Adventures from the road

I made it! I am in Kigali and I made here safe and sound, and on time. That in itself is a miracle.

My fellow intern Miriam and I left our hotel in Tanzania very very early on saturday morning. We piled all our stuff in the van at 4am and needed to be at the airport for 5am for a flight that left at 6. So we're driving down the road in the dark, trying to get a little more sleep and the check engine light comes on in the dash. The driver ignores this and keeps driving. Then the van starts making odd noises, lurching and clunking. The driver pulls over and checks under the passenger seat - I guess this is where the radiator is located. Good thing Miriam and I had some bottles of water and these were sacrificed to the radiator. Steam and smoke billowed out into the van so that Miriam and I and all our stuff smelled like burning oil and gross, but it seemed to do the trick and we were good to go. Or so we thought. Just as we pulled into a small town the jerking and clunking started again and we barely made it into a petrol station before the van quit, smoke billowing. So we were stuck in the middle of nowhere in the dark. You should have seen Miriam and I standing on the side of the road laughing. What else could we do?! Evenutally we found a taxi and made it to the airport - at 5:50. Miraculously they let us on the flight and we got to Nairobi close to the time we were supposed to - around 7am. My flight to Kigali was boarding at 6:45. I really thought I would be stuck in Nairobi but God must have been watching over things because that flight was delayed and I made the connection easily. So much stress and all before 8am!!

So now I am in Kigali and am very happy to be here! Last night I went to a wedding with some friends and wore a traditional rwandese dress - pictures to come - and now I'm off to Jen and Serge's daughter Isabella's first birthday party.