It is Sunday March 29 and we are finished our volunteering. We have left our home and are staying in a hotel with a swimming pool and brochettes to die for. Tomorrow we fly to Arusha. Our family was sorry to see us go, or so they said. They had a party for us last night, with some of the neighbors and a ton of food. We bought the beer so we had lots of that too. It was fun with lots of African singing and dancing. It is part of the Rwandan culture to have a party when they have guests. Our last day at the Centre was a lot of good byes and well wishes for happy travelling. A wonderful group of ladies who we will not soon forget. They are brave women who have endured much adversity and most of them are still smiling. We both have had different experiences with our volunteering so we will have lots of stories to tell when we get home. We are happy to be done and on to some exciting travelling.
Last weekend we travelled to Nyungwe, a rain forest in the south part of Rwanda. A beautiful park that is home to many different kinds of monkeys but unfortunately we were to late in the day and they were all sleeping. But we had a nice hike and saw many different kinds of orchids, huge old growth mahogany trees but no monkeys. We stay in a traditional rondel (round house) right on the lake and it was a very pleasant weekend. We were refused accommodation at one of the hotels because we were not married. Was the joke of the day.
Yesterday we tried our hand at golf in Kigali and Tiger Woods still has a job. We has to take caddies and that we new for us and in the end we really enjoyed them. One of them spoke very good English and we had a good time with them. The golf course was very pretty with flowering trees. Hot as hell but fun.
We start our safari on Wednesday and are looking forward to that. We will be on safari for 8 days so am not sure about email access while we are travelling so our next update may be after April 8. We continue to be well, no sickness of any kind. Hope it lasts.
Rwanda is an incredibly safe country and we were not worried about travelling around even at night. We will have to do a mental adjustment to make sure we travel safe from here on in.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Hi all,
Last weekend we spent in downtown Kigali.A hot shower in the room and CNNmade us quite happy!!! Spent two days exploring the city- it is one that is very sprawled out so we did a lot of walking, the city is on a hillside so has amazing views, a lot of trees and flowers so it is beautiful.
We had a nostalgic moment when we found the Canadian Embassy!
Ate a lot of good food-from local to more western.As usual both of us enjoyed each morsel! The Primus beer is our frequent standard.
We went to a fashion show in the gorgeous Serena hotel with local designes and local singers for entertainment. A most enjoyable event.
this weekend we are headed out of town to Butare and Nyengwe National Park to do some hiking and to see some monkeys and waterfalls.
Will let you know how that adventure turns out!!
We continue to be safe and well(cast iron stomachs).
Take care all of you. Miss you
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
We managed to publish some of our pictures. It takes a long time but they turned out really good. Just to update you, last weekend we went to Uganda to see some Rotary projects. We flew into Entebbe airport and Rotarian Timothy picked us up and drove us into Kampala. Kampala is a large busy city, lots of traffic, noise and lots of clubs, bars. We found Kampala to be more upbeat than Kigali but it might have been we were with Rotarians who could show us around.
Timothy drove us to our accomodations for our stay. It was the home of Rotarian Peter, a very nice home complete with hot water showers, flush toilets. We got a warm welcome from Peter & his wife Margaret and their daughter Meg. After a rest it was off to a Rotary meeting, out for beer and then home for late supper. Next day was more Rotary, more beer and another late supper. The schedule in Uganda is breakfast at 8am, lunch about 5pm and then supper about 10pm. Friday a trip out of town to see a technical school!!! project and then our goats & heifers project. A great day, we saw lots of countryside and met some of the students in the
school. A stop at the equator for a picture and then it was home for a traditional Ugandan supper, fish, baked bananas , chicken, rice, beet greens, egg plant and a few things we didn't know. Probably some mystery meat in some things. It was a great meal and a great experience.
The next day we are off with Dr. Alice Kagoda, a professor at a university in Kampala and a director of the Bussano school. We stopped at the source of the Nile , bottom end of Lake Victoria, and did a bit of shopping. Dr. Alice is a delightful woman who showed us a great day. We went to her school where they had a program of speeches, songs, dance, and a great lunch. Do you get the idea we are eating & drinking our way through Africa. Dr. Alice has done a wonderful job with this school of about 330 children. She is looking for a teacher to come & spend a couple of months and do some upgrade training for her teachers. It would be a really cool job for a couple of months. Then it was home for a beer and out to supper at a French restaurant hosted by Peter & Margaret. This meal was as good as anything we have eaten anywhere.
We took the bus home so we could see the countryside, a 9 hour journey. Glad to be home and it is back to our volunteer job.
We met with Rev. Gatera, a Rwandan minister we met in Edmonton before we left. He was very insightful on the Rwandan culture.
Gota go for now, more later.
