January 14, 2012

After a long 13 hour plane ride traveling from Washington DC's Dulles Airport, our group of 14, along with our house parents Jordan and Leah Bright (former GoED students) and their 7 month baby Zeke, arrived at the Ethiopian airport to wait for our next flight to Rwanda. Culture shock hit right away in Ethiopia as all of us girls hustled into the only bathroom to find no toilet seats in any of the stalls, no soap to wash our hands, and toilets that wouldn't allow toilet paper to be flushed. Four hours later, we boarded Ethiopian Air once more to fly home to Rwanda, stopping briefly in Uganda. Arriving in Rwanda was beautifully vibrant - such a difference to the dry, sand laden, and minimal vegetation of Ethiopia. Right away we could feel the stares of local Rwandans asking why these young Americans were here and what we would be doing in their country. Nine of us girls piled into a pretty small car which drove us down the redish dirt and very poorly made roads of Kigali to our new home in the hills. Arriving at our house gate guarded by our young guard Alfonz, it took us a couple failed tries to make it up this VERY steep driveway. However despite the difficulties, our home in Kigali has beautiful views, and a big porch to take advantage of this. At about 10:20pm right now and about 70 degrees, i am overlooking the city lights of Kigali on this very porch. We are all excited to get up early, when the air is still cool, to run next to this view.

As we got settled into our house, we were assigned bedrooms. I am in a room in the back corner of the house with four other girls. Our room is decorated with Rwandan paintings and the very essential mosquito nets. Dinner is made by our wonderful cook Ida, a very sparky, chocolate-chip loving, Rwandan woman who lives behind our house and cooks us great food every day.
Tonight we ate dinner together outside on our porch, and went for a walk around the city. We went to a huge soccer stadium right down the street to our house - a place where there are soccer games, presidential speeches, and national mournings in the month of April, grieving the recent genocide. This stadium is a place where just about anyone can go to run around the track, look around, and take aerobics classes- something we're all excited about doing together. The rest of the day was dedicated to just hanging out and settling in. I'm excited to be adjusted, settled in, to experience new and exciting things, and to read the weekly notes my wonderful family and friends have written me during my semester here in Rwanda.

                                   This is our open air garage-turned-classroom for the semester