Trip to Rwanda

This week we traveled to Rwanda and spent four days with the two senior missionary couples serving there.  It was a great week to go because just one week ago (Oct. 25th) the Church became officially registered in Rwanda and now the missionaries can proselyte.  We also have 6  young Elders serving there.  We are in the process of now deciding how to celebrate the announcement of the registration in the country.  That will probably occur early next year as we are hoping to have a nice dinner at one of the hotels and invite key opinion leaders in Rwanda.

We found it to be a beautiful, clean country where they drive on the right side of the road, have no potholes, obey the laws, and do not have as many motorcycles.  The country allows no plastic garbage or shopping bags and garbage is picked up weekly.  There are sidewalks and shoulders on the highway.  Even the rural areas are clean and well kept.

It is called the "land of 1000 hills" and reminds one of San Francisco and even Hawaii.  There are many poor people but their property is clean and tidy and everyone has gardens.  It is one of the smallest countries in Africa but is the most densely populated.  All the hillsides are terraced to allow more flat land for farms and gardens.

 

This is a country where prisoners do hard labor.  This is a prison farm and prisoners were working in rice fields and gardens.

This is a picture of the outskirts of Kigali, the capital city. 

This is more countryside as we were headed south out of Kigali.  The houses are made of sticks covered with mud.  Some are made of bricks and they usually all have a tin roof. 

We stopped at the United Nations Field Office near a refugee camp.  Again, this camp is refugees from the DR Congo.  The lady in the green shirt is giving them instructions on cooking with a new German made stove that uses very little wood.  

Here they are cooking beans in new cooking pots they are all being given.

This is the German made stove they cook on.  Each family is given one.  It uses a lot less wood than the open fires they currently use. 

This is inside the Congolese Refugee camp.  As you can see it is very hilly.  The homes are put up by the UN and consist of plastic and mud bricks with tin roofs.  The houses are 6 ft x 8 ft and are 1 meter apart so it is very crowded.

Another shot of the refugee village-- and the hills are quite steep all throughout the village.

This is the laundry area in the camp.  The water taps are here and the women wash in plastic basins.  The yellow cans are Jerri cans they fill with water to take to their homes for cooking, drinking, and bathing.

More of the washing area for the 18,000 refugees in this camp.

We see this all the time.  Women carry very heavy and large loads on their heads.  They have a rolled cloth or turban that sits on their head to balance the load. 

This is Ray's National Geographic shot-- he had no idea the mother on the right was nursing her baby until after he took the picture.

Two hundred women in the camp have formed a co-op to help better themselves.  They make washing soap to sell, do tailoring for the village, and bake bread to sell.  These ladies were members of the co-op and happy to show us the soap.  In this refugee camp the Church is building latrines and teaching hygiene classes as cholera is a risk and brought by the refugees from Goma in the DR Congo.  In this compound the Church is also building a bowery so the women have a place to make soap, a place to sew, and a place to sell their bread.  The Church is donating 6 sewing machines and having a new brick oven built for them.

African grandmother or mother and child sitting by their hut. 

 

 Darling children following us as we drove out of the camp.  The little girl in the plaid dress never stopped smiling and waving.

 

Back in Kigali....this is a picture of our hotel.  It was very nice and modern.

 

This is a picture of a building that one of the 3 branches of the Church rents for meetings.

 

Another branch is just finishing the remodel on this building that they are moving to. Behind the building is a garden the Relief Society planted so they can help needy families with food.

 

 

 

We are standing at the gate of this hotel in downtown Kigali.  This is the hotel that the movie "Hotel Rwanda" is based on.    

 

This "Hotel Rwanda" is where over 1200 Tutsis hid during the 1994 genocide.  The Hutu made up 84% of the population, the Tutsis made up 15%, and the Twa made up 1%.  The Tutsis had been the ruling class for generations, owned cattle, and were more affluent.  They are taller and have a more angular nose.  The Hutus were the working class, farmed, and were servants. They are shorter and have a more flattened nose. It is not unusual for Hutus and Tutsis to intermarry. When the nation's president was killed (he was Hutu), the extremists that were Hutu began a propaganda war over radio and TV and began killing Tutsis.  They had some guns but mostly used machetes and clubs.  Over 1 million people were killed during a 3 month period. People were literally cut in half or limbs severed and left to die.  Bodies were piled along the roadside.  Other people were beaten and thrown down latrines.  It is said that 10,000 people were killed daily. 

Rwanda had been a Belgian colony, but they pulled out and did nothing.  No one came to the Tutsis' aid, including the United States.

Millions of Tutsis fled across borders into neighboring nations.  In 1994, Paul Kagame ( a Tutsis who had fled with his family to Uganda years before) led a rebel army back into Rwanda and took back the capital city.  He remains the dictator today and seems to have done much for the country.  Neighboring countries like Burundi and DR Congo still have persecution going on today against the Tutsis.      

 

These are children from the Twa village.  The Church did a water project for their village where they collect rain water from the roofs with gutters and drain pipes and store it in large collection barrels.  These people are from the mountains, are very poor, not educated, and short -- almost pigmy.

We are holding Flat Stanley that our grandson Jackson sent to us.  His class is mailing Flat Stanley all over the world and we email back pictures of everywhere we travel with him.