These past two weeks have been crazy!! I know, pretty lame
excuse for not blogging, but it seems like things were just happening one after
another. Two weeks ago, I left Jordyn to spend 3 and a half days in the
northernmost part of Uganda in a city called Gulu. It was (what I thought was)
a rigorous 5 hour drive (on the post bus) from Kampala. I went up there helping
out the group that is doing interviews with LRA abductees. I got to interview
17 former abductees. Some of these women were in the bush more than 14 years! I
was in awe and my heart broke when I heard some of their stories. It is so sad
what some of these people had to live through. The wife of one of the top LRA
commanders was wearing a really beautiful necklace and I wanted to get one for
Jordyn but she bought it out of town somewhere, so she sold it to me right off
of her neck! I was thrilled and Jordyn seemed to like it, both because it is
beautiful and sentimental. I got home Thursday afternoon, only to turn around
and drive half-way back up and much farther west Friday morning for the safari
with the rest of the group.
It was a 2 day
ordeal. We got out in the middle of nowhere and camped in tents at this safari
outpost right next to the national park. We went out late afternoon until
evening and saw some amazing animals: elephants, giraffes, cob, warthogs, water
buffalo, hippos, heart beast, cranes, wild dogs, baboons, impalas, and at the
last minute, a lion. I really wanted to see a leopard but they are really hard
to track down. The next day we drove
down to the bank of the Nile, the one coming from Lake Albert (since there are
two sources of the Nile; one coming from Albert the other coming from Victoria)
and got on a boat for a little cruise up to the falls. The boat ride was
relaxing as we saw hippos, crocodiles, cranes, monkeys, and eagles. Murchison
falls was pretty fantastic. The boat let us off right next to the falls and we
went on a short 1 mile hike up the side of the falls and had a wonderful
upfront view of all the power and force of the millions of gallons of water
barreling down the rock cliff. It was amazing! After the hike we headed back
for a night in our Kampala beds.
The next day we all woke up at 6am and jumped in the bus for
the 2nd half of our group trip: Rwanda! I thought it was a long
drive to our Safari, but after Sunday’s trip, it didn’t seem that bad. We left
at 7 am and got into Kigali, Rwanda at 12am, haha. Of course we stopped for
church at a local branch along the way but it was at least a 12-13 hour drive.
The roads and infrastructure in Rwanda are so much better than Uganda!! It was
weird seeing the contrast because I thought most of Africa would look the same
or have the same problems like corruption or poor infrastructure. Of course, I
knew things would be slightly different, but I didn’t expect to see all the
roads paved nicely and there was almost no trash along the sides of the road.
It was just an overall amazingly clean place. The air was much cleaner…probably
because each vehicle wasn’t putting out the enough exhaust to cause instant
global warming (as is the case in Kampala). After being in Uganda for so long
(and for Jordyn, add in Tonga), driving on the right side of the road again was
a little weird.
Tyler signing out, Jordyn signing in
Monday morning we all slept in a little so that we could a)
recover from our travels, and b) be in good spirits for the day that was before
us. Our first stop was the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Outside there are
something like 13 mass graves with, in all, around 250 bodies that have been
gathered from other burial sites. They are still building some and will
continue to exhume and relocate bodies to the memorial as they are discovered.
Just finding the bodies is quite a task in itself because so many people were
just dumped by the side of the road, thrown into latrines, or buried in
randomly located shallow graves. Inside the building was a museum.
Part 1 talked about the history of the Rwandan genocide and
included several different parts. The first section was a historical account of
the events leading up to, including, and following the genocide. There were
also three more separate rooms: a room with thousands of pictures of the
victims (along with a few notes written by survivors to ones they had lost), a
room with remains (including skulls and other bones, clothes, and other
personal items), and a children’s room (highlighting a few of the children who
had been killed).
Part 2 was dedicated to all of the other genocides that had
happened in the last century: Nazi Germany, Armenia, the Balkans, Bosnia, and Cambodia.
One of my favorite quotes came from Thomas Burgenthal, an Auschwitz survivor,
in reference to the Armenian genocide. He said, “I don’t know why the Turks can’t admit it, express sorrow and go on.
That’s the worst. You do all these things to the victim and then you say it
never happened. That is killing them twice.” It really struck me because
the Turks aren’t the only ones who have tried to bury the past. Out of all the
genocides mentioned at the museum, they all happened in my lifetime except for
the Holocaust, and that is the only one I had heard anything about until this
year! I actually left the memorial feeling more angry than sad. Angry that in
all my schooling not one teacher had ever mentioned the atrocities that had
happened so recently in this worlds’ history. Is there nothing we can learn
from the recent past?
Anyway, after a quick lunch back at our hotel we headed out
of town to another memorial site. This place much less organized and
sugarcoated. The old catholic church we visited was the ground zero for the
death of 5000 people on April 15, 1994. In past years, people had sought shelter
in the church and on its grounds and had been safe from rebel forces. As the
people gathered in and around the church, grenades were thrown into the
building, and the surviving were killed with machetes or other tools. The
bones, clothing, and personal items of the people who were killed in that
church were still there. Despite having been somewhat organized, it was still
very dark, dirty, and emotionally raw. Only 18 years ago, those bones had been
living breathing human beings. Now they sit on a shelf—a symbol of the terrible hate our fellow men are
capable of. After the church we went on to eat dinner at the Hotel Des Mille
Collines, otherwise known as “Hotel Rwanda.” It was hard to imagine that we
were sitting outside the hotel where so many lives were saved as we munched on
our Panini’s and apple pie. Needless to say, the day left me with a lot to
think about.
The next morning we woke up fairly early and went out to
Kibuye Lake. It was beautiful! Rwanda has such a beautiful landscape. It really
earns its nickname, “Land of a Thousand Hills.” These hills were on the verge
of mountains, and the people are not daunted. They farm right up the side! The
bus ride was a long 3ish hours, but well worth it. We found a boat to take us
out on the lake, but we soon jumped ship…literally! We all just jumped out of the
boat and into the lake. Some fully clothed, some we wish had been more clothed…
Anyway, after that we got back on the bus and started home. After asking
several times, the driver finally pulled over to take a picture. As luck would
have it, we looked down the hill to find small groups of children singing,
which turned into dancing, which turned into the majority of the group
running/falling/leaping down the hill to join them. It was so much fun to watch
and we got some incredible video and photos to show everyone who stayed back in
Kigali to get massages, haha.
The ride back was just as miserable as the ride there, but
probably a little worse since I was sick. I continued to be sick for a few more
days, and that’s about all I’ve done for the week. Tyler also joined the sick
boat about a day after me. There was one good thing about coming back though,
and I have to go on a little tangent to explain it. The day before we left for
safari, I got my hair braided.(see life jacket pic above) Nice, eh? I thought so. Anyway, after a week, it was REALLY
itchy. Getting it washed was probably the best feeling in the whole world.
So there you have it. Good work. You made it through that
grueling post. Now, as Coach P would say, “ Go do something nice for someone.”
