+250……..

Haha! Allow me start with a disclaimer; 🤔I have fears of traveling alone to another country but for some reasons I always find myself traveling alone [hope that will change soon, one day] 😂

I arrived today 9th of March at about 7:40am at the bus park where my friend Paccy literally stood at the door of the bus waiting for me to come out. I was so happy to see her! Amidst everyone speaking to me in Kinyarwanda with me understanding a few things and responding appropriately. The thing I love about Rwandans is how much they love their language and are so shocked when they find out you don’t speak it (it feels like you have offended them) ☺️ but besides that, like their country; they are gentle and calm loving people. 

As we left the boarder (which is always smooth and organized) at about 5:40am, the morning light was coming out enabling you to have a very exquisite view or experience of the beautiful hills that are in the countryside. Their hills are very pleasant to look at; they stand elegantly tall on the sides of the road welcoming you with a powerful presence that whispers “Welcome to Rwanda, a city of a thousand hills” [maybe they are even as tall and elegant as the Rwandan men] 🙈 and your heart is left with a warm feeling of being at home. The morning sun peeps through the glass window of the bus as if to greet their lover “good morning sunshine” with such a gentility 

I arrived safely and my friend called a cab 🚕 to pick us up and take us to my host Sifa’s home. Along the way I’m always amused by the cross-cultural shock of how they drive on the right side of the road and in Uganda we keep left and that goes for even crossing the road, oh wow. 

We arrived at Sifa’s home and I was very excited to see her [this has been a long time promise to come to visit her, and finally I was here] how lovely. Thank you my beautiful Sifa for giving me this opportunity to once again visit Rwanda. I will surely enjoy. 

I was welcomed with breakfast of Katogo [a famous food served in Uganda with a mixture of matooke, beef and rice]. The food was top notch delicious. Shortly I took a shower and fell a sleep. 

Sifa had scheduled for us to travel somewhere else a place called Nyagatare in the outskirts of Rwanda at around 1pm, to where she was going to be working for a day and a night, trust me to agreeing to go with her on this adventure, mind you the place is a 4 hour drive away. But then, would it be an adventure, if there was sleep? 

My room is very conducive so, the sleep was deep and worth it. I woke up at Midday, to a glass of milk and popcorn as our ride by Sifa’s brother Ishimwe arrived to pick us up and drop us to where we would get a costa to travel for 4 hours to our destination. 

•The journey begins; 4 hours on the road•

The journey began by me meeting her workmates; a group of very interesting people! Of all kinds of personalities haha, I really enjoyed each and every one of them. Sifa had to constantly remind them that I didn’t know Kinyarwanda. And once one man found out I was very fluent in English, he decided to propose 😹 with the words “I have no wife, I will give you all of Rwanda if you wish it” oh wow! And one very lovely old funny lady kept referring to me as her “baby girl” 

In a costa full of strangers, I never felt like a stranger or even lonely. I enjoyed their company so much as I kept to myself not understanding a clue as to what they said (I only understood a few things) however their vibe and energy was very positively infectious. I was also handed a 5 liter jerrycan of drinking water to drink and so was everyone else 

•Genesis 1:9-11•

“And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”

I’m left wondering at the point when God let the dry land appear and called it “Earth”, was that the point at which the hills rose up? 🤔 because wow! 

Once again on the 4 hour drive, I was met with the elegance of the hills in Rwanda oh my God! They are so rooted and deeply beautiful! The wonders of the creation of God leave your heart awestruck and no image can begin to explain the existence of how tall and elegant they are raised from the ground reaching up to the cloud with precision and lack of shyness like a beloved looking up to her lover and how deep the valleys in which they sit are, elegantly like a princess on the throne of her king. 

While we were on our way, the cloud whispered to the earth [up on the hills] making love to the earth with sprinkles of rain, feeding her, filling her up like Song of Solomon 8:6-7 says; 

“Set me as a seal upon thine heart,

As a seal upon thine arm:

For love is strong as death;

Jealousy is cruel as the grave:

The coals thereof are coals of fire,

Which hath a most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love,

Neither can the floods drown it:

If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,

It would utterly be contemned.”

It rained with such heaviness that the scripture in songs of Solomon above came to mind, it was strong rain as if a flame of fire between the earth and the cloud, it took a long time for the rain to be quenched until the earth felt full 😂

We have finally reached where we shall spend the night at around 7:50 pm 

It has been an adventurous and amazing day! I’m deeply thankful to God for an incredible experience! I’m grateful that God is causing my heart to be full with the generosity of my host. I’m definitely being reminded at how much God loves and takes care of me.