Planes, taxi, bus, car, canoe....

Rosemand Carr's book, The Land of a Thousand Hills gives a wonderful portrait and history of Rwandan life, and I encourage all to read her book. She died several years ago but not before opening an orphanage for victims of the genocide. Kay Ellen now runs her orphanage and invited our house to come with her to teach Rwandan teachers simple methods of teaching English.
My first week in Rwanda and I am off for a weekend away. I packed a small backpack full of conservitive dresses (the island where we are headed is known for it's traditional views - parents used to threaten to send their unruly children here), camera, toilet paper, and chapstick. We walked down our hill, grabbed a taxi, and headed for the bus station in the center of town. While waiting for the bus, Amanda and I hopped on motorcycle taxis and got coffee at the Uniun Trade Center - which houses my favorite spot- Bourban Coffee. Motorcycle taxis are quite scary - the cleanliness of the helmet is enough to make me choose another mode of transport - but, it is cheap, fast, and what a thrill!
The bus ride lasted several hours - which then included several hours of a radio program that ranged from a guy hysterically laughing ( they loved this), to rap from the Congo, to Justin Timberlake. I luckily had my iPod. The landscape is beautiful. Rwanda's hills, scaffold crops, mud huts, kiosks selling fantas and cokes, the ever present Rwandans walking for water and work, the occassional baboon or monkey sighting, bright green tea fields, all of this...so incredible.
We arrived in the town that houses Rwanda's only university, had a lunch of grilled cheeses and soup, and met a missionary named Martha. Martha has been living in Rwanda for 16 years, and experienced first hand the tragedy of the genocide in 1994. Her stories of close friends lost, of family hoping for her safety, of her grandmother sighting her on CNN and knowing she had made it out, were fascinating and hard to imagine. Martha drove us four hours on a rough steep road to the Congolese border where we met Kay Ellen and spent a night in a Catholic guest house that had glow in the dark crucifixes above every bed. No joke.
We woke early and had a breakfast of very yellow omelettes, very weak coffee, and bread before heading to Lake Kivu's water for our canoe ride to the Island. We were met on the beautiful island by many children who followed us through the village asking the mazungus for money, books - "Give me paper, Mazungu. Give me." Give me is something I hear on a daily basis. We then went to the island's restaurant - an open air room where we waited an hour for a peice of banana, grilled, and a skewer of goat stomach. I couldn't stomach the stomach - so I chewed my banana and tonic water slowly.
We walked through the primary school where children flocked to touch and shout the strange white ladies marching across their world. We went into a classroom that had long tables, pews, and a chalkboard. Teachers ushered students away from the open window with weeds as whips, and we began sing song versions of English lessons. Three schools were represented, and the professional development went a long in about the same manner as in our public schools. There were teachers who actively listened, those who talked among themselves, and those who kept staring at the clock. They all had a good time when we began our activities.
That night, after a long day of teaching, singing, explaining, and walking with kids hanging off of me, we took a boat back to the main land and went to a headmistresses home for dinner. She had prepared traditional Rwandan food with several of her friends - and under the bare bulb and her children's shy gazes, we ate and talked and had a wonderful feast. Life is beautiful.