Welcome to Rwanda!

             Welcome to Africa.  Those were the words as we got off the plane on Thursday.  Excited?  Yes.  Tired?  Yes.  We just left the plane, got to the compound, and passed out under a mosquito net to our new life in Kigali.  Here’s what happened:

            We all met on Tuesday, October 12 in Philadelphia.  Prior to meeting all of the new trainees (that is the term for Peace Corps volunteers who haven’t finished the three months of training), I went down to Independence Hall for a tour and saw the Liberty Bell.  Did you know that the Liberty Bell was just another bell until the 1830s?  There was nothing special to the bell, but it became a rallying cry for the abolition of slavery when it was re-discovered that the bell said, “Freedom and Liberty For All.”  Prior to that, it was a bell that sat in the Pennsylvania State House and was hid during the Revolutionary War not because of its significance or message, but because the Americans were afraid that the Brits would melt the bell into ammunition and cannons.  I digress…

            We came together with a huge amount of anxiety.  Two days of training in Philadelphia (which included a yellow fever shot) were followed by a bus ride to New York City.  We flew to Brussels on an overnight flight, then arrived in Kigali the next day.  The first three days were logistics and orientation in Kigali (shots, medicine, bank accounts, documentation, photos, etc).  We took one afternoon to visit the genocide memorial in Kigali and discussed some of the heavy issues that remain from a country that is only fifteen years out of a genocide.  Finally, we took a two hour bus ride to the village of Nyanza.  This is where we will be spending the next eleven weeks (up until about January 3) for training.  We are officially in PST (pre-service training), and are considered members of the community now.  

            Here are some fun and interesting facts about the 70 remaining Peace Corps 2010 Rwanda trainees.  The trainees come from all over the country, from California to Massachussetts to Texas to the Virgin Islands.  I’m the only volunteer from Nevada, and about the tenth oldest trainee in the group.  The average age of a Peace Corps volunteer is 28 (my age), but I feel a bit older for my group.  Most of the trainees just graduated college, or have been in the working world for one year.  All of the trainees have college degrees, with a large focus in education.  This is no surprise since we are all training to become teachers (15 are math teachers, 10 are science teachers, and 45 are English teachers).  There are three married couples, which one couple is about 70 years old and married for over 40 years.  The group is about 60 percent women, which is about the average for Peace Corps.   Also, almost everyone has student loans that are being deferred during service.  There are a ton of sacrifices being made to be here by the whole group, from selling cars and quitting jobs to leaving ill family members and boyfriends/girlfriends. 

            Rwanda is gorgeous.  It’s named the Land of A Thousand Hills, and it’s accurate.  The entire country is mountainous, with nice roads that seem to go from hilltop to hilltop.  We feel lucky and excited to be here.  We’re in the honeymoon phase, and spirits are high.  There is so much to learn and see, and so much we have found out so far.  We’ll save some of that for next time.