Rwanda

 Rwanda - The Land of a Thousand Hills

Rwanda is a beautiful country in both landscape and culture. Putting the genocide of 1994 for behind them and moving forward the country is prospering and growing wildly. Driving through the hills and windy roads we passed beautiful new built houses and cared for farm lands. The houses all feature similar structures with bright metal roofs.

During my time in Rwanda I hit many highs and lows. The lows mainly dealt with learning more in depth about the genocide which can be read in a previous post on my travel blog. Parents if you wish to read send me an email and I'll give you the link. However, despite the sadness this country a bright future and sure did show me a great time through a few activities.

At one of our campsite and lovely lady named Harriet set up a camp where women living with HIV can live and build a live together. Here they teach foreigners about different crafts and talents they have. I took this opportunity to talk to ask many of them and do every activity possible.

Banana Juice Making

Women spend many hours many different types of banana juice. They explained how they must take massive amounts of bananas and make them very ripe by leaving the bananas for a day under the banana tree leaves in the ground. They dig a hole and leave them there and then cover them with the leaves. Once they are ready the women take them out and peel them. We all got down and began to peel more bananas than I have seen in my entire life.

Next was the process of separating the juice from the solid part. This is done by taking grass/hay and smashing the bananas with it over and over. Two women moved in unison as they pounded the bananas again and again in a large dug out three. The process was slow and tiring but they made it look easy. Before I knew it they had me up out of my seat with a robe tied around my waist and Ashley and I were mushing them. It is hard work! The women sang and one joined us as we extracted the juice.

 

After us a few of the guys even gave it a try! In the end the juice tasted delicious but extremely sweet.

Basket Weaving

 

Many of the women are very talented in using the straw to weave unique baskets. These are sold all over the country but here I got a chance to try it out myself and see the work that goes into every single one. The women proudly displayed their work. In their culture every woman must learn to weave before getting married. Leading up to the wedding she will weave a ton of baskets to carry her belongings to her new home with her husband.

Cow Milking

 

Well this one is pretty self explanatory. Never did I think I would be milking a cow on this trip. It was a different experience and one that I was not good at!

Bee Keeping

Again, who in their right mind would ever think I would end up bee keeping in Rwanda? A few of us signed up for the activity together after they promised we would get bee suites. Approaching the hives we are directed over to the side to get suited up. These were not suites in even the slightest imagination! The man handed us each a bed mosquito net. 

 

We all started cracking up laughing and we each put the on. We looked ridiculous! To top it off bees can easily sting straight through the net. I had enough of bees back in the gorilla trek. The entire time we laughed at each other as we smoked the bees out of their home and collected the honey combs. 

 

The honey combs were bright with sweet honey and delicious to chew on. We harvested a big jar to keep on our truck and use for tea and breakfast.