Safe arrival in Rwanda and journey to Kamembe

After a rather late arrival in Kigali last night, we were keen to get a good night's sleep at our guest house before a long bus journey today from the capital down to Kamembe, in the south west corner of Rwanda.  The bus journey passed through lots of beautiful countryside - Rwanda isn't called the Land of 1000 Hills for nothing - before coming through Nyungwe Forest with some monkey sightings and reaching Kamembe and Munezero House, our home for the next two weeks.  The first activity on our agenda was to stretch our legs with a walk down the hill to Baho Neza Mwana, the street children's project, to look at the stunning view of Lake Kivu and be welcomed by the boys with their wonderful drumming.  They let us have a go (it's so much trickier than they made it look to stay in time and keep the rhythm!) and we joined them in their dancing.  This evening has been spent planning lessons for tomorrow's teaching at Munyove (LEH teachers) and Isha (Devonshire House teachers) and there is much excitement in the house for what the first day in schools will hold.

Before setting off on the journey

Just 24 hours into the trip, the excitement was proving too much for some of the teachers

Beautiful Rwandan countryside

Arrival at Munezero House and unloading of the bags

View from the aeroplane taken by a couple of teachers

The boys showing us how it's done

Noelia looks confident with the drums

LEH teachers trying their hand at the drums

Dave getting fully involved in the dancing

Beth found a new dance partner

Sunset over Lake Kivu as the boys wave goodbye

First dinner of pork and plantain

Arrival in Kigali

Five of the six in the early arrival party have now arrived safely in Kigali - if you have an Irish passport remember that you need a visa before you travel (we didn't know this at 4.30am this morning)! Settled into the guest house, we are now enjoying Italian pizzas down the road with a beautiful (if a bit dark) view of Kigali. Hopefully three more of the party will fly in at midnight tonight (hopefully, given that their first flight arrived 9 minutes after their second flight was supposed to leave!) Tomorrow we make the long journey down to Kamembe in south west Rwanda...

Andrea with her "Andrea" pizza

Arrival in Rwanda

Our first outing in Kigali focuses our minds on the context of our work. In the words of the United Human Rights Council logo: 'Educate yourself and others to instigate change in the world'.  The experience of the Genocide Memorial is both urgent and heartening: visited by nationalities from all over the world there is the potential to ensure such events are never ignored again.  And there is always the easy-going nature and smiles of locals.

The mass graves where 250,000 Rwandans are buried.  Over 1 million were killed in the genocide - which was 20% of the entire population.

The very real stories of those members of the community for whom the memory of the atrocities witnessed in the genocide is all still too fresh.  We heard the story of a man whose father saved four children from a stadium, where the Interahamwe had taken Tutsis, by buying their lives with 100,000 RWF (nowadays 40,000 RWF is what a teacher earns each month - the equivalent of about £40).  The man himself, aged only 14 at the time, when he witnessed a woman being brutally killed, rescued a small baby from her back and fled to safety.

Youth procession of students visiting the Genocide Memorial

Yet these are just two stories of what lives on and the will to bring harmony to a country which is warm, welcoming and hopeful for its future.

To find out more about the Rwandan Genocide and watch some video testimonies from both survivors and perpetrators visit the Genocide Archive online.

We visited Kaplaki Market, where local arts and crafts are sold, and supported local business owners by buying a few souvenirs to bring home.