Kigali

I just got back for City Market (the mall). I walked there to have coffee at Bourbon Coffee Shop (Starbucks – Bourbon was actually started by a former Starbucks executive) and to look around Nakumatt (think small Walmart) for some appliances to furnish the guest house in Musanze (Ruhengeri – if you are looking on Google map or Google Earth or if you are a native of Rwanda.) After getting to Kigali on Saturday night, we rested all day Sunday and tried to recover from the trip. Brussels Air managed to lose the luggage of two of my fellow travelers, but they should get their bags today, or at least that is what the airline is telling them.

So far we have been playing tourist and taking care of mundane things like bank accounts and cell phones. We have seen the Genocide Memorial (a must see if you are in Rwanda). It is extremely powerful and makes you wonder how something like this could happen. There are over 250,000 people buried in 14 different mass graves at the Memorial and more are being opened as they are still finding remains of genocide victims to this day. We also visited a sewing cooperative staffed by women with AIDS. They are making all kinds of things from dresses to laptop cases in traditional African fabrics. These items are sold to a distributor in Memphis (I will get the information on the distributor and post it later.)

I am definitely the “Old Man” in this group of early twenty somethings. Kat (Kat Watson from Little Rock even called me Daddy Bob last night since I had to lend her the money to open her bank account; she left most of her money at the Bridge2Rwanda house in Kigali. In many ways I felt right at home almost like giving money to Mary Beth or Shealy. I let the “kids”( see http://www.bridge2rwanda.org/ for who is here and their profiles ) have a day to themselves today and stayed home to catch up on some reading for school and to do a little planning for the work ahead. We will be leaving for Musanze Thursday morning, and I plan on writing my next post Saturday.

Isaiah 58:12 - Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Pictures of the Bridge2Rwanda house in Kigila