TTT - The Trumble Travels: Rwanda

From: Dan Trumble
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Subject: The Trumble Travels - Rwanda - February 2007

Greetings all!

I am in Kigali, Rwanda for a brief time visiting Compassion’s office here. You could count today as a good day…I didn’t bust a button on one of my three pairs of long pants that I have on the trip like I did yesterday. Of course, my watch did stop today so that’s a bummer.
Rwanda is known as "Le Pays des Milles Collines," or "The Land of a Thousand Hills." (http://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/content/view/100/1/) and no kidding, it is really hilly. It makes for interesting run-off when it rains. There is a lot of red dirt with a high clay content.

I flew through Belgium and arrived in Kigali on the evening of Saturday, 24 February. Mudage (pronounced approximately like moo-DOG-ay), a collegue from the Rwanda office, picked me up at the airport.

On Sunday Mudage took me to his church in Kigali. There were a number of people of European descent there…the number was one…in other words, I was the lone white guy. The service was conducted in ki nyarwanda (the Rwandan language). Mudage translated some for me. I was asked to pray at one portion in the service (that part I did in English while Mudage translated for the congregation). The church is reached by walking along a path maybe ½ kilometer from where we parked (most people just walk from their homes so the whole issue of “parking” is a non-issue for most).

Afterward we went to the airport to pick up Samuel, the Compassion Country Director, who was returning from meetings in Ethiopia. While we were waiting a guy overheard me talking about Colorado Springs. It turns out he’s with Youth for Christ and used to live in Denver, Colorado (he lives in Nashville now).

After the airport we went out for Chinese food. I have now eaten Chinese in 9 countries (Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Kenya, Rwanda, Hong Kong, Philippines, Burkina Faso, USA).

After Chinese we went to the Genocide Memorial where the atrocities of 1994 are remembered. Approximately 800,000-1,000,000 people were killed (about 10% of the population of the country). There are mass graves at the memorial but there was significant rain on Sunday afternoon so we didn’t venture out to see those (I did get a picture from the car…see below). Pretty awful. One of the rooms has cabinets with bones, some with skulls and some with leg bones.

While Beth and I were in the midst of the process of interviewing for the job in Rwanda back in November or so (we didn’t get the job, by the way), Beth found a blog of some people that were living in Kigali, the Brogdons. We had a bit of contact via email. Knowing I was coming to Rwanda, I emailed Jessica Brogdon last week and it turned out that they had some friends coming into Rwanda on the same flight as me. Anyway, I was invited over to their house and joined the family and some other Americans who are living in Rwanda. It was fun. There were some guys working for other NGOs and some young women who are teaching at a Christian school in Kigali and who live in the other side of the duplex with the Brogdons. Visit the Brogdon’s blog at http://homepage.mac.com/toddbrogdon/rwanda/Blog/blog.html

It is quite amazing how the country has been able to move on from the genocide and war of 1994. It is now safe and really developing. The U.S. government is building a huge complex in Kigali which will house the embassy and other government interests (like USAID). It is going to be kind of a regional base for stuff. The French, on the other hand, are not well thought of by the Rwandan government. In fact, the ambassador from France was recently expelled from the country and the embassy was closed. http://www.francewatcher.org/2006/11/french_ambassad.html http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1762696/posts

Church. Mudage is the one in the center with the blue collar.