The Land of 1,000 Hills

We woke up to the chirping of birds that morning tights as the sunrise came in at 6am. Since the rest of the residents at St. Paul seemed to be sound asleep, Amanda (my roommate) and I were able to finally connect to the WiFi and told our families we made it safe and sound. Shortly after we congregated with rest of AFP for breakfast which consumed of vegetables, eggs, bread with butter and honey, as well as some of the best coffee I’ve ever had. Eventually we climbed on the bus where our local tour guide Françoise taught us how to count from 1 to 10 in Kinyarwanda. After exchanging our dollars for Rwandan francs we made our way to the Nyamirambo Women’s Center which was established in 2004 as a way for women to obtain the necessary skill sets to earn an income. With the aid of donors from Slovenia and eventually Switzerland they were able to create their own facilities that teach young women how to use sowing machines, stitch, and how to do hair. Our guide that day was a young woman named Selby who grew up here and now at 21 years old she is waiting to start hospitality school for hotel management on July 1 (Rwandan Independence Day); she nicknamed herself as Ms. Independent. After teaching us the traditions of her culture we were feed a luxurious homemade lunch.


The most impactful part of the day was when we ventured to the Kigali Genocide Memorial.



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These are powerful words from a soul that did not survive the genocide.


100 days... that’s all it took. That’s all it took for millions of innocent people to be slaughtered not only by enemies but by family, friends, uncles, aunts, mothers, fathers and neighbors. The only distinction between Hutu’s and Tutsi’s was economic status which was based off of how many cows one had and the shape of a persons nose. Families were broken, siblings became orphaned children and wife’s became widowed with no family to hold onto to.


NEVER AGAIN


As I was sitting outside of the memorial, attempting to process my emotions and awaiting the rains down poor amongst the Grey clouds I saw a familiar face walking up to me.


It’s a small world after all...
The woman ended up being a girl that I know from school. We laughed and smiled with mouths open mesmerized by how we met across the world. It was in that moment that I felt comforted by not feeling to far away from home.