I am here! I have never had such a warm welcome. There were 6 men & 3 women who met us at the airport, all speaking some English & most speaking English well. It is a clear, balmy night of about 80. These people are so open—they know Lori, or course, but also to me. The motel is clean, charming, with a fantastic view overlooking the city. The room is very small, but sparkling clean with lots of storage, a hand-held shower, & a cafe that you custom order 30 minutes before you want to eat. The driver, Ben, told about his wife going through the genocide & she was pregnant. The baby was born a month early because of her stress & while she was in an attic hiding. Her husband was killed. Ben also went through it, but he didn’t tell me his story yet. The country has made changes just since Lori was here last January, making it easier to start a business, buy property, get credit, etc. Roads are improved, although the last couple of miles to the motel were red dirt with huge ruts & potholes that Ben had to skillfully dodge. I would hate to navigate it in the mud. We may get to find out how that is.

I am exhausted, but excited & not quite ready for sleep. It has been 30 hours since we left the L.A. hotel & I got about 3 hours sleep from Brussels to Kigali. The flight from Chicago to Brussels was in a plane with no leg room & narrow seats & 250 packed in. That plus crossing 9 time zones had my body crawling out of its skin. I had kept up with the first 3 time zones using Dona Eden’s acupressure points jet lag energy system, but the next points were on the feet & legs & there was no room to move. When I finally bit the bullet & sat in the restroom & caught up on all the points, I immediately felt better.

We have had some anxious moments with jet-ways not operating, security staff strikes, etc., but every problem there was someone who went out of their way to solve our problem & the plane to Kigali waited for us. Brussels Air is amazing, serving gourmet food & snacks during the whole flight & very comfortable seating. It's been over 30 hours since we left the hotel in L.A. w/ about 3 hours sleep, so I'm ready to crash now--I hope I'm coherent. A happy good night.

Reports from Rwanda

Muraho! ("Hello" in Kinyarwandan). It warms my heart so much to know how many of you are pulling for me to have a safe, exciting, fulfilling trip to Rwanda. So for any of you who are interested, I am planning on blogging from Kigali (when the electricity is on) about my experience there. You are welcome to come along! Murakoze (thank you) for your kind thoughts and support. In case you don't know where Rwanda is (as I didn't before I signed up to go), it is south of Uganda (which is south of Sudan), west of Tanzania & Lake Victoria (which is west of Kenya) and east of the Congo. It is only about the size of Maryland with both rocky mountains & rain forest mountains where the gorillas live. The capital, Kigali, is a large city of about 1 million. It operates on "Africa time" which is slower than Hawaiian time. When someone says they will meet you at 3:00, they mean anywhere from noon to 6:00. I don't know how that can work, but I will be finding out. More after the 25-hour plane flight & I get my bearings. I will be using Dona Eden's Energy Medicine method for re-calibrating my body to the 9-hour time difference. I'll see how that works.