Laurie's in Africa

Well, it took her a bit to have time to update, but I finally got an email from Laurie. Just as a side note, I'm doing well, and I finally finished the education packages I've been working on for a while, and hopefully I'll be a bit better at updating you, or at least have more interesting things to write about. That said, here's what she sent me:

Hi everyone from Butare, Rwanda. Yup, Africa. I arrived on Friday march 27th, after 2 days of living in airports. I had 5 hours in London and another 5 hours in Nairobi. I arrived at 1300 exhausted. I slept almost the entire drive from Kigali to Butare, it’s a 2 hour drive, on a very nice road. The country is achingly beautiful, its multiple shades of green and rolling hills, the country is known as “The Land of A Thousand Hills.” I’d say its at least that many.

I have just finished taking a bunch of photos of the kids, actually they took the photos of themselves. I think they act crazier when they are taking the photos! Auntie Alice, one of the choir chaperones is asking the kids, individually, a bunch of questions about themselves, one being “what are you looking forward to in the US?” answer: “Seeing Obama”…yup a few of them have said that already. I should tally it up at the end.

Let me backtrack a little. I am in Rwanda to meet the Asante Children’s Choir, which is a group of children ages 7 through 13 years old, the majority of them are 10 and 11 years old. They are the first choir that the Africa Mission Alliance is bringing to North America for a 9 month tour. The tour starts august 21, 2009 from Seattle. I have known about this organization for 3 years when I started sponsoring 2 children, Vianney who is 11 years old and he is in the choir!!! and Annitha who is 10 years old. She lives in town and I have yet to meet her. It was very special to meet Vianney, he is adorable, but then they all are!

They were practicing their songs this morning, in between the power going off. It seems to be doing that now that its rainy season. I hope it doesn’t start raining more, so far its just rained at night and stopped during the day. We’ll see I’ve got another 2 weeks here! These kids dance all the time. I thought I moved (ie swayed) but I stand as still as a statue in comparison, and some of them are amazing dancers. The 2 little ones in the front Josianne (pronounced Josie-en) and Patrick have really good rhythm. I’m excited for you to see them dance.


After my 2 weeks here I’ll be heading to Liverpool, England to take a course called Diploma of International Community Health Care. Its through the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. But I’ll tell you more about that as it gets closer. theres only one photo because the internet here is really slow!