Timothy drove us to our accomodations for our stay. It was the home of Rotarian Peter, a very nice home complete with hot water showers, flush toilets. We got a warm welcome from Peter & his wife Margaret and their daughter Meg. After a rest it was off to a Rotary meeting, out for beer and then home for late supper. Next day was more Rotary, more beer and another late supper. The schedule in Uganda is breakfast at 8am, lunch about 5pm and then supper about 10pm. Friday a trip out of town to see a technical school!!! project and then our goats & heifers project. A great day, we saw lots of countryside and met some of the students in the
school. A stop at the equator for a picture and then it was home for a traditional Ugandan supper, fish, baked bananas , chicken, rice, beet greens, egg plant and a few things we didn't know. Probably some mystery meat in some things. It was a great meal and a great experience.
The next day we are off with Dr. Alice Kagoda, a professor at a university in Kampala and a director of the Bussano school. We stopped at the source of the Nile , bottom end of Lake Victoria, and did a bit of shopping. Dr. Alice is a delightful woman who showed us a great day. We went to her school where they had a program of speeches, songs, dance, and a great lunch. Do you get the idea we are eating & drinking our way through Africa. Dr. Alice has done a wonderful job with this school of about 330 children. She is looking for a teacher to come & spend a couple of months and do some upgrade training for her teachers. It would be a really cool job for a couple of months. Then it was home for a beer and out to supper at a French restaurant hosted by Peter & Margaret. This meal was as good as anything we have eaten anywhere.
We took the bus home so we could see the countryside, a 9 hour journey. Glad to be home and it is back to our volunteer job.
We met with Rev. Gatera, a Rwandan minister we met in Edmonton before we left. He was very insightful on the Rwandan culture.
Gota go for now, more later.
Some of the children in the village. The greet us us every morning and escort us to the volunteer centre.
It's nap time in the daycare.
This is some of the volunteers at the centre. Me, Jennie from Vancouver, Helen, Debbie from Ontario, our resident computer expert, and Helene from Montreal. Helene is an engineer working with Bombardier.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Here are some of our pictures. We have to resize the pictures before we can put them on the blog so there are only a few.
This is the home we are staying at in Kigali. A widow and her 3 children live here. Helen and I each have a bedroom. Our house mother Constance has some lovely flowers.
This is Helen's bedroom. Pretty basic but it works.Monday, March 9, 2009
09Mar09
Hi all,
All continues to go well.There are always some new experiences. Each day as we walk up to the centre we are greeted by a lot of children wanting hugs and to hold our hand. All have a big smile and a Bon Jour!
Donna is still teaching English and I am massaging shoulders and have tried to start the ladies stretching their shoulders regularily.
Last weekend we went to Akagera Park with some of the other volunteers.
We had such a good time!!!The park is small and not frequented by a lot of tourists so we were able to go off the trail and track animals by vehicle. Too see these animals in the wild was so exciting! We saw giraffes,zebras,monkeys,baboons, impallas, water buffalo and to end the day--a rare sighting-- a leopard. It was so beautiful.
At the gorilla area we had a gorilla-I think the story now is that he was at least 500 lbs- slowly saunter up to us and leap in a second on the roof of the vehicle and into the van!!
We were siting in the back with no escape root .We gently tried to shoo him away but he had another adgenda. I had a leftover sandwich which he quickly snatched and jumped out of the truck through the roof!!!!
After it was over we all laughed and laughed but the truth was that we were pretty scared. Of course the guide ,driver and men all exited the vehicle.The scenery in the Park and all thru Rwanda is totally gorgeous. The vegitation is lusch, and there are lots of flowers.
All continues to go well.There are always some new experiences. Each day as we walk up to the centre we are greeted by a lot of children wanting hugs and to hold our hand. All have a big smile and a Bon Jour!
Donna is still teaching English and I am massaging shoulders and have tried to start the ladies stretching their shoulders regularily.
Last weekend we went to Akagera Park with some of the other volunteers.
We had such a good time!!!The park is small and not frequented by a lot of tourists so we were able to go off the trail and track animals by vehicle. Too see these animals in the wild was so exciting! We saw giraffes,zebras,monkeys,baboons, impallas, water buffalo and to end the day--a rare sighting-- a leopard. It was so beautiful.
At the gorilla area we had a gorilla-I think the story now is that he was at least 500 lbs- slowly saunter up to us and leap in a second on the roof of the vehicle and into the van!!
We were siting in the back with no escape root .We gently tried to shoo him away but he had another adgenda. I had a leftover sandwich which he quickly snatched and jumped out of the truck through the roof!!!!
After it was over we all laughed and laughed but the truth was that we were pretty scared. Of course the guide ,driver and men all exited the vehicle.The scenery in the Park and all thru Rwanda is totally gorgeous. The vegitation is lusch, and there are lots of flowers.
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