We were in Rwanda to begin preparations for a Neonatal resuscitation program that the Church is going to do there. We also prepared for the ten containers of supplies that are on the way from Salt Lake City to the Congolese refugee camp in western Rwanda. It should arrive in the next month or so and we will assist with the distribution in the camp.
Rwanda is a beautiful country with rolling hills and mountains. People cultivate and plant crops everywhere by terracing the slopes.
The Branch of the Church in Kigali has grown from twelve members when it was organized last year last year to forty-five this year. We attended a First Year Anniversary party for the Branch on Saturday and nine new members were baptized in a beautiful lake outside Kigali.
There were two crested cranes outside our hotel window that spent all day pecking at their reflection in the window. They are the national bird of Uganda and are beautiful. However, they are obviously not very smart.
In many ways Rwanda is more developed and advanced than Uganda (especially the roads). However, the aftermath of the 1994 genocide is still evident, especially in Kigali. More than one million Tutsis were killed and some two million fled to refugee camps during the three month attack by the Hutu government forces which surrounded Kigali. We visited the genocide monument where three hundred thousand men, women and children are buried in a mass grave; it was a very sobering sight.
We did encounter several “obstacles” in our path during the return journey...
We stopped for two days in the Queen Elizabeth Park to go on a game drive. The guide kept telling us that we could not get out of the vehicle around the animals but we obviously did not listen to him. We did not want a bunch of long range generic photos so, in spite of his complaining, we got out to “pose” with the animals. You can't get good pictures from inside a vehicle.
Once, we did have a big bull elephant charge our SUV from about 25 yards away so we had to make a hasty retreat. It was a little hard to get this picture with the guide yelling frantically, "go, go, go" but we managed to do it anyway. When he finally calmed down, we told him, "see, we told you we were better off outside".
These hippos were in the river separating Uganda from the DR Congo. During the recent fighting, refugees crossed the river here, where it is narrow, to escape the fighting. They then travelled through the park to the refugee camp we visited earlier at Kanungu.
We will return to Rwanda soon for the refugee shipment. Now that we have finally seen lions and elephants we feel like we are really in Africa.
