I made it!

I finally made it! After 26 long hours, by myself, I finally made it to Kigali. Tom Allen, B2R's country director in Rwanda, picked me up from the airport around 7:00 Tuesday night. He, Julie Hamilton (a friend from college), and I went to eat at a restaurant called New Cactus. It was actually really good...I had chicken pizza, probably not what you were thinking as African cuisine, huh? I spent the night at Tom's house in Kigali and slept in the next morning. Tom picked up 2 girls from South Carolina, Mandy and Kelly, from the airport that morning and we all headed for Musanze. Kelly and Mandy have been in an orphanage in Tanzania for about 2 weeks and came to Rwanda for a week. They are great, and we have become good friends.

It takes about 2 hours to get to Musanze from Kigali, and we finally arrived around 4 that afternoon. We made one minor stop at the jail there to help a friend of Tom's who had been wrongly accused. Tom helped to get him home, but the jailer there tried to trade him for one of the girls...luckily Tom didn't let that happen!

We got to the Musanze house and made our first trip to Sonrise. It was amazing! We went to the primary school (grades 1-6) and saw the kids playing with the new soccer and basketballs they got. They were so excited and having so much fun!

After our trip to Sonrise, everyone in town for Kwinta Inzina (the gorilla naming ceremony) went to dinner at Hotel Gorilla which is just a couple blocks from our house. There are about 12 of us in town right now, including the von Trapp siblings (yes, they are grandchildren from the Sound of Music) and a few others. We had dinner together and went back to the house for a night discussing our answers from The Book of Questions. It was really fun and interesting to hear everyone's different viewpoints. 

Today, Blayne, Kelly, Mandy, and I went to the open market. It was quite an experience! Luckily Blayne knew a few tips so we didn't get Muzungu (white people) prices! We also went to the fabric market and looked around. Muzungus feel a little like celebrities here, everyone stares and waves at you, and is generally happy that you are there. We took some pictures there, and all of the kids love to see themselves on your camera. 

We also went to Sonrise this afternoon and played kickball with a 4th grade PE class...I'm not sure they actually got the concept of kickball, haha, but we had a lot of fun with them! After our kickball game, we went to chapel at the secondary school where the von Trapps sang for all of us. They wrote Sonrise's school anthem and sang it with all the students...it was pretty awesome. 

I do have some pretty exciting news...Mandy and I are--hopefully--going to see the gorillas tomorrow morning! We have to leave at 6:15 and hope they will have a spot for us, most likely, they will, but pray that we get to go...it's going to be an adventure! I am very excited! 

Hope you are all doing well! Rwanda is wonderful, but I do miss you guys!

jess