10/14/2020 0 Comments ButareMonday through Wednesday of this week we traveled to Butare, about a 3 hour drive from where we are in Kigali. Monday afternoon we had the option to go to the Murambi Genocide Memorial. Asia, Anna, Caleb and I went to the memorial which was very emotional. The beginning of the tour started with a museum going over the history of the genocide, much alike the Kigali Genocide Memorial, but the back of it was a building where they had preserved bodies from the genocide. It was a lot to see the actual bodies and was very graphic. Afterwards we came back to the hotel and everyone had a somewhat disappointing dinner, except for me because I got the Spaghetti Carbonara and it was amazing! On Tuesday we got to go to the Maraba Coffee Co-op and had a really fun tour guide, and of course started the tour with a cup of coffee. We decided instead of driving to get up the mountain to the coffee fields we would do the "10 minute" hike up the mountain. It was somewhat hard but actually a lot of fun. After walking around the fields a bit, it started to pour down on us. We ran up the hill to the fire pit where we roasted coffee beans by hand, crushed them down to powder, and then got to drink the coffee we made and tasted amazing (which also helped us all warm up a little bit). We then ran back down the mountain to the van and went to where they grind the coffee for mass production. Afterwards we headed back for lunch and then got to meet with the Karama Women's Co-op for widows and wives of perpetrators. Theirs stories of reconciliation were moving and the ways that they've been able to come together in the community. It definitely wasn't an easy thing for them to do and took a long time to work through everything that happened, and they are continuing to work through their issues. On Wednesday at breakfast a group of monkey's played with us and tried stealing a bunch of bananas. We headed back to Kigali, stopping at the King's Palace Museum with replicas of the huts of past King's next to the modern house where the last King of Rwanda lived. It was very educational and interesting learning about the history of the King's in Rwanda. Near the huts was where they have kept up the tradition of the sacred cows. Two men took a few of the cows over for us to meet and sang to keep them calm. The cows were incredible and very calm. We went over to the baby cows as well, one very excited for head pats which was absolutely adorable!! It was a really fun visit with the animals!
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