First post from Kigali

October 20^th 2011-10-20

It is now 1:30 a.m. wide awake, you gotta love jetlag

It has been an adventure getting to this point, it all started in Vancouver airport, I knew I would need a visa, what I didn’t know was I needed to apply before I arrive in Kigali. When I went to check in at KLM, they were not going to allow me to go because I didn’t have the visa. I applied on line, but it would take 3 days to receive. KLM let me go, but only as far as Nairobi, Kenya. Once in Nairobi, I was to pick up my bags and re check in to Kigali. Well my bags did not make it and as I already had a boarding pass, I went straight thru and boarded my flight, taking my chances they would let me in the country.

         Arriving at passport control in Kigali, I explained what had happened and they let me pay for my vsia and enter the country, this only took ½ hour. What I didn’t know was Drew had been at the airport the day before and had spent 2 hours getting another member of the group thru, who also did not have a visa, they already knew I was coming   and were ready for me.

        By the time we got to the hotel, it was after 1:00 a.m. I had been fighting to stay awake the whole flight from Nairobi (about 1 ½ hrs) but now I was wide awake. I think I finally fell asleep at 3:30 a.m.  and  woke  up at 5:30 a.m. so you can imagine I was like a zombie all day.

        We met for breakfast at 7:15 and off to Kigali Health institute to see if the container had arrived, Sure enough it was there. Drew had spent 2 days finding the container and jumping thru many hoops to get it released. One of the problems was, in the container they had included shoes, blankets and tooth brushes, they had an exemption for the equipment but not for the rest, so we had to have a customs official on hand to watch us unload, after him inspecting and assessing, we were charged 500 Rwandan francs, about $1.00 duty, a lot of hassle for $1.00, that is not one hundred dollars but one dollar.

         Yesterday was planning and assessing day, we came up with a game plan to start installing the next day, I guess that is in about 7 hours, I should really try to sleep, but I’m not tired now, I should crash at about noon.

         I will try to post this in the a.m. as I have to go down to the lobby to get internet access.

          More posts to follow tomorrow if the internet is working.

           Keep up the prayers,  Blessings   Jeremy