We have arrived in Kigali, Rwanda!

We made it to Rwanda!!

Once again our flight was uneventful. It was good that we arrived at the airport very early (about 3 hours) as it took quite awhile to figure out the excess baggage but it all went very well. After we got through the baggage check-in, got our boarding passes and went through the immigration desk to get our passports stamped, we had one hour until we needed to be at our gate. We were all very thirsty by then so where do you suppose we went? Java House! They now have one at the very far end of the airport!

Instead flying on an AIM-AIR or MAF airplane, we flew Kenya Airways. It was a rather new 737 airplane and seemed very nice. We knew it was a short flight so we weren’t expecting food but amazingly, they served, without an added fee I might add, drinks and a hot meal! It was not a huge meal but adequate since we hadn’t had any lunch. We left Nairobi at 12:30 and arrived in Kigali at 12:35! (There is a one hour time difference.) The Kigali airport seemed nice and clean and some ladies were standing at the door greeting everyone. It was quite friendly.

We made it through immigration without a problem and went down a whole lot more stairs to the baggage area where we had to wait a bit for them to start unloading but all the luggage was there! There was no customs check and no one even looked to see if we had our own bags. Mark met a Rwandan pastor while waiting for the bags and explained what we are planning to do here. The pastor was very pleased because he said that many, many people are coming to Rwandan to feed the poor but, he said, what Rwanda really needs is trained leadership in the churches.

Our colleagues, Bruce Rossington and Gilles Bonvallat, were waiting for us and very happy to see us. The Bonvallats we knew from Zaire and Kenya. They are a Swiss couple who are here to work with the youth. They have 3 boys ages 7, 5, and 3. The Rossingtons are a British couple. He is teaching in the Theological College and we will work very closely with them. They have 3 kids: 2 girls ages 8 and 6 and a boy age 2. We were able to fit all the luggage and ourselves into their two vehicles. We spent the afternoon with the Rossingtons getting to know them and having them tell us some basic stuff we needed to know about living here.

We are staying for now in a furnished house that another couple had to leave because of health problems. They are due back this spring but for now it very convenient for us to have a house ready to go. It is a 3 bedroom house but one bedroom is set up as an office. The living room is quite large and there is a dining room and a very small kitchen. There is a laundry room outside. There are two baths, one in the master bedroom and one for the other bedrooms. Overall, it is a nice house. The floors are all cement and the walls are brick but cemented and painted a pale yellow on the inside. We have electricity but unfortunately there is no water right now so we have large containers of water that were filled up at the Rossington’s and Bonvallat’s houses and brought over. There is a large water tank in the back yard that normally gets filled periodically by the city water but it seems the tank has been run dry. Until the city water comes in again, we are being careful.

Another way we know we are in Africa is by the creepy crawlies we have found in the house! We have found a spider or two and a few dinky little critters but what made me jump tonight was the gecko that ran across the floor when I scared it from its hiding place! Geckos I can live with but the yucky one was the inch and a half cockroach in the shower! Those I am not fond of at all and hopefully I won’t see too many more.

Well, that is our first day in Kigali!