Made it back to Rwanda – at last!

I guess it’s no more than the same emotion many people are experiencing just now, as country borders start to open up again and reunions that were put on hold for two years are finally able to happen, but boy is it good to be back in Rwanda!

I was last here in the autumn of 2018, and the intention was to then be here in spring of 2019 with a team of young people. That didn’t happen for non-Covid reasons, but the next attempts to get to Rwanda, in spring of 2020 and again in November 2021 were both scuppered due to lockdowns, travel restrictions and in-country quarantine rules.

I’ve managed to get to Kenya once and Uganda twice in that time, but Rwanda was just feeling very elusive, much to the frustration of myself and also the friends in Rwanda who were so keen for me to travel out to them.

But, finally I’m here – yay!!!!

Rwanda welcomed me with smiling faces at immigration, a slightly chaotic PCR testing process and a day of overcast weather with about 5 hours of rain in the middle of it. But the rain waited until I’d got safely to the hotel, the PCR result came through in 7 hours (negative thankfully), and the weather dried up mid afternoon which meant that I could get out for a walk before the end of the day. Even the internet, which was dodgy for the first few hours of my stay, got itself sorted in time for me to join our church service online. And given the weather that I’d left behind in UK, I think I got off very lightly!

Ever since I first visited about 10 years ago, Kigali has always felt organised and safe to me. Obviously, it has had its points in recent history when it was the total opposite to the worst extremes, but Rwanda has really turned itself around since then, and now there is a strong sense of unity and forward-looking amongst the people. It is a country where everyone is Rwandan, and where the focus is on respect, hard work, honesty, and community. Before Covid they had a wonderful system whereby on the last Saturday of the month, everyone would spend the morning doing community projects with their neighbours – cleaning up communal areas, helping a needy person with house renovations, carrying out collaborative public health initiatives etc. It’s sad that this has had to stop due to the pandemic, but still the community spirit lives on, and people really look out for each other.

My schedule here is varied and includes delivering training of the 360Life materials to various audiences, pastoral conversations, strategy meetings, and team development for the GNPDR staff. So far, I’ve had a wonderful two days with prison chaplains who dedicate part of every month to going into the Rwandan prisons to provide support and counselling to inmates on behalf of GNPDR. Tomorrow is the final day with them, so I’ll write more about that experience then, but suffice to say that it has been very humbling to spend time with these huge-hearted people who have learnt the essence of forgiveness in ways that I can’t ever imagine.

For now, though, it’s just good to be back. Eating tree tomatoes as part of a fruit salad, running (or walking when running feels impossible) up and down the hills that make up so much of this landscape, having a secret smile at the way in which masks are worn on the chin (because the law says to wear a mask, but everyone knows it’s too hot for that, and there isn’t really much covid anyway – apparently!).

Yes, it’s very good to be back 😊. Thank you God. 

A tree-tomato, in case you were wondering!