First few days in Rwanda!

Note: this post was written on Saturday but could not be published until today because of wifi access. A new update will be coming soon!

Dear friends and family,

After the long series of flights that took almost an entire day, we arrived safely in Kigali with all of our baggage.  Although the flight was long, we were able to experience a lot, such as a plane on fire!  Don’t worry, it was only a test.  As soon as we arrived in Kigali we were welcomed by Wally, who will be helping us out with the project.  We took two taxis to the hotel that we stayed at yesterday.  Both taxi drivers were very nice.  Both Wally and the taxi driver that took Ellis and I showed us many sights in Kigali. To my surprise, the streets were still pretty alive with people.  We arrived at the hotel and later walked to a shopping center, where we ate what was left of the buffet.  It was delicious!  Fun fact: the shopping center was called Simba, which apparently also was Curtis’ code name for last year.   We were all so tired that when we returned to the hotel we all fell asleep immediately. 

We woke up early in the morning ready for the start of the next day.  I was so happy to eat the passion fruit that they had for breakfast.  We met up with Wally, who took us to the business center of Kigali to purchase a roof and PVC piping.  The man who drove us was very nice and a little more expensive than we had hoped for.  He drove us all the way to Musanze.  The drive was absolutely beautiful with wonderful landscapes and children waving.  We stopped for water and played foosball, which was a skill Michael had not told us about.  In other words, he destroyed me and my teammate.  Luckily Wally (Michael’s teammate) was not the best either.  We got a little water, some chili sauce, and as we were about to leave the taxi driver pointed out a man who had the most interesting shoes.  The shoes looked kind of like something you would find in a Doctor Seuss book, and he had a great beard and quintessential sunglasses. The driver had to take a picture with the man, so I took it for him.  He wanted me to take a picture with him as well, which I had to take.  Who would let an opportunity like that pass?

We arrived at Musanze and had trouble finding a hotel, since the price for both was much more than we had budgeted for.  But luckily the manager of the hotel Curtis went to last year gave us a great deal.  So now I am happily writing to you from the Notre Dame de Fatima, where we will stay for the next month.

We will post again later, but murabaho for now!

~Xilal