Lake Kivu

May 18-20th
Over the last couple of days we have been spending some time traveling in the Karongi District. The major city that we stayed in is called Kibuye. The city is located on Lake Kivu. This is the biggest lake in Rwanda, it is a beautiful and magnificent area. The hotel that we stayed at was called Hotel Bethany. It was a very nice place to stay and we were able to relax on peace island.

Butare

May 21-23
Our next adventure took us from Kigali to the town of Butare. Some of our group took public transportation to get here so that there would be room in the van that we hired for our 9 large bags of donations. This was a very fun experience.

Once we arrived into town we checked into Hotel Du Mont Huye and explored the town for a bit. The hotel is located very close to the main street which makes navigating and exploring this bustling Rwandan city pretty easy. The next day we visited the boys and girls orphanages in Butare. Here we distributed some of the donations  that we were able to raise in  the United States. The children, as well as us, cannot express enough how deep our gratitude is for the people who donated items. We took many pictures during our visits, but they will have to be posted at a later time, please excuse the inconvenience. Little or no internet connection is part of life here, and learning to deal with that is a large part of our experience.

 The day after visiting the orphanage we took the rest of our donations to L'Ecole Primaire Du Butare. This is the school that has been rebuilt by the Friends of Butare Organization. The link to their website is located on this blog. We personally visited each classroom from the nursery to primary to secondary classes we handed each and every student a piece of candy as well as the school supplies that were donated to us. Again pictures of the school and the distribution of donations will be coming soon.

 

Kibuye, Bisesero, and Nyange

May 18-20th
Over the last couple of days we have been spending some time traveling in the Karongi District. The major city that we stayed in is called Kibuye. The city is located on Lake Kivu. This is the largest lake in Rwanda, it is a beautiful and magnificent area. The hotel that we stayed at was called Hotel Bethany. While staying in Kibuye we ventured to visit a genocide memorial called Bisesero. Our guide book told us that the memorial would be approximately a 30km away from the town, which would seem to be a short drive, this was not the case. It took more than two hours driving on very bumpy roads, but we finally arrived at our destination. The long bumpy drive was facilitated by our excellent driver, and it was well worth it in the end. Bisesero is the site where the largest resistance effort took place during the Rwandan genocide. Here is a link to more information on this memorial www.genocidearchiverwanda.org.rw/index.php?title=Bisesero

. The memorial was being renovated when we arrived but we were still able to get a tour and our guide gave us an understanding of what it will be when it is finished. In traditional memorials Rwandans emphasize the display of the victims bones. It was hard to see this for all of us, however by seeing the bones of victims we were able to better understand what took place on this hillside. We have all been studying this genocide for months, but seeing the victims bones made it disturbingly real. We spent the following day on the shores of peace island in order to debrief from our experience. Below is a description that Kelly has written for a research project, she will return to Bisesero on June 27th for the commemoration ceremony:


     Bisesero is the site of the largest resistance that took place during the Rwandan Genocide. For three months, approximately 50,000-60,000 fought courageously against the interahamwe with weapons such as spears, rocks, and a few guns that were taken from their enemies. The leaders of this group were A. Birara and his son, who had previously been shepherds (umushumba) in the community. Unfortunately, when the resistance began to run out of food, the genocidaires gained an upper hand. Of the 50,000-60,000 brave men and women who fought for their lives at Bisesero, a mere 1,300 survived the massacres. 
     The memorial that was created to remember the great acts of courage that were displayed at Bisesero sits atop a hill, overlooking the rolling hills and valleys that make up the western part of Rwanda. The memorial itself houses the remains of the individuals who perished while fighting for their lives. Within one part of the memorial, there are three individual graves and four mass graves. The individual graves house the remains of the resistance leader, the leader’s son, and an unidentified soldier who represents those who perpetrated the genocide. Although our guide did not directly tell us why this last grave was included, I have thought that its presence may represent the movement towards national unity within Rwanda. In addition to the graves, there is a building that has nine rooms. Within each room, the bones of individuals who fled to Bisesero from the nine sectors within the former Kibuye district are displayed. As pointed out by our guide, who was also a survivor, the bones can tell you how that person was killed (clubs, machetes, fire, or bullets).
     This memorial is a solemn reminder of what people are capable of doing to each other. Those who were once peaceful neighbors became enemies, and thousands of innocent men, women, and children lost their lives as a result of human ignorance. The experience that I have had visiting Bisesero reminds me, and others as well, that we all have the capacity and responsibility to prevent acts of genocide and mass atrocity from occurring. 

