Some thoughts first:
Kigali (the capital city) is quite lovely...so clean...and many flowers and flowering bushes. Most of the people are extremely friendly...big smiles, fist bumps. When the children see us in oir vehicles, they yell, translated "white people." White are rather conspicuous here, yet I do not feel out of place at all.
The pace is extremetly slow...45 minutes to an hour to have one's meal served. I am such an American in that way...I'm always looking for the quickest way to get my food.
The students have meshed quite nicely - 5 of them - 3 young men and 2 young women. Dr. Rundus is so laid back and it makes all of our travels so easy. His luggage did not arrived for three days.
For those of you who might want some images of Kigali: we just came home from the shopping center. There, obe can find a Rwandan version of Walmart...selling everything from TVs and fans to bread and yogurt. We have seen many signnoting the twentieth anniversary of the genocide and people talk about it freely. There are no fast food restaurants here. A bottle of Fanta of Coke costs 600 Rwanda Francs (just uner $1). The pizza is pretty good and I've two different soups - both tasty. The cooked vegetables are excellent - fresh green beans, carrots, and cauliflower. There are at least two kinds of taxis that I've seen - regular with a driver (cost me about $7 to go from one hotel to the other) and motorcycle taxis...and they are all over the roads. The children play like American children of old - kicking empy bottles down the street, running and laughing. And the young people all have their cell phones. We have mosquito netting in our rooms, but so far, I have not seen a mosquito or been bitten.
So day 2 - We went to the Natural History Museum - small but very nicely laid out and an excellent guide. He talked early civilization to colonial period to genocide. He noted that so much of the history is oral history and the younger generation is not continuing it. Perhaps one of you (talking to students) would like to come to Rwanda and work on a/the project to save this oral history. In the afternoon, we walked the city center. For those of you who know me, you know that as soon as I hear music, I start to swing and sway. As some of our group were looking at merchandise, I was swinging and swaying to the music at the delight (or they found it humorous??) of many people. We say some nice itens to buy, but we'll wait until we return to Kigali at the end of trip to do the actual buying.
Students: If you find grammatical errors or stylistic errors (i.e. passive voice), know that this is not a formal history assignment. Hope you and fam and friends are well!
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