Some Kind of Rwandaful!

This is the story of my trip to Rwanda and the last leg of my 3 week vacation…. It is also the story of the first…. and hopefully last time I get peed on by a monkey. If that didn’t grab your attention and entice you to keep reading I’m not sure what will!

After my Drakensberg experience we headed back to Joburg to catch my flight early Thursday morning to Rwanda to meet up with Patrick. Being picked up at the airport was like a scene out of Rags to Riches… I was traveling with my backpack and wearing jeans and a t-shirt and the driver from the Serena gave me a double take and asked “You’re Mrs. Scoville?” “Yep, that’s me!”

Rwanda, 20 years ago was not somewhere you would have thought to go and unfortunately I feel some people still fear this beautiful country. The things that happened there 20 years ago are terrifying and heartbreaking and one of the worst genocides in World History to date. But if you visited Rwanda today, other than the memorials and personal testimonies you would see no trace of this world tragedy. It is absolutely stunning! “The Land of 1,000 Hills” is what they refer to it as, filled with palm trees and green mountains everywhere you look. What won’t you see in Rwanda?? Plastic bags! They banned them from the whole country and the result? An immaculate clean and beautiful country with hardly a bit of trash to be seen!! The people are friendly (even outside of the Serena Hotel where I was asked how my day was going at least 25 times!) But out of the 6 African countries I have now visited I have to say Rwanda is definitely in my top 2! Swaziland will always be my happy place though….

So I arrive at the Serena in Kigali to find that Patrick was still at work but because he is the best husband in the world he booked me an afternoon massage until he returned! After my last post about my 14km hike from H-E- double hockey sticks this was basically the best thing that could have ever happened to me…. ever! So after my massage and a nice lunch and a drink at the bar Patrick finally returned! We went out to dinner at the real Hotel Rwanda and had a nice quiet evening. The next morning I spent some time at the pool while Patrick finished up work and we headed off to Volcanoes National Park. Once again we dropped the ball on Gorilla permits and instead settled for Golden Monkey Trekking!

So we set off early Saturday morning and headed into the Volcanoes which actually compared to chimp trekking last month was exceptionally easy! a short 20 minute walk and there they were! Like always Patrick took some amazing photos!

Funny looking buggers aren’t they???

You mean to tell me all these funny looking creatures paid money to see us?? Where’s our cut???

So all is good and fun in the world, Patrick is off taking pictures and as usual I’m wandering off like a space cadet looking at all the monkeys running all around me until it started to rain…. but as I am looking across me at one of the rangers I realize it was not raining over her head… and then I made the mistake of looking up… and then back down in horror and then across to the ranger again who is now giggling and it hit me…. I just received a golden shower from a golden monkey… And then followed all the comments…. “It means you are lucky!” “You have been blessed by the monkeys…” yea yea yea a.k.a “Glad it peed on you and not me!”

Num Num Num 

Whatever you do…. DON’T LOOK UP!!! 

Baby monkey!! Afterwards we headed back up to our meeting point where Patrick kept going on and on about how cool the monkeys were but wished it was more of a challenge to find them blah blah blah “Amanda, whats wrong with you?”

“I don’t know… maybe you didn’t hear me when I said I just got wee’d on by a monkey!!!”

After the “extra golden” monkey experience we knew we had some time to kill for the rest of the day so we decided to go explore some caves that were advertised. Now I did have a caving experience a couple years back in in Swaziland so I imagined it being similar and for some parts it was….

So I recall the helmet with the head torch….

But I surely do not remember the need for a hair net, the mask, latex gloves and armed guards! What the heck did we get ourselves into?????

All in all it was a pretty cool experience and thankfully didn’t need to make use of the guards…

Sunday morning we woke up and while I was eating breakfast and Patrick had gone to pack the car I saw something really big fly by! Now I have started to have a weird interest in birds lately mainly because I’ve turned it into a game and I have realized there are a lot of interesting birds in this part of the world and the really nerdy part of me got really excited whenI looked out the window and this is what I saw….

The Crested Crane! Uganda’s national bird!!! So pretty!! I was running around the breakfast room frantically because I was so excited and Patrick wasn’t there and he was the one that had the camera and I thought “No one is going to believe me if I don’t have proof!!!!” and then Patrick comes walking back in to save the day! Thankfully, his nerdiness got the best of him too and he was also a little excited! What a great way to start our day!

We spent our last afternoon in Rwanda going to the Genocide Memorial which was very nicely set up but not for the weak hearted.  I do think it is a must see if you are visiting to pay tribute to lives lost back in 1994.

All in all I would say Rwanda was a wonderful place to visit and would definitely go again!!!

5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed!

Good Morning Everyone! I have a lot to talk about today so I suggest you go grab your cup of coffee and get comfortable!

For all my new and first time readers I suggest you start by reading “The Scarf that Saw the World” by clicking the link below to get a full understanding of the characters and basis of this blog.

