Welcome to Rwanda!

Well, I’ve been in Rwanda for one week plus two days and seen and done so many wonderful things. I was supposed to meet 3 of my teammates in the airport in Brussels, but boarded the plane without ever seeing a familiar face, thinking I was going to Rwanda alone and hoping Mark and Anna would be at the airport to pick me up, even if the other three didn’t make it. Luckily, I found Peyton, Kat, and Bob on the plane and we were all warmly welcomed by Anna and Mark at the Kigali airport. We arrived to a wonderful homecooked pizza dinner at Tom’s house where we sat in his amazing gazebo looking out over the entire city. We spent the next 4 days touring the town. We visited the Genocide Memorial which is just as gut wrenching the second time as the first. We opened Rwandan bank accounts and bought Rwandan cell phones. I feel so legit! We ate at lots of delicious restaurants, our favorite being Car Wash, which, as you might have guessed is both a car wash and a restaurant (with a salon and gift shop as well). After getting well acquainted with Kigali, we drove a most beautiful two hours to Musanze, my home for the next ten months.

Musanze (formerly known as Ruhengeri) is the most densely populated town in the most densely populated country in Africa. There are people EVERYWHERE! Musanze is very different from Kigali. Kigali is much hotter, more city-like, and has way more Muzungus (white people). We had a little dinner party on Friday night, and practically every Muzungu in Musanze showed up. There were 12 of us, including the seven B2R volunteers living in this house. Here’s a quick rundown of my teammates, in alphabetical order:

Anna has been living in Musanze since August (with a trip back home to Arkansas for the holidays) working at Sonrise School. She has made tons of Rwandan friends and is our liaison for most everything around here.

Bob has his hands full with “the kids” as he calls us. He is like a dad to all of us and saves the day at least once a day. He will mainly be working with construction projects including a house where he will move with his wife upon its completion.

Griffin flew in a couple of days after the rest of the crew and handled his jet lag like a champ. Being from California and going to college in Maine, he is loving the southernness of the rest of the team. He will be working as a consultant at Ishema Hotel here in town.

Kat is only with us in Musanze for a little while as she will be stationed in Kigali. She will be welcoming any of B2R’s visitors and taking care of them for their stays in Rwanda.

Mark has been in Rwanda since October working as business manager and going on all kinds of crazy adventures. He is a fellow Clemson grad and the son of the people who own the camp I worked at in Colorado. Small world.

Peyton will be working with Anna and me at Sonrise. He recently graduated from Arkansas with an Information Systems degree and will be helping out in the computer lab.

I’m sure you will get to know all of my teammates through my blog over the course of the year; hopefully this introduction was helpful.

I am having a great time getting oriented to life in Rwanda and getting to know my teammates. School starts on February 2nd, so I have a while still before I really know exactly what I’ve gotten myself into, but I am extremely excited nonetheless!