter of a football field. It has since been restored and the people of Kibeho celebrate mass there again.

Shortly before the Genocide started, the first lady of Rwanda, Agathe Habyarimana, visited Kibeho and announced that she too had seen the Virgin Mary and that she had been told that the elimination of the Tutsis was going to happen. Just another piece of propaganda to justify the slaughter of a million people in three months.

After several minutes we exited the church and reminded ourselves that we were kind of stuck 30 kilometers from Butare on top of a hill. We had four options. Sleep in Kibeho, take a bike taxi, start walking, or try to find a moto-taxi. As luck would have it, a moto-taxi pulled up. He said that he would find another moto and that we could go to Butare for 3500RWF ($7). He returned shortly with his riding buddy and inflation and the fact that we are white caused the price to rise to $4000 RWF ($8). We quickly strapped on the helmets, crossed our fingers, and hopped on the back.

As we mentioned before, the mini-bus ride up to Kibeho was very dusty. The motos travelled much more quickly, but were much more dirty. As we sit here now in the internet cafe in downtown Kigali, people are staring at us wondering why these two muzungus are wearing red shirts, red pants, red socks, red shoes, red teeth, red boogers. After the promised 30 minute trip became 60 minutes (you should see a pattern here), we finally arrived back in Butare.

Travelling to Kibeho and back makes one hungry. We returned to the Faucon to have brochettes and Fantas and watch the world go by. Debi, the woman we met in Ruhengeri was going by with the world. She had just finished her last day as an intern at the hospital in Butare. We small talked for a while with her and then invited her to sit down. Surprisingly she declined. Who wouldn't want to have lunch with two large white men caked in red dirt from head to toe? She's weird.

Rather than stay in Butare for a hot shower and a relaxing evening. We decided to return to Kigali. We bought bus tickets on the 4:30 Volcano Express to Kigali. The ride would take two hours. Driving at night in Rwanda is an experience. In addition to buses there are other vehicles driving on the road and a steady stream of people returning to their homes along the side. Two and a half hours later we arrived in Kigali. Here we sit, still covered in dust, we have to pee, and gearing up for our 2000 mile trek to the Iris.

Make sure to stay tuned for very exciting announcement tomorrow.

Millibeho (Good Night)