July 9th

Friday I left for Kigali, I had plans to go to a music festival called Kigali Up. The ride to Kigali is about  3 hours. It took me about 5, my bus broke down around 10 times and it rear ended another car. Another moment in this trip I could have died, I have basically accepted the fact that I am always in some type of danger regardless what I do. I made it there in one piece and safe. Saturday and Sunday myself and the other volunteers went to the festival. It was pretty cool, I didn’t realize how big of an event this was. It was outside and there was two stages. The music ranged from local artist to well know in Rwanda, and other  countries in Africa. There was even someone there from the U.S. All types of music was represented. I loved it, so much music and A LOT of food! There was even Indian, a year ago I would have turned that down but because I have been only eating African bring it on!  The best thing about being there was watching people dance, I don’t know what it is about black people but they have so much rhythm. They dance effortlessly and look amazing. Loving to dance myself I went up to the front of the stage and danced with them. I was the only white person dancing… hopefully I didn’t look to white!

Probably the coolest thing about going to this festival is I saw the contestants from Guma Guma. Guma Guma is Rwandas version of American Idol. Everyone knows them and watches them each week to see who gets voted off. People went nuts when they performed, I must say J Pauly is my favorite.

Since I have been here I have lost so much weight, basically I feel emaciated. My pants not longer fit and I feel gross. I was really trying to avoid this but I’m always hungry. I weighted myself the other day and I am the lightest I can remember post puberty.  I try to eat as much as I can but the weight has literally fallen off. If I lived here I feel like my body would waist away. No wonder malnutrition is such as issue. I have been thinking no wonder people here have such an issue with malnutrition, I am struggling to stay healthy and I can afford to feed myself, what do they people who have no money? This just makes me realize people in the U.S. have no concept of what its like to be hungry.

The Congo is literally a ticking time bomb. Because I am so close to the border I try to stay informed about what’s going on, purely for safety. People are pretty limited on the information they get here so I get mine through BBC. Every day I see a massive influx of refugees, recently the numbers are increasing. Apparently all tourism has been suspended because of the Rebels.  From what I know the rebels are going through each town trying to gain territory for minerals. People are being killed everyday. They are now moving east, for those who don’t know Rwanda is east of the Congo. They are now e advancing on Goma which is about 1.3 km from where i live. Last week a UN peacekeeper was killed because of the fighting, much more has been happening, all I can say is things are getting a little too crazy here. I will tell you more once I get home safely.