Wow its been so longs since we've updated this, everytime I was going to get around to it our internet conked out on us!! So lets catch you up to speed on whats happening now. In the last couple of weeks we have gone 2 church with some of the babies, the first week was a success and the babies sat quitely for the sermon or slept, but our second try yesterday didn't work out as well, the babies where all restless and one little boy, Sam, decided he would like to preach instead, so he spent the whole sermon comentating uncoherently :) thus we made an escape a little early to save from distracting the entire congregation.
Went to pick up our visas, and figuring I better check the expirey date on them as a volunteer got sent home a month early with 10 days notice. I checked our expirey date, and wouldn't you know it they expired on the 20th of March. This isn't a huge problem as we were already planning on going down to Botswana to visit Luke Saffarek, but now we have 4 days that we must figure out where to go to spend, we have decided to head down to Tanzania and spend a couple of days in Zanzibar and from there fly to Johannesburg. In the end it will all work out.
A couple of the Norweigens moved in with us first Lina and Tone for about a week, it was great to have some company back at Suubi and Lina, Tone and I did a little bit of excersing, jogging and such, but this heat makes it alot more crazy as we are now just coming in the hot season. But I should probably get in the habbit of it I suppose :)
On Jan. 22 we worked the morning shift, then after work we went down to the main road to catch a matatu and as we where waiting we where swarmed by several Ugandans, one asked Amie if she was married to which she replied yes and showed him her "wedding" ring, he then asked me if i was married and i said yes. He then persisted to ask Amie if she had any friends because he wanted a wife just like her and was wondering if any of her friends would be interested in meeting him, to his disapointment all her friends lived across the ocean. He then persisted to ask her for her phone number and I eventually just dragged her away telling him her husband would be jealous. After that we got into town and went to the church for a service, during that weekend they had a revival sermon, it was so good, just praising God, it was great, my current favorite song at the moment is Our God is Love by Hillsong. So anyways enjoyed the sermon, and then we went to have supper at at pizzeria with a bunch of volunteer, after we had finished our pizza we took taxis down to the bus station. As we where standing by our taxi grabbing out our bags some guy grabbed a plastic water bottle from Amie's back pack, well i don't know why but 2 guys started fighting over this, and a couple of the girls almost became injured innocent bystanders, but everyone was able to avoid the flailing fists and quickly get into the bus station, all this because of a plastic disposable water bottle!! Apperently Ugandans hate stealing, so this out break b/c of someone stealing is a fairly common occurence. Hoped on the bus and spent the next 10hrs on the bus, except for our 4am boarder crossing and random stops for gas, where some of the girls got out to use the washroom, 1 was a hole, the other was a corner in the yard, and the 3rd was lets just say not the cleanest of washrooms, thank goodness I didn't need to go :) Got into Kigali Rwanda at 7am Rwandan time, now apperently there is a time change between Rwanda and Uganda, this we did not know so we are still thinking that its 8am, we went to the hotel, had breakfast and then took the local motorbikes called Motos, they are extremly safe, helmets are a must and also unlike Uganda they will only take 1 passenger. We went to a church where the head pastors are from BC affliated with PAOC, they weren't there that weekend, but had given me the information about the church via email. So we where sitting in the church at what we thought was 10am wondering why the church was so empty, Amie and I took a walk and where looking at bullitin boards and met 2 Rwandan guys who invited us to their young adults sunday school class, we where so confused and didn't understand when it was if it was currently 10, and eventually figured out that it was only 9am, so we all decided to join them (btw 7 of us came to Rwanda, 4 Norweigens, 1 NZ, and the 2 of us) It was alot of fun getting to know them, and participate in their class as they began to learn about the fruits of the spirit. After the service the church invited us as first time visitors to join them for some refreshments and a chance to talk to some leaders of the church, we felt so welcome by the entire church body, as the young adults welcomed us into their class, as people came up to us during the sermon to welcome us and as the pastors met with us, it was awesome. Spent the rest of the day relaxing.
Warning this is PG
Monday we woke up early as we had a tour planned to visit some of the memorial sights. It was a very sobering experience to be in the churches where tutsie people had gathered expecting to be protected in the church and where killed in the church. The church no contains alot of the clothes of people killed in the genocide, exactly as they where found, the roof contained bullet wholes and blood stains, and the wall had imprints of where they through babies at the wall, it was so sad. They had mass graves in the yard which we where able to walk through, so sad, and just brings what happened to life. After visiting another church set up very similiar we had lunch and then went to the genocide museum. As we walked through the museum we where loaded with information, a couple of things that stand out to me was how the rest of the world just stood by when they had the power to stop what was happening, when the genocide started the UN pulled out when one of the commanders asked for more men they refused, the world sat by as thousands of people where killed, and this didn't happen years ago, it happened merely 15 years ago. Another thing that stuck out was the heros of the genocide, one lady was assumed crazy, so she used that to protect many refugees by scaring away soldiers, the sacrfices people made to risk their own lifes is so phenomenal. The saddest part of the museum was the last part of the museum called the children's room, there where pictures of kids, a little bit about them, how old they where, their favorite food, best friend, favorite toy and sometimes their last words, and allways how they died, it was so heart breaking!
After the museum we went out for supper and then sat on the patio and watched the moon rise. On tuesday we where planning on going to Hotel Rwanda and relax but it wasn't exactly hot, so we walked around town, checked out the craft market and went on a Moto ride. It was sad to leave Rwanda. Rwanda is an amazing country that has come so far in such a short amount of time, the streets are clean, there is no corruption, traffic laws are obeyed, its Africa with a huge dash of the westren world (western prices too :). ) Had an uneventull bus ride back to Uganda and where able to get dropped off at Suubi on the way, so at 4am we made our way back home and enjoyed a little sleep before heading downstairs back to work.
Thursday Tone and I went to Bbira for our last soccer practice with the girls, we played a game and had some guys join in, it was alot of fun, hot but still fun. Unfortunatly we won't be able to keep it going now that school has started the kids have a full day during the week, and we aren't able to get the weekend off to do it then, and we don't have a whole lot more weeks left untill we come home. After soccer we had a volunteer meeting and then Lina and Kristine came back to Suubi with us for the weekend. Work has been good, and all the babies are more or less healthy. Saturday we had another volunteer move in for the next couple weeks and slept on the roof in our own little mosquito net :) and woke up to see the sunrise which was spectacular. After work on Sunday we came into town, when to a concert at church put on by the young adults, it was amazing the singing and dancing, Africa is covered with a much less slutty versions of Beyonce!! After the concert we went back to Buziga for the night, hung out with all the other volunteers playing Mafia and psychiatrist then woke up early and talked to my brother and Cody.
We are heading into town pretty quick to see my babies and head to the craft market and get groceries. Not alot exciting happening in the next couple of weeks, but after that we head to Kenya for the elections, please keep that in your prayers as africa is errupting with troubles of presidents refusing to step down, Egypt, Tunisia, and Ivory Coast. Please pray that the same does not happen in Uganda. As for Sudan, the final verdict of the voting that happened in the begining of january gets released this week, so pray that that goes peacefully. Please pray for continued health for us and the babies, and as we are planning our trips that that all goes well and doesn't stress us out.
God Bless you all
- Christina
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