The Scarf that Saw the World.

Saturday mornings are sacred to me, I don’t set an alarm and I sleep as long as I like and then after waking up I get some extra love and cuddle time with the tiniest diplomat. Now, our housekeeper Gladys has been telling me that she has seen a bunch of monkeys in our yard recently while she has been working. Now, Patrick and I have seen monkeys at our house once before when we first arrived and have seen none sense. I thought maybe the cleaning chemicals were getting to Gladys’s head… then one of my friends spent the night at our house one evening and she said she swore she heard monkeys too… So when Patrick came into the bedroom this morning (remember I just mentioned my Saturday mornings are sacred!)  and told me there were monkeys all over the yard I had a conflicting thought “Monkeys or sleep??” (not normally the first decision I make of the day) At first I chose sleep (honestly, it’s my second go at living in Africa and I have seen my fair share of monkeys) but here comes Patrick again about 5 minutes later saying “Amanda! You have to come see this! I promise I will let you go right back to sleep!” So to humor my husband and his childlike excitement I went to go take a look at all the “African Squirrels”

Alright… so I guess that is pretty cool… I mean not everyone has monkeys in their yard at least not probably the majority of my captive audience right now….

Anyway… I went back to bed for some more snuggle time and wished Patrick good luck as he left the house to go play paintball…. with U.S. Marines…. If I was Catholic I might have sent him off with a few Hail Marys because I have seen the Marines here and I don’t think I would want to play games with any of them… yet alone a game that involves combat and guns… See you later husband… I hope!

Well Saturday morning sleep  was officially ruined so I figured I would get my lazy butt out of bed and take Gumbo outside to play for a bit. Now if I can refresh your memories to a couple days ago when I wrote about my experience at Yellowstone park (I know it was ages ago but please try and recall! :)) the scenario where Josh and I came face to face with a wild buffalo and how instead of running like normal people we stood and watched… I think Gumbo might take after his human mama because……

“Mom! what are those things???”

“Hold on, let me get a better look…..”

There was a part of me that wanted to let him get closer… but the other more sensible part of me saw the monkeys planning their attack and I imagined how awkward that phone call to Patrick would be… “Um hey honey…. oh yea yea things are great here… do you remember if they mentioned anything in orientation about what to do if your dog gets attacked by a group of monkeys??…. oh, they didn’t cover that? well ok then! Talk to you later!”

Earlier this week I went with Olivia and Corrie (the UK directors of Kids Club Kampala) Corrie’s husband Jonny and my gardener Issac to Kids Club’s Ewafe House Project to paint. Ewafe means “Where We Belong” in Luganda. Sadly, every year hundreds of children are abandoned in Kampala’s slums (including the one I have been teaching in on a daily basis) For everyone at home it must be hard to imagine someone just abandoning their child but it happens more often then you would think in third world countries.

The Ewafe project was launched in June 2013 and building began in September. Kid’s Club Kampala created the Ewafe House to provide a safe emergency shelter to those children who have been abandoned whilst either reuniting children with their families or finding permanent foster families for them. There are many projects that provide shelters to abandoned babies and toddlers but there is a lack for homes for older abandoned children. The Ewafe House is approaching it’s final building stages and is almost ready to house the children. Our team on Wednesday began painting the washrooms in the Ewafe House and we had a great time doing it!

We do have a Canadian team coming in next week to help paint the exterior of the building but the Ewafe Home still needs a little bit of work. Eventually we would like to provide running water and electricity but our immediate need In order to open the house to the children is funding for beds. If you are interested in learning more about the Ewafe home and ways you can help you can visit the Kids Club Kampala website for more information.

On Friday, I spent my last day teaching (for 3 weeks while I work a temporary job at the embassy) in the Katanga Slum. Over the last month, I have watched these children learn and laugh and play and I look forward to my daily dose of love I receive.

We have had fun learning bible stories, how to take care of our bodies, how to write and add our numbers and yesterday I wrote the following up on the blackboard….

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

When I looked at all my future doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, professional football players, business women, teachers, pilots and my one cheeky little princess I was proud yet at the same time my heart was filled with so much sadness.

I am not a real teacher… I have no proper training and the sad reality is that without a proper education my doctors will probably at best, end up being street cleaners, my princesses and business women will most likely be early young brides and my football players will end up washing cars. How do you cope with that?? I suppose when I figure it out I will let you know.

I want to give my kids the world but right now I would be happy just to give them their own set of school supplies and a pair of shoes. This is why I would like to start the $5 challenge. $5 in Uganda would pay for approximately 5-7 pairs of flip flops. I normally have anywhere from 50-100 children show up daily for the education project and a hot meal.  If only 20 people gave $5 that would mean a pair of new shoes for each one! I have created a fundraising site if you wish to participate.

Happy Feet Challenge

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to hang out with me today!

Love and Well Wishes from Uganda!

Sincerely,

Amanda, Patrick, Gumbo and Black Kitten