Psalm 28:7: Muraho!

Muraho! or Hello in Kinyarwanda! So, a lot has happened in the past few days, and our internet has been down so I haven’t had the opportunity to share any of it yet, which is super sad! So here goes:

We flew into Africa on Sunday, August 19th from Qatar. First we landed in Uganda for people to get on and off, and then we took off for a quick flight to Rwanda. It was terrible waiting for the plane to start up again- we were all so excited and waiting felt like forever. But finally, we landed in Kigali International Airport! The airport is super small, so we got all our luggage quickly and headed outside and loaded up some trucks and piled into our first mutatu (more to come about that later). Then we drove about 10 minutes to our house. Since Kigali is the capital city of Rwanda, it’s pretty developed (like most roads are paved and such). But our road is probably the worst kept in Rwanda, which is pretty funny. We drove superrr slow down this uneven dirt road until we came up to our house. We buzzed the bell and waited for Celestine to open the gate for us and the first thing we see is this straight up hill. But, our little van full of 16 people chugged right on up it and we made it! Our compound is awesome! There are two houses, the big house and the little house, and then in between them is a little garage type place that serves as our classroom. The 16 girls live in the big house, where there’s a sitting room, a dining room for our meals, the kitchen, three bathrooms, and a porch with a table. I’m in a 6 person room, which is a two person increase from last year! We unpacked, had a little orientation, and then walked to a pizza place called Sol E Luna for dinner, which was delicious. They had over 80 pizza flavors. It was my kind of place.

The next day was our first full day in Kigali, which was incredible. We went on a walking tour of the city, where we got to see some important landmarks, but the real exciting part was later. After a delicious lunch by Aidah, our cook, we headed out for “Muzungu Mutatu Madness,” tagline: Shoving disgruntled foreigners into vans since 2012. Muzungo is the word for foreigner and it literally means “aimless wanderer,” but basically it means white person. So, let me try to explain. A mutatu is basically a 15 passenger van that you use to get around. They’re supah cheap and really easy to find, so everyone uses them. They basically go either downtown, which is “mumungo” or towards the other direction where our house is, which is “kimironko” (chimee- ron- ko). So we had a scavenger hunt where we had to find these places in Kigali and get around by walking and mutatu. Quite an adventure. It’s really hard to find things with no map and barely being able to speak the same language as anyone else (most people speak Kinyarwanda). Also, everyone stares at you and lots of people say Muzungo when they see you, which is strange getting used to. On the way back, two girls and I jumped on the right mutatu by saying “KIMIRONKO!” which was our first victory. Feeling good, we told them we needed to get off in front of the Justice Building, but the conductor had no idea what we were saying. But instead of freaking out, we decided to do what we saw someone do and what we were told to do, which is knock on the inside of the van before your stop. So we did it and the conductor turned around and smiled at us and a bunch of people laughed with him so surprised we knew what to do. It was awesome. We found our stops and had a ton of fun, and feel a lot more comfortable getting around here.

Today we had our first day of classes, which was great. The morning 9-12 class is about peace building with Pastor Anastace, who seems awesome. The afternoon class from 1-3 is “Social context for development” and is very focused on poverty; it seems difficult but interesting. They both sound pretty hands on and very discussion based, which I will definitely like. A few of us went into town during our free time from 3-6 and exchanged money, had an interesting pharmacy experience, and went to our first clothing store where they wanted us to pay way more than it was. Overall, very good day! Welp, hope everyone is doing well, talk at you soon!