Weekend In Huye[aka Butare]

So this past weekend our group headed down to Huye for the weekend. we left on Friday from Kigali. We took Volcano buses. We weren't able to buy tickets for everyone on the same bus so we left at 4 and then 4.30. It 127 km away and that took us almost exactly 2 and half hours. This was our first time out of the city, and man was it great.
Honestly I don't even know how to describe the trip and really do it justice. Lets just say I was like a kid in a candy store. My head kept swiveling back and forth so I could try and take in as much scenery as possible. I was rockin out to my ipod and for those of you who knows that means I was having a wicked dance party in my head while I was looking around. First of all the difference between the road and Kigali was night and day. The air felt and looked cleaner and there was just green everywhere. Tons of people were out and about on the road either on foot or on bicycle. I was surpised that for the entire journey there was a legit sidewalk along the road. The hills literally just keep going on and on, it was crazy beautiful. I hope that a fraction of the beauty was able to be captured in my photos, but I'm afraid it wasn't. I will say I was impressed by all the agriculture that was going on everywhere and how the tiering on the hills truly looked neat and I couldn't help but wonder how it was done and maintained... which leads me to another thing that I am always wondering about. Power lines. They amaze me. It felt like suddenly out of the blue they would just be there and I wanted to be like where did you come from and how did you get there..
But that is getting away from the weekend. So Huye is where the National Musuem of Rwanda is located and it is also where a huge university is at. Now I will admit that when I heard univeristy I just assumed what that mean what the city woul look like, and let me tell you one really shouldn't do that..haha.. Huye is essentially a one road city. For the two nights our group was split up.Six of us(myself) included stayed at the volunteer house of VCP[village concept project] and the rest stayed at a guest house (aka hotel or motel). We were finally able to cook our own food at the volunteer house, and let me tell you it was so nice. We had fresh vegetables, eggplant, greenbeans, tomatoes,peppers, ect.. essentially friday and saturday were two of our best dinners yet.
As a side note I had my first chance to use my sleeping bag and I have fallen in total love with it. Not only for its compactability and its downyness, but really cause it is just AMAZING to lay in. I'm actually very excited to get to my placement site and use it every day.
Back to Huye.
So on Saturday morning we went to an orphanage. This was an orphanage that had its focus on children who were either HIV/AIDS postive or whose parents had been. The children only come on Saturdays, during the week they either live with relatives or with host families. When we first got there we first went through a general presentation/introduction and then we went outside to play. At first we sang some Kinyarwandan songs but then we were asked to teach/lead some songs. We did such songs as Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, The Hookey Pokey, Singing in the Rain,and the Birdy Song.. Lets just say the group was very happy that I had been a camp counselor before.. shout out to the Girl Scouts and always being prepared..haha.. After doing that as a whole group we then broke into small groups to do other games. The group I was with first did Miss Mary Mac and then I did the Beaver song. Then we played a Rwandan version of duck duck goose which was tons of fun because all of us whites really tried to sing their words which of course really entertained them. Then we joined the other groups in this massive tug of war/red rover type game. Essentially there are two sides and the one side sings and names someone from the other team, then the other team responds and picks someone from the first team. Then the two people come to the center and they clasp their own hands together while making an interlocking between the two of them. Then they tug and pull as hard as they can in order drag the other person back to their side in order to win. and WOA, this is a hard core event and the kids could just keep going. They actually did keep going till it was time for lunch. Once they had all sat down, my group then acted as a conveyer belt and pased lunch out (approx 100+ kids). After they had been served we too then get a delicious and filling plate of food. We then had a super tasty tea to finish up lunch. After lunch school uniforms and school supplies were passed out the children. School is starting tomorrow(monday) so it was pretty important to get that out to all the children. The girls all wear blue uniforms and the boys wear olive-beige ones. And then it was time to go, so we all headed back 'home.' For most of the hour+ walk we had kids walking with us. And I have to say when my two friends and I stopped for Cokes, I don't think I had ever drank such a nice thing in my life, it was just so refreshing, you wouldn't even be able to believe it.
One more note about the children at the orphanage. They loved our digital cameras. They loved having their photo taken and then being able to see it and they loved taking pictures of their friends. And I'm not sure if it is surprisingly or not but almost all of them loved to do karate moves in their photos, so I decided that their theme song should be Kung Fu Fighting.
Just to sum up the visit to the orphange: other than stating the activities that we did I feel I could not do my emotions or senses justice by trying to describe how I felt while I was there, but I can say I will never forget those few hours that we spent there and I hope sometime in the next year I will be able to go back.
The ride home was almost as great as the ride there, except for the fact that all 20 of us got on the same bus, so it was 20 whites and then 5 Rwandans, and man you should have seen their faces when they climbed on the bus. The most have thought 'man what did I just get myself onto.'
The only notable moment of the bus ride home was the man sitting next to me who used me as a chaise lounge for a portion of the ride..Oh and there was the fact that the radio station the bus was playing for us played Beyonce at least 3 times within an hour's span. Needless to say I am predicting that I will be a HUGE Beyonce fan by the time I get home..

Now we are back in Kigali for another week and then we are all off to our placement sites. I am hoping to get my first impressions of Kigali down soon, so stay tuned..