Animals Animals and more Animals

Tuesday, Dec. 4 – Friday, Dec. 7

First off, I wanted to provide a sort of dictionary of terms to help all of you understand some of the words and phrases you’ll be hearing from your loved ones upon their return.

“Muzungu” – White person
“Muzungu 1” – Tony Morones
“Muzungu 2” – Craig McManus (Though his status has risen and fallen throughout the trip)
“Flapper” – A word or phrase that does not translate well
“Rwandan Squirts” – Traveler’s diarrhea
“T.I.A.” – This is Africa
“7,6,5,4,3,2,1” Combined with a waving hand motion over the eyes – Originally used as a warm-up for the drama team, became a method to try to stop crying

Monday evening – Tuesday – “Game Parks”

While Lynn, Brad, Scott, and Lisa are doing God’s work at the Leadership Conference, the rest of us get to play with the animals! My group drove east towards Tanzania and the Akagara Game Park. Upon arriving and checking in, we headed upstairs for dinner, which turned out to be much more entertaining then expected. They had a buffet set up on two separate tables. One had soup, salad, and dinner rolls. The other had the meat and rice for the main course. Besides Craig, the whole group told our waiter that we only wanted the main course, as there was quite a bit of difference in price if you didn’t want the entire buffet, which included soup, salad, and dessert. So we all approached the buffet and grabbed a roll off the first table. As Americans we expect bread to be included with dinner. Evidently, that’s not the case. When the bill came, we were each charged an additional 2600 Francs, or $5, simply because we had taken bread off of the soup and salad table. And it wasn’t even that good of a roll.

The next morning we headed out to the game park. Over the next hour we took probably hundreds of pictures of some of the most beautiful and exotic creatures on this Earth. We saw warthogs, impalas, water buffalo, zebras, and gigantic giraffes without zoo fences and in their natural habitat. We then returned to the hotel for breakfast and were confronted with a major snag; the van was broken down in the parking lot. While Stephen, our driver, and the hotel mechanics tore apart the dashboard, the rest of us watched a baboon get chased off the roof of the hotel, as well as a family of them stealing food from the garden. The van was eventually fixed and we were able to explore the rest of the park which included hippos taking cover in the coolness of a lake, and monkeys doing tricks just outside our windows. On the drive home we got stuck behind a dump truck that had broken down and was about to slip into a ditch. After 30 minutes, a large enough crowd had gathered that Obed, Craig, and I were able to help them push the truck up the hill and out of the way.

The gorilla group had some pretty awesome adventures of their own. According to Denise, “We had only gone up a little bit when the guide lifted up the canopy and there was the big guy, the silverback. I thought, couldn’t we have started with the babies and worked our way up?” Eventually, the babies as well as their mothers did come around. There were some scary moments as the group would get too close to the young ones and the male silverback would get angry and charge at them. But everyone followed instructions and sat down without making eye contact, which calmed him down. The group came out of it unscathed and with some amazing pictures.

Wednesday, Dec. 5 – The Refugee Camp

If you’re ever in Rwanda drive south from Kigali and just as you see the guy manning the Burundi border checkpoint, take a left and you will arrive at a large refugee camp set up a year ago for Rwandans that had been kicked out of Tanzania. None of us had ever been to this kind of camp so it was very hard to know what to expect but we were pleasantly surprised to see how well they were doing. Families were building mud-brick homes, a large school had been built, and they had a medical facility. We found out that eventually this will no longer be a refugee camp but a normal town. Willamette Christian Church had graciously donated $5,000 to buy 8 tons of food to distribute amongst the families. One of the most interesting aspects of this was watching as the heads of each family vote on how to distribute the food fairly. After the decision was made, Karen, from Willamette Christian, made an amazing speech that would have made her church very proud. The people were so kind and thankful, we gave out a bunch of tracts and bibles, and the entire event went incredibly well.

Thursday, Dec. 6 – Reunited

Today we were finally all reunited at the Leadership conference in Ruhengari. From the feedback I received, the staff of ANLM were learning a ton and having a blast. While Brad finished with the Management group, the rest of us watched a soccer game going on across the street. The teams: The Prisoners vs. The Taxi Drivers. The prisoner supporters were very obvious as they were clad in either all orange or all pink. If they were dressed in pink, they had been part of the genocide. We went down to the sideline but had been there only a couple of minutes before the game suddenly ended and we headed for the local market. We all had a blast entertaining the workers simply by our presence, giving out food to the kids, and taking lots of pictures. One of us though, didn’t have as much fun. Craig was walking on a drainage grate and didn’t notice that a section was missing. He fell right in, covering his pants in drainage…stuff…ewww… A few minutes later he was confronted by a shop owner for stepping on his scale. He ended up paying him 20 Francs but because the scale was in kilograms, he still has no idea what he weighs.

Friday, Dec. 7 – Certificates of Achievement

After all of their hard work, the staff of ANLM were each rewarded with a Certificate of Achievement this morning. They were incredibly excited and grateful for all they had learned and everyone came away very happy with how it had gone. As Lynn already mentioned, this is an incredibly wonderful group of people. God has blessed ANLM and through their amazing staff, He will continue to pour blessings on this beautiful country. The hard work is done but the trip is not over. From here we return to our beloved guest house to prepare to return back to America, and to all of you. TLS