When you are comletely lost and have no idea what to do.........cry until something happens.

This was my theme for the week. I know that I have not updated in quite some time, so lets re-wind a bit.

Last Tuesday a group of us met up to have lunch at a very African, very local, hole in the wall spot near Gisimba. Kevin, Yvette, a new volunteer Jayna, Kyo (in the Japanese version of the peace corps working at Gismba) and myself all got together. Its a great place, and you can get a meal for under 700 francs which is about USD $1.50. AND, I didn't get sick...woop woop!
After lunch I went into town with Yvette and Jayna. We took the ever so crowded "bus" (15 passenger van that squeezes in about 20-30 people). We then proceeded to the internet cafe. By the time I had got there...someone had stolen my wallet.
Needless to say I was a mess the rest of the night. Ironically, 5 minutes after it all happened, Jean-Paul called me. His solution for the situation...send me on a bus to Kampala, Uganda for the weekend to see him! This definitely made me smile again and with some ice cream that Yvette treated me too, things started to shape up.
The following day we all went to the airport to send-off Yvette, which I am still crying about. Then Nishank, Gabby and I went to the Genocide Memorial Churches about 30 minutes outside Kigali. Yet another powerful-words can not describe- experience that I shall write about in my next blog.

Okay, fast forward to Friday morning. I had planned to leave at 8am for the 9-15 hour bus ride to Kampala. I have learned that time is something that Africans don't pay much attention too... I finally got on a bus at 11:30am. Soon after my journey began a young Rwandan sitting across from me handed me his phone with a message on it: " Hi, good to see you in my country. You are welcome and I wish for you a safe journey." We messaged back in forth for a bit and I soon found out his name was Olivier.

When we made it to the border I started the long process of going through immigration. Exiting was fine, but Entering Uganda was not. When I got the counter I was surprised by the kindness that the border patrol man offered (When I went through Russian customs in December I thought the women was going to stare me down with her lazer eye!).
I had to pay 50 USD for my visa, and when I went to hand him the money, the man replied" Rachel, this twenty dollar bill is ripped, so I can not accept it. May I have another bill?"
Okay, lets re-cap: My wallet had been stolen on Tuesday, I had NO money, therefore I did not have another bill. (I had to borrow the 50 dollars from Jean-Michel). The man's response:" Im sorry but I can not give you a visa today."
So, I decided to do what I do best....step outside and start to bawl hysterically. I have found that this works in my favor often, because not soon after, Olivier came up to me and asked what was wrong. After explaining the situation he agreed to lend me the money I needed and I would repay him in Uganda. Horray for traveling Angels!
After finally buying my visa I walked with Olivier to re-board the bus that had been waiting on the other side. Yup, you guessed it......the bus had left. Without us. Only in Africa.

Act One Scene Two commences: Enter Rachel crying again. At this time JeanPaul calls to see how everything is going. He got the hint of how things were pretty quickly. Luckily my traveling Angel was still with me, and after a long heated discussion with the conductor of another bus, we were able to bribe him to let us on and take us to Kampala. I held my breath at every rural town we stopped in for fear that we were going to get Kicked off out of lack of seats on the bus.
15 hours and two very swollen eyes later....I stepped off the bus into a hug of a smiling and dancing Samputu.

Ukoze!

-Rach

p.s.- It was completely worth it to see Jean Paul and take a real shower with hot water!!!