Our Last Day

We gathered for a delicious Indian dinner for our farewell after we arrived back in Kigali on Tuesday night. (Paul Almquist took the picture.) We all enjoyed the chance to eat a fare other than rice, beans, and potatoes. Wedneday morning we did last minute shopping, ate lunch at the African Bagel Company which is next door to the Thomas house. It employs widows so they can support their families. Gene, Kelli and I helped finish pack in the six bags we are taking to Portland for the Thomas family. It was a welcome sight to see the KLM plane and head home. - Nancy

Tuesday- the drive to Kigali

Today we packed up and left Musanze. We left with good memories.

Seeing how goods and people are transported was quite intriguing. We got one view of one of the volcanoes without the clouds covering part of it, and RFTC sent us off with gifts. The entire class gathered in the library as a farewell for us. David Thomas drove all of us in the mission's Toyota land cruiser with all of our luggage piled on the top in the luggage carrier. Kelli and I rode in the back -- not in the small seats -- and had good views out of the back. We arrived safely in Kigali after almost 3 hours in the car. - Nancy

Monday, Part 2

After exploring the region we stopped at the La Paillotte Restaurant in Musanze for a Western style lunch.

I was so pleased to have a mango smoothie. All in the group ended up ordering pizza which was very good. We are back to the Rwandan cuisine of rice, beans, and potatoes until we leave on Wednesday night the 18th for the US. - Nancy

Exploring in Rwanda

This morning David Thomas took us around the region of Musanze. We saw fields carved among the volcanic rock.

The corn field certainly didn't look like corn fields in Iowa. We went to the headquarters of the Volcano National Park which is the place that monitors the mountain gorillas. There are now 10 families and they allow 10 groups of 8 people in each group to trek to see the gorillas each day. The price is now 750 USD per day to go see the gorillas. Our family all went to see the gorillas about 24 years ago. It was fun to remember that day.

The Rwandan government gives 15% of all the revenue from the park to the local communities for schools and health services. There was a lovely gift shop at he park headquarters and each item had the number of the person who made the item and the profit goes to the person who made it. Our last stop was to Virunga Lodge which is a 5 star resort. The views of the lakes and the volcanoes were wonderful even though the day was overcast and hazy. The manager let us see one of the rooms and I would sure enjoy a night there. The only problem is the cost is between $750 and $1000 per night.

Rwanda is trying to get more tourists to boost the economy. With high class resorts I think they are on their way. - Nancy

Sunday's long church service

Church was to start at 9 am and end about 12:30. Today they had a record number of choirs, and the service ended at 1:30 pm. The leaders for the church wanted us to sit in the front on the platform but I begged off and said I wanted to sit in the congregation so I could take pictures. I got some decent pictures of the choirs but many were were blurry because the choirs here don't just stand and sing; they have choreographed dance moves and put on elaborate performances.

By sitting in the congregation I got to see lots of what was happened among the people who attended the service. There were quite a few mothers with babies on their backs. Young girls of 7 to 10 years would carry younger siblings on their backs; the young children who could walk exited and entered often. They would play outside and then come in for a bit. One side of the church had benches and the other side where I was sitting had chairs. The ushers kept seating more people on the benches. They moved the children to the ends and some had about an inch of the bench left for their seat. Finally they realized there were too many people so they brought in a large carpet and set it on the floor in front of first row of chairs and they had all of the children go sit on the carpet.

Paul Almquist preached and it was interpreted. We are lunch at the church and they fed over 50 people which included some of the visiting choirs. This afternoon we are at the guesthouse. All of us were given gifts

for helping with the library. The women got lovely baskets and the men were given nice carvings. Currently it is raining as hard as it did in Kuala Lumpur during a heavy downpour and the electricity is out. I was sitting on the covered wide porch in front of my room at the guesthouse and had to move inside because it is raining so hard I was getting wet on the porch.

When David Thomas arrives from Kigali we plan to go out to eat tonight and get some Western food. That will be a welcome treat after a week of Rwandan food. I'll hope the electricity and Internet are up sometime tonight before I head to bed. But yesterday the Internet never came back after the rain storm. - Nancy

Saturday - Valentine's Day in Rwanda

I am currently in the dark in my room at the Crested Crane Guesthouse. There has been no electricity for about an hour due to a thunder and lightening storm. It rained hard for a bit but is now just light rain. I'll try to send this to post as soon as we have power and the Internet is working.

(Notice the baby sleeping on the mother's back as she is shopping!) Today is Saturday so we had a free day. Kelli and I wanted to go into market in the center of town. We had arranged for a taxi to come and get us at 9am. There was no taxi by 9:30 so we decided to walk.

Walking, bicycle taxis, and motorcycle taxis are the normal modes of transport here. It was a lovely day with a breeze and not too hot, It took us about 50 min. to get to the market and explore. We found a car taxi to take us back to near our guesthouse but decided to stop and have lunch at a new hotel

about a 10 min.walk from where we are staying. We sat in a lovely garden and watched brilliantly colored humming birds feed on the tropical flowers and enjoyed seeing an iridescent blue lizard slither across the garden. After a week of Rwandan food we ordered a ham pizza that was delicious.

Others in the group opted for other activities, Doree and Carol stayed at the guesthouse all day and rested. The only problem with that was there was a large Rwandan wedding in the garden at the guesthouse and the music and speakers were extremely loud.(How does she balance the load?) I was thankful I was gone for most of the day. Gene and Paul went to the board meeting for the Rwandan Friends Theological College (RFTC). Ron and Carolyn Stansell and David Thomas were here for the meeting. It was fun to see Ron and Carolyn for a short visit. This evening we walked to RFTC to have dinner at 5:30 and learned it was to be at 8 pm. We were served tea, bread, and bananas and that was what we called dinner because we wanted to be back at the guesthouse before dark. I am ready to head home. I accomplished what I came to do and now feel like I am just biding time until Wed. Feb. 18 when we leave. By the way, the taxi we ordered showed up at 10:30 to get us. I understand he thought he should be paid for coming even thought he was 90 min. late. This was not Kelli and my problem as we had already arrived in town by then. - Nancy (By the way, the picture right below is of a driving school teaching parallel parking! ... and, the store is where we bought bottled water.)

Friday, the 13th ...

After 4 days on intense activity today has been a rather stress free day.

We arranged the library, put up signs on the book shelves (all 2 of them). We had an orientation for students on how to use the library. (Fred orienting students) I think for the majority of the students this was the first time they had been in a library, used a computer, and found a book of the shelf.

It's a start even though it is small. I cleaned up some of the catalog records and Fred networked the computers so students can search for books. We tried to install the OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) software and it would not install. The activation code we have was not accepted. Students can search using the main library software but that means records can be changed. Fred does not see this as a problem. At least the students have access.

We meet with the director of the school this afternoon and will eat dinner at our guest house tonight. We are hoping for a little bit of a change in the menu. Tomorrow some of us hope to go into town to explore some. Now that our project is finished we have some time to explore a bit. - Nancy