first update

This is really hard to wrap all up because it’s been like 16 days and this is the first email, I’ll try to get more emails so I don’t have to give you all the random details.. .

Day one of Rwanda= get in the coaster ( A bus, but literally rides like a rollercoaster because some of the roads are dirt like camp roads but we still drive 50 mph!!!)….they sway and drive and ahhhh death! Anyway. We drove 14 hours and got food along the way…no way to sleep because of the terrible roads… it was kind of long and awful. But then we got to Rwanda boarder…changed over and stuff,,,,, it’s so much easier than in AMERICA. Pathetic really. Well they changed my money and the stupid @#$#$^$%^& jipped us hard core. Which kind of makes me angry, but whatever we treid to do our best. Then we stayed in kibule I believe at a catholic ‘guest’ house.. really nice place but all 30 girls stayed in one big room with bunk beds. When we first got there it was around 7pm…which is the second TEA TIME of the day =] each TEA time we get like a pastry and toast and tea =] its everyone’s favorite part of the day for sure . then we ate dinner later….every time we eat dinner it is the same . chips (potato / fries/ ) cooked cabbage ( like cooked cole slaw), rice, beans, creepy gross meat! And Matoche ( which is mashed plantane ( banana) , but tastes like dried gross potato..its not that bad but I’m sick of it for sure!!!! Then we get soda and passionfruit and tomato fruit for dessert! I eat like 13 passion fruit a night when we could because it was soooooo much better than anything else. I’ll probably have so many cavaties because the water is SO GROSS tasting and I just drink soda when I can =] I honestly don’t remember what we did …the schedule for the ten days. .. we stayed in each place for two nights , which meant we never got used to the beds, and I’ve only had a pillow three nights since I’ve been here. And only two hot showers =] and only four actual showers =] the rest I take with like a bucket….and dump water over myself and wash and la la la . . . its really interesting =]

Day 2 – we had a service day?- that means we broke into groups and went and my group went to this schoool on a big hill and picked rocks up from the ‘field’ ( Huge Hill) and lugged them up the hill and put
them in a huge pile. They are later smashed up and made into a foundation for the school I heard. We did that for 3 hours then went back to the place we were staying, had soda to ‘wipe the dust from our chins’ and talked about it. The rest of the day we relaxed and watched a movie called the ‘ghost of rwanda’ about the genocide.. it was really graphic and informational. The next days we just went to different memorials and listened to people talk about all the horrible stuff that happened. Basically 1 million Rwandans died by the hands of their neighbors machetes… they had all gotten along really well, but the hutu’s who owned land were mad at the tutsi’s who owned animals and jealous rages started and the whole country broke into a fight and 1 million of the tutsis were killed by their best friends… we talked to a murderer who actually killed his best friend who he drank beer with and stuff, and he told us how he reconciled after like 15 years with his best friends daughtere. It was crazy. She was there too… it was at this program called ‘carsa’ . . . … . anyway we went to churches. The blood still all over the walls. The clothes all over the pews. Holes in the ceilings and walls from grenades and bullets. And there were dents in the walls where they literally took the children by their feet and smashed them to death off the walls. That was the most depressing part. It was kind of awful..but not like the holocaust museum…for some reason that was worse?

we finally went to LAKE buyoni in UGANda , on bushara island? I believe… we took super cool wood dug out boats all across this huge lake and stayed on this island. All the nights we were away we got to choose who we stayed with … I stayed with Katie, =] we stayed in a dorm type room, but some people stayed in tents and tree houses, and cabins, I’ll try to look up the site so you can see! IT was so pretty and wicked cool. It was our debrief so we just got to swim and there was a HUGE rope swing!!!! Sooo great ! There will probably be pictures….my camera was dead by then , but tons of other people were taking pictures so we had this huge rope swing and the main building on the island ( it was only our group of 50 there ) was a HUGE hut, theat is where we ate and hung out and had fires and stuff and played card games. La la la .

the second day we got to go on canoe tours to another island and hike a huge hill. Because EVERYWHERE here are HUGEEEE HILLs it’s really really really pretty , like really pretty! The people are in all these valleys and are working so hard and then the children just SCREAM MUZUNGOOO MUZUNGOO when we go driving by =] that means white person =] I love that fact that just because I’m white makes a child so happy, but then at the same time I hate being treated like royalty. But then they just try to make us pay for stuff because we are white and rich =] . anyway the island- so it was soooooo much fun! Hanging out and relaxing and rope swinging . MY room there- OKAY. So Katie and I are both Imme ( which is what it means when you live off of campus with a family) and we are both chickens and scared of everything, so we had to sleep in the same bed under a mosquito net so that the bats in our CEILING couldn’t come eat us alive!! AHHH they just kept squeaking and squeaking and yelling and ahhhhhhhhhh hahahhahah it was hilarious… but so scary! =]

The second night we decided that it would be a great idea to go skinny dipping.. six of us decided to go me Katie, Kelsey (and then three other hilarious girls.. welll we jumped in and were washing our hair and then heard someone else jump in the water. .. . . so naturally we were sooooo angry and freaked out at him and We don’t know if he left or what, but I don’t think he got that we were skinny dipping ( because there isn’t really swimming in Africa . . that’s the best case scenario tho…anyway he was in his swim ssuit – we think…..but HES BLACK SO we couldn’t see him!!!!!! So we were angry and grabbed our towels and got up on the dock and left , .. BUT we found his sweater and clothes in a bush so we stole them =] . we’re not giving it back till he asks because we’re so angry at him. Holy cow. They run on ‘african time’ like ten minutes to walk 500 feet!