For me the one thing that made Rwanda so amazing was the children and hearing their laughter. That a country can live through something so horrific and yet get up every morning and live their lives with a smile on their face is something that is hard to believe. Every person I talked to about the genocide said they didn’t want Rwanda to be known as the country that went through genocide; they wanted to be known as a country of hope.

Thank you for reading my story; I really encourage you to visit Rwanda, for me it is something I will never forget.

My favorite part of the trip was the people that we met. Everywhere we went people would stop what they were doing to look up and wave. They were so kind and happy all the time, when you looked at them it just made you smile as well. The children were amazing too. When we would ride by on our bikes they would come out laughing and skipping, and they always wanted to touch our skin. They would run alongside our bike for two and three miles at a time and they never got tired.

Have you visited a country where your skin color is in the minority?  Was that a positive experience or a negative one? How did you feel?

I ended up being in Rwanda for 3 weeks on a biking trip with 6 other students and 4 adults. Biking is what made the difference for us. We would ride our bikes every other day for about 30 to 50 kilometers, but no matter where we were, the bike was always our communication tool – a way to open the door with the children we met. The kids would see us ride by on our bikes and it was something they had seen before and were familiar with, but here were 7 white kids from American riding through their village and they immediately wanted to find out more about us. Then either we would try to teach them how to ride, or they would show us that they already knew how.

Have you traveled in other countries and found a communication tool similar to our bicycles? Have you riden bikes in other countries? What have you used to ‘break the ice’ with people in other countries?

After my teacher told me about this trip in April of this year, my dream was to go to Rwanda with a group of my friends and teachers where we would ride our bikes and visit orphanages. When I originally proposed the idea to my parents they told me that this year we weren’t financially able to afford this trip to Rwanda. I decided to write a letter to all of my family and friends asking for support. I ended up sending out 23 letters and within one week after they went out, people started to respond. By the end of June I had all the money I needed for the trip and more – even enough to cover all of the vaccinations I was going to need (my parents had decided against most vaccinations when I was a child but we were told Africa was too dangerous to take this risk – I ended up getting 13 different shots!). But I was going to Rwanda!

What do you think of vaccinations?  Were you vaccinated?  Did you give your kids vaccinations? If not, why not?

Nothing I could have read could have prepared me for what I saw in the memorials and on the streets of Rwanda this summer during our visit. In 1994 Rwanda went through one of the most horrible genocides in recent history. Rwanda is about the size of Maryland, but almost twice as populated and during the genocide a third of their population were killed. In the memorials we saw the raw evidence and it was terrifying. We saw bodies upon bodies preserved and stacked into piles, and rows of skulls displayed on shelves. I was glad I went to the memorials, because it helped me understand what the country had been through. But you don’t need to go to a memorial to see the evidence: almost everyone over the age of 14 has scars on their faces and arms.

Have you ever visited a memorial?  Maybe the Vietnam Memorial or Ground Zero?  How did the experience impact you?