Our first stop was to visit the kings' palaces. The traditional palace is a woven hut, in which the king would sit at the entrance and speak with guests. Inside, the hut is divided into different sections; separate places for men and women to sit and visit, a center are with a type of stove (they used this to keep smoke in the hut to keep the bugs away), and the bedroom. For the first time I got to see a true king size bed! It was huge!! Nearby was a similar, but much smaller hut for a young woman in charge of the milk, and next to that was even a smaller hut for the young man in charge of the beer.
After seeing these traditional houses, we were able to go into the Belgian style home just up the hill. This home, or palace, was built in the 1930's as a gift from the Belgians who had colonized Rwanda by this time. It was only about 20 years that King Mutare occupied this palace however until he visited Belgium and saw that he could 'do much better'. He had a new palace started in the 19050's, but died suddenly a month before completion of the building. He was the last official king of Rwanda, as Rwanda then became a Republic.
We went to that latest building, which was never actually a palace, but was used for government purposes until more recently it became an art museum. Each year the museum holds a contest with a theme, and artists submit original pieces of art to celebrate or remember traditions of this country. "Peace" is often incorporated into the theme.
Not much was mentioned about the genocide that day. A few times it was mentioned in light of some items being taken or destroyed from the palace at that time, but for the most part, the subject was avoided. Not to say it was this way because people want to forget - this I know is not true - but there is more of a sense of people wanting to focus on peace and progress and how well Rwanda is doing now.
If you haven't already seen, I posted a link to some pictures from this day on fb… you will have to go to my profile page, scroll down and see Butare pictures from Jeana Nash. There was a fee per camera used that day, so she was our designated photographer (and if you've seen any of her pictures, you know why we chose her!)
This past week was busy, and a little hard, especially since the previous weekend had been full. Friday was the end of quarter 1, so this weekend I am working on report cards and getting ready for parent teacher conferences.
I was hoping to keep today, Saturday, pretty relaxed, and it has been so far! Last night we tried a new restaurant that opened 3 weeks ago called, Zen. It was amazing! Hopefully we'll go back there soon :) It is a chinese restaurant and they have really good noodles and ginger beef!
I haven't left my room much today - but we have had an interesting day here at our house! Today was the first time that we ran out of water! Apparently we haven't had water from the city in awhile, so we were using up all the water in our tank this week and didn't know it! As our helpers, Emmanuel and Mazembe, and Mark were helping us with this problem (lugging buckets of water from other houses so we can wash and use the toilets!), we then also realized the gas for our stove/oven ran out as well! Emmanuel (aka Superman) helped us with this as well by taking our gas tank on a moto to the gas place and getting it filled (imagine one of the propane tanks on a gas grill, but 4-5 times as big!). We are so grateful to have such wonderful, helpful people in our lives!
I should probably get back to my report cards now… I've never had to fill out entire report cards before! I was quite spoiled before with our online grade program! I have a lot of respect for you elementary teachers who fill these things out 3-4 times a year!!
Next weekend there is talk of taking a trip up to Uganda since we have a 4 day weekend. If that happens, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes and bring some pictures back as well!
I love you and miss you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment