Final day in Rwanda 2014

Catch up on Part 1 of our Rwanda trip here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here Part 7 here, Part 8 here, Part 9 here

I can hardly believe that this is my last Rwanda recap. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been back for three months (almost four} and it certainly doesn’t feel like it’s time to start raising money for our 2015 trip.

I frequent these recaps more than any other post on my blog because seeing these faces and reliving our trip just makes my heart happy and so full. I truly hope y’all have enjoyed them just as much as I have.

Our final day in Rwanda…

SATURDAY | September 20th

We were so spoiled, y’all. This was laid out for us every meal.

Jarrod and his porridge.

Love this little guy and the Christmas card he sent us :)

Sweet Josephine!

Our final car selfie on the way to the Genocide Memorial. I don’t think anyone wanted to leave later that day.

In 1994, Rwanda suffered an unspeakably horrible genocide that claimed the lives of nearly 1,000,000 Rwandans. A century of ethnic tension between the Hutu and Tutsi people groups erupted in an indescribable wave of massacre and bloodshed, as the Hutu army and the Hutu militia formed death squads, killing every Tutsi man, woman, child, and infant in their path with machetes, clubs, and bullets. By the time it was over, the country was in ruins.

Rwanda today could not be more different. The country has reconciled and made pacts with one another that violence such as the 1994 genocide will happen “Never Again” as the many memorials and bracelets say. The nation is one of peace and love–but they will always remember. The horror of the genocide is still fresh in the national memory. In order to memorialize the victims, and to remember what happened so that history can never repeat itself, Rwanda has built a Genocide Memorial in every district; the largest of which resides in Kigali.

We visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where the concrete slab mass graves of thousands of innocent Rwandans are visible in the beautiful gardens, and toured the museum on the grounds where the broken bones and skulls of the dead, photos and belongings of loved ones who were lost, and last words of children who were killed are on display to emphasize the both the reality of the genocide and the evil that the country has sworn to prevent from rising again.

While inside the memorial, you couldn’t take pictures but I didn’t even think about my camera one time. After spending nearly two weeks in this country, it absolutely broke my heart to see the suffering they had been through. And in reality, 20 years ago wasn’t that long ago, so I guess I should say the suffering they are still going through.

Even though I’m thankful we went because I feel like you need to understand what the people of Rwanda have been through to fully appreciate their love and kindness, the emotional toll it took, on top of the emotions we already had from leaving, was a lot to take in one day.

After we left the Genocide Memorial, teary-eyed and depressed, it was time to get down to business. As Cory can tell you, I do this thing where I picture what I want, and whether it truly exists or not I will go on this crazy shopping madness until I have found it. Well I had my mind set that I was going to find this certain type of traditional dress for Gracie, and although we had been to several co-ops and shops, I still hadn’t found the one. I described it to Josephine, who called a friend in downtown Kigali who owned a co-op to see if she had one.

VP took us down to her shop in the middle of the busy city, and while she had a ton of cool stuff, she still didn’t have what I was looking for. She told us to follow her to her friend’s shop which we thought was right around the corner. Well she ended up leading us through alleyways and twists and turns, weaving through crowds as thick as Times Square on New Year’s Eve, practically sprinting because she had left her own shop unattended and leaving us behind. We desperately tried to keep up with her and not get lost, because VP had gone to pick something up for Josephine and we had no clue where we were! Y’all, I don’t want to say I was ever afraid in Rwanda, but that had to be the closest thing to it.

And I still didn’t find the dang dress!

We ended up going back to a co-op we had visited a few days prior and found one that was close to what I had wanted.

Risked our lives running all over Kigali for nothing.

We went back to Ben and Josephine’s for some much-needed rest and to finish packing before we had to be at the airport and Gaudence was there to spend the afternoon with us.

So sweet. Jarrod kind of surprised us all on this trip. He’s such a funny guy but was so wonderful with children of all ages.

We showed Ben our videos from the national park because he had been at a conference the day before. Funny story, we all knew he was gone Friday night but it wasn’t until Saturday morning that we realized he had flown to another country for this conference when his flight delayed and ended up driving like 8 hours home.

You may have noticed in some of the pictures in previous posts, but in Rwanda, babies are always carried on the back and tied on with a big wrap. Mothers work in the fields digging potatoes all day, big sisters go to school, nannies cook and clean and fetch water, all with babies tied to their backs. I had asked Gaudence earlier in the week to show me how they tie them on before we left. Well poor little Michaiah woke up from her nap just in time to be our guinea pig.

I was shocked to find out there was no complex contraption keeping the babies on but will definitely need some more practice.

I just had to get a few pictures of Ben and Josephine’s beautiful home before we left.

And of course leave it to Jarrod and my husband to not be packed yet.

We had our last Rwandan meal and said our “see you laters” to Michaiah.

Somehow, even with all the spare time we had that day, we were still late getting to the airport and had to rush all over the place. Josephine even had to take our money to get it changed back to dollars for us and then send it in to Cory with a stranger while we went through security! We didn’t even get to tell her goodbye :(

Cory has made a lot of friends in Africa. The lady at the check-in counter in the Kigali airport is not one of them.

Our last sad selfies as we boarded our plane!

And it was photobombed by our muzungu friends from Seattle.

The whole trip, I had been trying to get a photo of the lights of nighttime Kigali and could never get a good one. As we took off, Jarrod looked out the window and said “there’s your shot of the lights”. And I lost it with the realization of how much I truly fell in love with Rwanda. Last year when Cory boarded his flight for Rwanda I thought sending a piece of my heart around the world was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Little did I know that just over a year later I would realize that the hardest thing I’ve ever done was leave a piece of my heart there. I started bawling and telling Cory we had to get off the plane. I was so not ready to go…if Einstein and Hampton had been there I wouldn’t have left.

I told Cory that we needed to get off the plane and just stay. He said “Honey, we have two other people that we have to get home. If we don’t get Jarrod home, Michelle will kill me.” If they hadn’t been with us, Cory and I might still be in Kigali.

We had a stop in Uganda {that we didn’t know about} and it kind of freaked us out when they started talking about landing 45 minutes into our flight. Thankfully, we didn’t have to get off the plane but all the lights were on so we couldn’t sleep either.

So done with flying by this point.

French is one of the languages spoken in Rwanda. The only French word Jarrod knows is “croissant”. Which he pronounced, loudly, “KWWAA-SAWNT!”

The day we were coming back was Jarrod’s birthday and I had secretly bought him a birthday card at Nakumatt one day while we were grocery shopping in Kigali. When Jarrod went to the restroom in the Brussels airport, Cory went and bought him a KWAA-SAWNT and a cookie and we sang him happy birthday!

24 hours after leaving Kigali {and 17 on a plane} we finally made it back to America and had one more flight home.

I wish I had filmed the crowd waiting for us when we came through gate. Jarrod’s kids had made posters and Michelle had the sweetest little gifts for us all. My parents and grandparents were there and Jessica and Matt made the trip as well! We immediately forgot how tired we were and all started sharing stories from our trip.

The weary travelers posed for one more photo before we grabbed one last meal together and went home with our families for some rest and sleep in our own beds!

Or our own chairs.

Hampton and Einstein were just as excited to have us home as we were to be home.

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