On our way back to Kigali we stopped at a local memorial called Nyange. While here, we were guided through the memorial's history by an individual who survived and experienced it himself. This is very rare, and our gratitude for the experience is boundless. We were all deeply moved and the experience will stay with us forever. Kelly has recently been working with the survivor who led us through the memorial to document his story and what had happened in Nyange.

We must apologize again for the sparsity of posts thus far. While attempting to post this information the cafe we were in experienced a power loss. This is something that often happens here. Nobody is in great distress when it occurs and we have learned to adapt in order to fully experience Rwandan culture. Internet connection at the moment is also very slow so pictures will have to be posted at a later time.

Akagera Park/ Lake Muhazi

On the fifteenth we woke up very early and had our first breakfast at Saint Francis Hotel. We then began our travels to Akagera Park; on our way we stopped at Lake Muhazi to eat lunch and go on a boat ride. For lunch we ate some wonderful goat brochette, chicken, and tilapia, which are some of the main meats eaten in Rwanda. While at the lake we had our first taste of Rwandan wildlife. 

This is the Crane we saw at the lake!

We arrived at Akagera to enjoy the sunset, and we spent the night at a beautiful hotel that overlooks the border with Tanzania. We woke up early the next morning to begin our safari in Akagera National Park. Below are a few pictures of the wildlife with their both English and Kinyarwanda words.

 A Bush Buck, we weren't able to get a translation yet

Imbogo or Water Buffalo

Imvubu or Hippo

Ingona or Crocodile, this is a baby. We also saw one that weighed approximately 300 kilograms!

Here is the most rare of all the Inzovu or Elephant. This one is a solitary male one of the largest in the park!

These beautiful Masai giraffes were grazing in the grasslands of Akagera Park. In this picture is a mother and her baby!

Arrival

We apologize for not posting anything until now. We have had less access to Internet connection then we had previously thought, so we will be doing our best to post as much as we can when we can.

Here we are with our new friends from Weber State University in Utah, and our Rwandan friends and guides, Joseph and Valence. 

After a long flight we made it safely to Kigali. To our excitement all of our donations also arrived safely with us! Once we arrived in the city and settled in, we explored the town. We met some Rwandans; they were more than happy to share their culture with us and we  learned some Kinyarwanda words. One of our new friends taught us how to play cards Rwandan style. The Kinarwandan word for cards is amakarita, a singular card is referred to as ykarita. Also while exploring town we connected with Never Again Rwanda (NAR), which is the organization which facilitates the Peacebuilding Institute that we will be participating in. 

Article in the Equinox

We recently spoke to a representative from the Keene State Equinox (KSC's student newspaper). She wrote about our motivations for going to Rwanda and how it will impact our future career goals. Below is a link to the article that she wrote:

KSC Equinox Article

Fundraiser Event

After gaining a ton of momentum from the Rotary presentation the next step was to contact local business owners in the Greater Springfield area to discuss donations for our trip. While doing this, some of our group members spoke with Bill Collins, the owner of Spoleto's Restaurants in East Longmeadow and Northampton, MA. Bill was amazing throughout this whole process and offered to host a fundraising event at his East Longmeadow restaurant and cater it for free. With this, we distributed posters (generously designed and printed by Robert Charles Photography and Go-Graphics) advertising the event. We also collected various donated items to use at our silent auction. When it finally came time for the event, between 50 and 100 people attended and listened as we explained our trip and motivations for going to Rwanda. After the event, each member of our group also sent out an email to his/her family to tell them about our trip and ask for donations. From these efforts, we received more financial support, as well as donations of toys and books from someone who works at scholastic. To date, we have collected approximately $5,877 worth of financial donations from family, friends, and businesses throughout the country. We would just like to thank all of the people who have been so generous and supportive of our trip.

 

                                                                                                                       

Presentation to Springfield Rotary

We would like to thank the Springfield, MA Rotary for allowing us the opportunity to give a presentation about our upcoming trip. On February 21st we gave a presentation that outlined Rwanda, the Rwandan Genocide, and the service work that we plan to do while abroad. This presentation was the first step in our fundraising experience while preparing for this trip. It opened doors to many opportunities and spread awareness to a wider audience. Many of the people we met during this presentation became extremely enthusiastic about our trip. This compelled us to continue fundraising and spreading awareness about what it is we are doing. Our gratitude to the individuals who made generous donations of supplies and funds is abounding. In addition to this experience being a practice in networking it also gave some of our group members a chance to become acquainted with the general history of Rwandan as well the culture. Not all of our group members specialize in Genocide studies so this presentation was a necessary step in preparing our knowledge of Rwanda and its culture.