week three

Yesterday we went to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and watched a trial. A priest was in as a witness to the death of 476 tootsies in his church that were refugees, many of them children. He remembers every date and name, and this all happened in April of 1994. I also went to two different orphanages this week. The children are so sweet, but a lot of them are HIV positive. One girl had lesions on her face, and some need to be spoon fed. A couple of them are exceptionally bright. One 10 year old girl named Helen was telling me how she learned about opposites today and how she loves English and science, so I think greame and I are going to sponsor her to go to school. All the the children just want to be held, so most of the time that you are there you are carrying two around and you have three wrapped around your legs. They don't have diapers here and most of the children are too little to be potty trained so they just go to the bathroom on their clothing, which either ends up on you or on the floor, so that probably the most difficult part besides leaving them at the end of the day. I asked one of the girls which ones were her kakas and dada (brothers and sisters) and she smiled and said all of them, which at this particular orphanage is around 40 children. I just want to take all of them home with me, soo roomies if I come back to tech with an African baby, don't kill me. One of the little girls i was playing with to can't go to school anymore because when she was walking home she got rapped (she is 5 years old) so we are trying to find a way to see if we can start walking them to and from school. She has to go to the hospital in a couple months to see if she has contracted HIV. As much as I love africa it definitely wears on your heart and you tend to feel pretty helpless. Some of the people here are really into HIV/AIDS awareness. One guy came up to greame and I on the street and started talking to us about Aristotle and critical thinking and then he started rapping to us about HIV/AIDS and has a band that performs every sunday to promote awareness, so we are going to go check them out this weekend. the following are just some tid bits about africa

1. cars do not stop for people, they will actually start driving towards you so we have all almost been hit and it doesn't help that they drive on the opposite side of the road cuz we aren't used to looking left first

2. People will stop you on the side of the road and just talk to you. They are so curious, they want to know where you are from what you are doing here, then they tell you all about what they do...we've met some interesting people

3. you have to walk everywhere. i probably walk for a good 2 hours out of my day

4. bathrooms that flush are a treat here, we all get really excited when we find them, carrying around toilet paper and hand sanitizer is a must! I'm pretty used to a hole in the ground now...

5. getting answers to any of your questions is about the hardest thing to do here...patience is definitely something i will have more of when i get back

6. it takes about 4 minutes to get onto the internet, and the internet cafe is decorated with floppy disks and cds (they glued them to everything)

7. When the wind blows the smell is rarely anywhere close to pleasant. But the views are beautiful

8. In the morning when i go for a run Kilimanjaro is sticking out of the clouds and it is absolutely breathtaking