Tuesday 22nd August

Today was our day off, though it was hardly relaxing!  We departed before dawn at 5 am and travelled for 2 and a half hours north east to Akagera National Park on the Tanzanian border.

As the sun was rising the villages on our journey were buzzing with activity with children on their way to school and farmworkers pouring into the village with their produce for market day.  People were pushing bikes, absolutely laden with huge branches covered in bananas or sacks of other produce, so that the bikes were far too heavy to pedal.  

Akagera National Park covers a wide variety of landscapes including a series of lakes, swampland, savannah, scrub and upland areas.  Our driver, Emmanuel drove us through the park from the southern entrance to the northern exit, with only a half-hour break for lunch beside a lake where several hippo and a baby crocodile were bathing.  The national park used to be a lot bigger, but after the genocide, in 1996 when many displaced people were returning to Rwanda, they found that their relatives were dead and they didn’t have any land as they didn’t remember where they came from.  The government then took the decision to give some of the park land to these people to farm and thus the conflict between farmers and wildlife in this area began.  To ensure that the local people recognise the value of the park 10% of the visitor entrance fees are given to local community projects.

After driving through the national park for about 6 hours and seeing a lovely variety of wonderful wildlife, we headed back to Kigali.  Emmanuel had been driving for well over 12 hours, when he dropped us off at the guest house, but we were the ones who looked like wilting rag dolls after the buffeting journey! Andy postponed plans for us to go out for a final meal together in the city till after we have packed up tomorrow, which will be a lovely finale to our time in Rwanda, before we head out to the airport in readiness for our night flight back to UK.

It has been a wonderful, varied and blessed time here in Rwanda and we thank the Lord for all that we have been able to do with our two partners in the dioceses of Gasabo and Byumba. Thank you for your prayers and we will be in touch again once we are back in the UK.

So from us all, it is one final….. good-night.

Grace, Isobel, Hannah, Paul, Jonathan and Andy