Back in Rwanda

Dear Luci and Emily,

Got in Monday and have been going ever since. This part of the trip is feedback to the health facilities on how their patients are doing and the HIV/AIDS Implementers Conference. Started at Centre de Sante Muhura. It's about a two hour drive from Kigali, 45 minutes of fairly good tarmac and then up up up up hill on red dirt roads flanked by small symmetrical rectangular houses. Each has a door directly in the center and then to the left and the right, evenly spaced between the door and the corner of the house, two small square windows. The front "yards" are well tamped down red dirt, cleanly swept. The gardens around are squarely hedged, each house has at least a small stand of banana trees and then there tends to be sorghum and a small vegetable garden. And children everywhere! 3 year olds walking up and down the road, groups of kids hollering and waving to the passing car, cries of Mzungu Mzungu (white person/foreigner)!

The clinic is modest, but they got solar power earlier this year so they can do a lot more now. The setting is beautiful, atop a hill overlooking terraced farms. Little red lines snaking up the hill where walking paths have been carved. Five minutes out your door and you and everything else is covered in a thin red dusting of the earth.

The beauty of this place always astounds me. The way they paint their houses, the care they take with their farms, the amazing smiles when you greet someone in kinyarwandan. Driving up to Muhura as you are about half way up the mountain, the smell of eucalyptus is everywhere as huge trees blow in the breeze with their silver grey leaves.

Houses carved into the sides of the hill on small perches. Steep steps cut into the earth so they can climb back up to the road.

More soon. Hope all is well at home. Love, Kik.