Friday, November 27, 2009

Thanksgiving Feast

We had a big crew and a great spread for Thanksgiving in Kigali, just a couple of days before I had to leave for Brazzaville.  My housemate found a massive burner that allowed me to fry a couple of turkeys despite the shallow pot.














Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Leftover Shots from Time in Kigali

Here are just some random pictures from Kigali over the last couple of months that I hadn't posted or put in any of the albums.




















Monday, November 23, 2009

Weekend in Kampala

In one of my last weekends in East Africa, I finally got up to Kampala, the capital of Uganda.  A fairly big group of us from Kigali made the journey,  despite it being about a 10 hour bus ride.  It was a quick trip, and I didn't get to take a lot of pictures.  However,  it was great getting to see Kampala - a larger and more developed city than Kigali - and a handful of us went white water rafting on the Nile, which is about an hour east of the city.  I hope to get some pictures up from the river up at a later date.
























Friday, November 13, 2009

Trip to Bujumbura, Burundi

Last weekend, one of my housemates and I went down to Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi.  Burundi is almost the exact same size as Rwanda and shares its southern border and similar geography.  However, conditions in Burundi are much worse than those in Rwanda.  It has the third lowest per capita GDP on earth and an active rebel group still dominates the northwest region of the country.  In fact, the road from Kigali to Bujumbura we took runs through this region, but you can't travel it at night because the army closes it due to safety concerns.


All that said, Bujumbura sits on the northern end of Lake Tanganyika and has beautiful beaches and a great view of DRC's mountains across the lake.  We spent a lot of our time at a little beach club that has opened in the last year and is frequented by the UN expats and the US Marines from the Embassy.














































Monday, November 9, 2009

Grand Opening of Rwamagana Branch

A month earlier we had the soft opening of the new savings and credit branch in Rwamagana, but last Friday was the Grand Opening celebration.  There were drummers, dancers, food, and several important government officials.