Weekend!

I wasn't too sure what to do Saturday morning, but it turned out to be one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Gilbert and David are unemployed 25 year olds that hang around our guesthouse looking for work. They were excited to meet us and invited us to their house. We trekked about 10 minutes down the dirt road, and started down the side of one of the huge hills that define Rwanda. The houses toward the top were modest but comfortable. We kept going towards Gilbert's house, and as we went further the terrain got almost unpassable. It started getting really narrow, about 2 feet in some places, and then the path merged with the sewer so there was less than six inches on both sides to straddle and keep going. Gilbert said residents fall and hurt themselves constantly.

We got to Gilbert's house and he was quite proud of his 8 by 8 ft room, with a single lightbulb and grungy bed that took up the majority of the room and had never been changed. It smelled terrible and the heat was stifling. Orphans came up in the conversation and in the midst of his obvious poverty, he encouraged us to come see "the real poor area".

The worst stretch of the path was a two foot walkway with barbed wire on one side and rusted tin roof on top. Everyone came out of their houses and enjoyed exchanging the only greeting we know, over and over. We stopped one place to say hello to some kids, and I looked back to see people from every direction coming to see who we were. Some kids were shy, but they all just wanted to touch us. We all have pencils and crayons to give out, so on our next trip I can't wait to hand them out!!

A lot of places we've seen jerseys from the U.S. and European teams (Brett Favre is the most popular from my informal poll), but not here. Their clothes were so grungy, and they wore mismatched flip flops if they had anything. Hardly anyone spoke English, which is noticeably different from the developed area of Kigali, and they were by far the most welcoming.

We made it to the bottom of the hill, where the Red Cross had built a structure for clean water. The little kids come get water out of the four spickets and carry gallons of water back in both hands or their head. We helped them carry the jugs, but they just kept coming and we couldn't help everyone. We met a student who spoke English walking around in a coat and tie. He had grown up in this slum, and was coming back to do research on the psycho-social response to HIV/AIDs. He had worked with CARE, and we tried to think of a mutual contact from Atlanta but unfortunately couldn't. We exchanged information though, and I really hope to get back in touch with him.

The last part of the morning was the craziest. Gilbert is in a dance group, and he got them all together to perform for us. It started with the elders on wooden "flutes" and the younger men followed with dance moves. They went for a long time, and by this time a crowd of more than a hundred had stopped to watch. At the end, as I knew was coming, they pulled us in individually to try their dances. I did my best, took note as they laughed hysterically, promised that all Americans weren't such bad dancers, and thoroughly enjoyed it! We ended by taking pictures with the huge group, and most memorable was the kids' mad dash to see the screen after the picture had been taken!

Saturday afternoon we finally tried the public transportation system. It consists of hundreds of old passenger vans that they cram as many people as possible into. With 12 seats on our last one, we had 20 people and I was in the back corner!! As long as we don't wreck, it's an incredibly efficient and cheap way of transport! It's a good example of the lack of structure I really like. There's ditches on the side of every sidewalk for drainage that you jump over. Little kids run freely without their parents. Rules of the road are different each time and communicated by hand signals! Without the constant threat of lawsuits, it's much more of an adventure everyday and I love it!

Half of us made it downtown, where we met a group from Baylor studying microfinance, and the other half ended up at the bus terminal for international trips. We just walked around and had a great time in the city! We met up with a local who took us to a restaurant, where instead of karaoke they lip-synched and danced. It was cool and cheap, I think we're going to go back. The best part was the way back, where I rode in the front seat of the cab on the left side while we drove on the right. Some cars here have the drivers on the left, others on the right depending on where its imported from. I kept wanting to adjust the mirror and absolutely flipped about not being in control at every turn or pedestrian encounter.

Sunday morning I woke up at 6 to participate in the International Peace Marathon, although I just did the 5K fun run. I saw lots of other foreigners around, so I thought a lot of people would be doing the 5K. They made an announcement and all the kids starting running. We thought the race had started, so we took off too. Turns out, they just said to make your way to the starting line, and all the kids were really excited to get there first. Whoops! UNC students were three of the 5 white people running the race. The other two were NGO workers chaperoning their kids. It was a really funny sight as I towered over everyone, but we ran with the kids and had a great time!

We walked around the stadium for awhile, saw cultural dances and a judo group, and watched as a Kenyan won the marathon (of course), made it about 3 steps and threw up everywhere, and was carted straight into the ambulance. Overall though, it was really fun and the thing to do in the city that day. We walked around the rest of the day, and the best part was finally stumbling onto someone in a Carolina jersey. We had seen LSU, Ohio State, Wisconsin, etc. and lots of people know Michael Jordan, so I figured we'd find UNC eventually. We were all in Carolina shirts that day, so it was easy to communicate our excitement as we got our picture with him! We went to eat and then walked past him later, where his friend was equally excited to show us his Carolina blue basketball shirt. We ended the evening heading back downtown to hear stories from a guy I met on the plane to Kigali. He was traveling from NYC around the world in 6 months, and he had done everything from gorilla tracking to crossing the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He made it to Goma, which has been home to some of the worst fighting (although not right now) in a war that is the deadliest conflict since World War II, and somehow back to Kigali alive. Pretty cool stamp to have on your passport though...

Today we've had class all day. We talk about systems and rule of law, which is really interesting, and then listened to a lecture in the afternoon about the specific stages and schools of thought on the genocide from a local Rwandan professor. It was a little tough to follow, but very interesting.
Right now I'm off to find the local soccer field so our group can play a game tomorrow after class!