Rwanda Post #1

I am back from my trip to Rwanda. The long awaited trip is actually over. This much of the year has gone by so fast because of this trip. I have so many thoughts but I don’t know where to start. I went halfway around the world with 8 very awesome and special people who I know a lot better now. Their names are Jason and Jennifer Sheppard, Ashley Drayton, Karalee Klassen, Karlin Unger, Mark and Nancy Emde, and Bill Ginther. We ate all of our meals together, slept in the same room, and spent many hours in a cramped van on sometimes treacherous roads. We joked about coming back with T-shirts for our families that said, “One of my family members survived the Trip of Terror to Ntwali and all I got was this stupid t-shirt.” Something we did almost every day which was very important was we got to know each other. We would spend hours sitting around talking about stuff, sometimes serious, and other times complete nonsense. A.k.a, alcohol swabs, blue angels, and talking in our sleep.

Some of the highlights of the trip:

One for me, was meeting mine and Ashley’s sponsor child. Her name is Claudette. I will always remember her and her smile. And who knows? Maybe someday I will get to meet her again. We brought some school supplies for her and ended up giving her some of our own stuff on the day we left Ntwali. We gave her a towel, a shirt, a hat, a skirt, and some shoes. That was pretty awesome!

Another highlight was just getting to play with the kids. We played soccer a bit. I had to stop often after 10 minutes because my feet would hurt from stepping on the rocks. And they didn’t really play organized. For some it was basically just kick the ball into the shins of the other 50 kids who were playing. Only the boys would play soccer. They wouldn’t let the girls play. We gave them a volley ball which they would hit around. Claudette also taught me how to play this new form of hopscotch that I guess they play there a lot. That was one of the best days I had in Africa. It wasn’t me teaching her something, I was learning from her.

Three of the most amazing people I met there was Gervais, Berchmas, and Sabeen. Gervais was our program director. He spent a lot of time with us. By the end, he had even started joking around with us even though he was usually a pretty serious guy. He was also our translator a lot of the time. His English was a lot better than a lot of people in the country, although he had quite a ways to go. I admire him because it is hard to learn languages, especially English. I have myself have never learned to speak a new language so that is a feat.

Berchmas was our driver. He was with us about 95% of the trip. We got to know him quite well. He has a very good sense of humor. I have quite a few humorous stories that involve him. He also kept us safe on some VERY scary roads. Sometimes after we drove over the worst bridges and I was freaking out in the back, he would say, “ Leah. Frightened?” And I would say,” Yes!” a memorable line that we will probably quote for a long time happened on our first trip up to the village of Ntwali. We were driving over a bridge and halfway over he looked down and said, “Oh my Jesus!” You know something isn’t safe, when your driver who is a local says,” Oh my Jesus!” So, we quoted that about 10 times a day for the rest of the trip.

Another great person was Sabeen. I don’t really know if I spelled that right. She just has a great sense of humor and everything you say to her seems to be funny so you feel like a pretty funny person. She also was very helpful in helping us pick out material and find us a seamstress to make our clothes. She pretty much went out of her way to do that. She also cooked us breakfast when we came into town so Karalee and Ashley could get their hair braided.

There were also a lot of hard things to deal with on this trip. On my side there was a bit of culture shock. Everyone is literally staring at you all the time and wanting to shake your hand. Some run after your van, you hear the word mzungu (rich, white person) about 50 times a day or more, and others ask for money. You can’t give them any or you’ll be mobbed by the 50 other people who want some and desperately need some just so they can eat. 12 year olds there sell their bodies just so they can get something to eat. After the genocide in 1994 there were over 300,000 orphans, about 75,00 of these were heads of their households over sibling and other orphaned relatives. Everyone in this country is affected by their horrible history when a million people were killed because they belonged to a certain tribe and evil people decided they should die. Babies to elders were bombed to death, or slashed and then thrown in the river and probably the most common was hacked to death with machetes. Let me ask you this, something I will never understand, “How can anybody kill another human being for the sole reason of being alive? But on another level, how could anybody kill a child?” It is just too horrible and sickening to even come to terms with. But it happened. I will never, ever forget the things I saw and the stories I heard. I will talk more later about the hard things on this trip. I think they deserve a blog of their own.

I almost feel depressed being back here in Saskatoon. At the very least I am feeling pretty down. I can’t really place why or understand it. I think part of it is, my life is routine back at home. Sure there are things to look forward to, but you’re living where you have been all your life and for me I’m not really sure what I want to do with my life. I need to find some way to have a job so I can make money to help support myself and a family if that comes someday. But I don’t know what. I know a part of the sadness is not being around the team members everyday. You get used of experiencing everything with them and their being around all the time to joke around with or just talk. I think I feel lonely because I miss their company. But that will fade with time. I know that. I think my experiences are finally setting in too. The things I saw and experienced are making their memories more real in my mind, so I am thinking a lot about that. Just pray that my life will continue to be changed and that God will eventually show me what he wants with my life.