Six Weeks in Rwanda

The weekend has been a bit less hectic so now I can tell you a bit about our social life.  We have become friends with many students and a professor named Gerald.  Gerald and the Rector's aide, Cleophas who is a student in IT, took us to the Safari club on Friday night.  It is a club that mostly only students go to.  There is a dance floor, a bar, and a small pool room.  They play pool the same way but one side has all yellow balls and the other has all red.  It is funny because not that many girls were at the club which made Jutta and I stick out even more even though the fact that we are Mizungus (white people) does not help much either.  It was very fun though!  We hear many people call us mizungus, especially little kids.  It is quite funny and in no way a derogatory term.  A little boy did a double take at us yesterday and then tugged on his mother's arm and said "Mama! MIZUNGUS!" with wide eyes.  She just laughed and said hi to us.  We have not bought anything yet but have been browsing in the market and in a store that is close to our hotel that raises money for women.  One of the top things on my list is to pick out some fabric and have one of the seamstress women make me a rwandan style dress just for fun.

 

We ate at hotel uwugo (or something like that) last night and had rabbit and some potatos that were absolutely delicious.  We also tried three kinds of banana beer last night and banana wine the night before.  They are very strong but very good!  You have to be careful though because it is almost like hard alcohol! 

 

We have been spending quite a bit of time on the campus of NUR and have met many students.  I met a student in civil engineering today named Albert and told him that i would love to get together with other engineering students and see what their curriculum is like here.  Cleophas showed us his curriculum for computer science and Kylan and I were amazed because they have some a broad area of study.  It is almost like they are studying two or three majors.  It is a very rigorous program!  We are also going to try to set up a meeting with some of the IT students so that we can talk to them about some ideas for the coffee cooperative.  We need some input on what will work the best for Rwanda and who better to tell us than Rwandans themselves?  We went to lunch with two students named Gilbert and Jean-Luc today at Iris and it was like real rwandan food with rice and beans, a banana dish, casava root and fries.  Always fries!  We met a young man at lunch that just finished his undergraduate degree and now volunteers for Health Unlimited which is an organization that helps students and others have a health plan.  There are so many initiatives and programs and projects!  It is good to see people making it for themselves and also helping out their country along the way.  I have a feeling that we will be hearing much more about Rwanda within the next couple of decades which is so exciting!

 

Well that is all for now!

 

Ashley