Akagera park & church

Saturday 24-11-2007

Akagera National Park was fantastic! We had to get up at 5.30 to have the best chances to see all the animals. And we saw a lot! Zebras, hippos, baboons, Pumbas (you know, from the Lion King), buffaloes, impala, antilopes and very exciting: huge crocodiles. We went in a small motorboat to look for the crocodiles, and found at least 6 of them! We had some scary moments when they suddenly start moving and went into the water, heading to our boat…. Just look at the pictures to get an impression of this exciting day.

The hotel was beautiful: nice bar, restaurant, pool and…. Hot shower!
To get to the hotel you have to take a small road, about 30 kilometers long. Next to this road you see real poverty, a very basic living. A lot of children looked and waved at us, very impressing: all those smiling faces, living in those circumstances.

Sometimes we felt very ashamed about our living at home, wanting more nice luxury things as a dishwasher in a nice looking new kitchen.

Sunday 25-11-2007

This morning we were invited to come to Pastor Josephs church in Kibungo, another 2 hours drive from the National Park. They welcomed us as very special guests and they reserved a place at the front row for us. When we arrived, the church was fully loaded and everybody was singing and dancing. That went on for 1,5 hour: mixed with sketches of stories from the Bible, songs by the little children and a real Zulu dance. After that Eric was asked to do a sermon. He did it in English and one of the boys translated it in Kinya-rwanda. One of the elder and, after that, pastor Joseph finished it, using the same theme. Of course we all joined the dancing with all the other people in church. The church was small and too old. They already started to build a new church, but they cannot finish it, because everything is very, very expensive now in Rwanda. So they really need a lot of money.
To see the passion of the people during the sermon and the praying was moving!!! We don’t think we see that in the Netherlands or Scotland anymore.

After church (3 hours) we were invited to pastor Josephs house to have lunch with him, his wife, sister and elders of the church. A young man of 27 years old told us his story during the genocide. His mother, 4 sisters and 2 brothers were killed by his neighbours. Before the war they were like good friends. He said that it was if they were possessed by the devil / something evil. He and his brother could escape to Tanzania, scared to death. When they came back it was very difficult to get up there lives again. But the Rwandan people put a huge effort in building up their country, the groups learning to live together again. Very, very impressing!
Every Rwandan has a story like that!

Monday 26-11-2007

Today the guttering at the primary school in Nyagasambu finally started! The workers are working hard and we are able to provide two water tanks to collect the rainwater. Graham and Gordon stayed the whole day to make sure that the workers keep on working.

Eric, Tineke, Elske and Floor went to the market again to by very beautiful fabrics. After that we went to a nice lady sewer, who’s going to make us tops, skirts and trousers by Friday. Real African clothing, we are curious….

It is Friday now, so some days are missing in our story. We were too busy to write everything down because we did the 3-day disability training! Tomorrow more about that, enjoy the pictures so far.