I have made it to Rwanda

After three flights, 21 hours of travel, a mix up with tickets and a close call when I got on the wrong plane in Nairobi I have made it to Rwanda…the country of a thousand hills (and a million mosquitoes!).

All started off well as I left Newcastle for my long journey out to Africa, bags packed, tickets and passport in hand and ready to go! The first flight to Amsterdam went smoothly, my Kenyan airways flight to Nairobi was a little shaky, but it wasn’t until I arrived on African soil that things started getting interesting!

I had been sitting around in Nairobi (or ‘Nairobbery’ as many of the locals like to call it) airport for some five hours, people watching, swatting flies and meeting some interesting characters (more about them later!)

It was now 12pm and my ticket said that check in for my flight opened at 12.40pm so as you can imagine I was a little surprised when this stocky little Kenyan lady started shouting at a group of us (all perched on the uncomfortable wooden chairs) telling us we were about to miss the Kigali flight! I grabbed my bags and legged it to the departure gate, rushed through security and was then kindly pointed to a plane!

The group of us (all with numb bums from those awful chairs!) ran towards it without a second thought. It wasn’t until we were just about to fasten our seatbelts that we realized this wasn’t even a Kenyan airways flight! After a frantic chat with the airhostess we realized that we were actually on a plane heading to Bamako (where in the world is that? Mali?). So we were quickly ushered off the plane and were then left standing on the tarmac.

We stood there in the blistering heat of the African sun for over 40 minutes unable to get back in the airport and unsure exactly where to go! Eventually we found our way to our correct flight and the final destination (which reminds me of that horrid movie!) was in sight.

So back to those interesting characters I met en route (that’s one of the things I love most about travelling, you get to meet so many different kinds of people and see a culture through different eyes.) I met two neighbours from Kigali, one a psychologist working with genocide survivors and the other guy who works for one of the local banks.

Now nothing sounds out of the norm here, but I have to say these two guys amazed me, not only were they neighbours and clearly friends but they came from two different tribes: the psychologist a Tutsi and the banker a Hutu.

Only 14 years ago the Hutus were responsible for some of the most horrific killings the World has ever witnessed. It is estimated that over 1 million people (mainly Tutsis) were brutally murdered in 100 days as the world stood by and failed to intervene. Yet here they were two people from two different tribes in Rwanda sitting on board a plane - not only neighbours but friends. Can people really forgive and move on with their lives?

This is THE most inspirational thing I have found on my previous visits to this country, that despite all of the conflict, hatred, despair and sorrow Rwandans have lived through in the past few decades. They now stand proud and acknowledge the past, but more importantly they look to the future with hope, aspirations and dreams.

As I arrived at the Hotel and unpacked, I sat on the end of my bed and smiled as I realised I am living one of my dreams. I’ve dreamed, hoped and prayed of starting up a Fair Trade training project in Rwanda for well over a year.

From the first time I set foot inside this wonderful yet fragile country and met with producers who are desperate to live some of their hopes and dreams of providing a better future for their children, I have envisaged this. And now here I am, setting up the project I researched, developed and secured funding for (from the Big Lottery Fund) together with our Kenyan Partner COFTA (Cooperation for Fair Trade in Africa).

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
-Thomas Edward Lawrence (of Arabia)

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