Sunday – Lauren and Anneka, then Kaya and Olivia

A half seven waking for a half eight breakfast! On the menu were panacakes accompined by honey, nutella or butter. After a chilled and relaxed breakfast, we headed outside into the bright sun shine and on to the mini-bus so that we could travel to the genocide memorial centre. Once we had arrived we all got off and had to undergo a security check before we could enter. Then we payed our respects to those who had died in the burial ground before we started our tour around the museum. When walking around the museum words cannot seem to describe how I was feeling and i am sure it will  be the same for the others as well; To learn the country's history and to learn some of the locals stories was heartbreaking. What happened in Rwanda was terrible and it reduced me and some others to tears But to also read of some people's bravery and how they saved people's lives was just amazing. It has been an emotional morning and we are now back at the apartment for lunch. Talk to you later...bye! Lauren

The most humbling moment of my day was learning how recent the Genocide in Rwanda was;just 19 years, I would have been 8 years old! The extend of the brutality of the murders will remain in my mind forever; families witnessing other family members being slaughtered, peoples tendons being cut so that they couldnt run away, the betrayal of close friends, mothers forced to kill their children before being murdered themselves, women raped by people who were known to have HIV now living with the disease, you can still see people walking around with scars and without limbs from the macette attacks – very powerful things to write about but so important for us to know as it is the reason that we are all here. I was speaking to our lovely translater Nancy in the bus on the way back to the apartments about the fact that there must be undiscovered remains all around us and she explained that people find remains on a daily basis, so this destruction remains very fresh for the people that live in Kigali even 19 years on. Its so powerful when you see the result of one or two people's ideals turning into the destruction of a whole race and it remains a part of so many cultures today. Just day 2 of our journey and we have seen a lot of Kigali and learnt so much and the entire team have been gracious, mature and so lovey to be around; lots to be proud of! Anneka

sunday afternoon -  By Kaya & Olivia

Following on we had a lovely lunch and fruit before having a team meet within our groups- Here we had to sort out all our resources that we need for mondays lesson! Its amazing how much equipment we have for our lessons and activites and how many items we have to give away! After clearing up we headed out in the minibus to the catch up school, to see first sights ready for tomorrow.

we were able to look around the classrooms and plan in our heads how are lessons will work and what space we have to work with, after we saw the classrooms we made our way to the field which is a about a 5 minute walk on a dusty road...when we got up here we saw loads of people playing football, they were all very friendly and we asked to join in, we made a team of about 11 of us VS them on a game of football, obviously we won!! We had to leave as they were due to start a game, so set back to walk to the minibus, on our way back we met some of the people in passing this included some of the little children who were very friendly and wanted to give us high 5's and shake our hands, We then got the minibus back to our apartment. We are now off to have a finishing up team metting for lessons tomorrow then for dinner... Bye!

under this grave lie the remains of 18,000 Rwandan people

peace memorial at the heart of the museum

sorting equipment ready for tomorrow

this is where we will be working all week

locals v mazungus!

what a team!