Finally Here

I'm here! I slept like a bum in London's airport, laying out on the benches, on my backpack, for 15 hours. The woman checking me in at O'Hare and in London told me to make sure Ethiopia didn't lose my bags, which, I'm delighted to say, they did not! But i was pretty lucky because I had about 20 mins to get to the next flight, so I definitely didn't have the time. But I showed up in Kigali, and so did all my MedSend supplies and my personal stuff, but my ride was late...very late...so late I was in a near panic, as I'm not trained to use the telephone system. The man at the immigration counter chit-chatted with me very politely and wished me luck. The new yellow dufflebags received many compliments throughout the airport and from my new house mates. Back to being temporarily abandoned...I walked past a row of people with name placards...nothing. I go outside and wait. A man walks up to me, well many men walked up to me as one of the only white people there, looking lost, all offering taxi services. A Rwandan police officer walked past, "Hello, sister". This is the way people greet me here. I showed him the address of the WE-ACTx house, which was pointless because no one knew WE-ACTx by that name, and the goal of the house is to keep the community from hounding the staff, so of course this would not be helpful (apparently taxi drivers don't recognize the address system either). He explained to me the nuances of using a phone that required purchasing a great deal of equipment, so needless to say the situation was intense and I was too cheap, so I took a big leap of faith and SURPRISE! Rebecca showed up with our driver, yay!!
Riding back to the house was breathtaking, the hills, the houses, the people.
The interns and I attempted to go to the market and I had my first ride in a minibus. 30 cents a ride. Long story short, market closed, terrace coffee place closed, so we ended up in a streetside bar drinking this awesome African Tea that's very creamy milk with some cane sugar and spices. Very good. Getting home took forever, b/c there's not so much a line at the return minibus stop as there is an angry mob (one that most certainly doesn't like cutters).
And now, for a little more of the less mundane:

The staring hit me the second I got off the plane. It's not as if Rwandan's haven't seen muzungo's (non-africans) before, it's just that we're rare. The last time white people seemed to care about them almost one million Rwandans were wiped out. It's a very intense stare, as if the voyeur were trying to memorize my face. This happens everywhere I go. Everywhere. Put five white girls together and cars start to honk. And they did. And being white here makes it much easier to find a cab too, not shocking after living in Chicago. I don't feel that they're looking at my color so much as my features, the way I dress, and listening to the sound of my voice. Every time I speak they laugh a little. I know what you're thinking, 'what stupid thing did you say to them?' Just ordering tea in the bar/restaurant was an interesting interaction with the staff. The man giggled nervously every time anyone of us said anything. As we sat and drank our tea, we commented on the surprising music choice playing in the background a mixture of 90s pop and current US hits. Shakira is big here. How can one country have such a cultural impact and yet, not act to influence the history of Rwanda?
The history of this country shows in the streets. There is an incredibly large number of amputees walking with the aid of crutches and children follow us every place we go, begging for money, food, or miscellaneous other objects, like pens. They're all wearing American clothes with famous cartoon characters on them, most likely donated by someone in the US. So these kids are clothed, well for now. Essentially, they've been given a band-aid and this of course, will only be a temporary fix. There are so many temporary fixes here, so much charity. Very little justice.