"Destination Afghanistan"

This has already proven to be a bit of a crazy adventure. In some ways, I'm really glad the ticket agent in Pearson internatinal thought that I was leaving for Afghanistan. She was looking at out passports and tickets for awhile, finally looked up and said "so..you're final destination is Afghanistan." Although it was a bit concerning at the time, after everything was sorted out I'm glad it happened because it was the first time, in terms of safety, that I was relieved to be going to Rwanda!
I'm travelling with my friend Laura from highschool and I'm already sooo thankful that I'm not travelling alone. If I had any brovado in me before coming here our first walk through the local market, where we will have to buy all of our food, erased any shred of it. After three days of travel in which we had stop overs in Amsterdam, Nairobi Keny, and a surprise stop in Burundi (the national airport had one runway and some locals had gathered beside it to watch our plane land) we've arrived safely although rather sleep deprived and dissoriented from the 6 hour time difference. The Director of Friends Peace House, the local NGO we're are both volunteering for picked us up at the airport along with his co-worker Sarah. The car had no seat belts in the back and suffice to say, based on my first car ride, all the stories you may have heard about the crazy African driving experience are completely true. Best part of the ride was after turning off the paved main road, we drove up a steep "road" which was basically a really really rocky dirt slope. Our driver had to gun the car to make it up the hill and you could hear big rocks hitting the bottom of the car. I was definetly laughing by the time we reached the top of the hill.
Our lodging is in the Kicukiro district of Kigali, the capital. At first glance the room we are renting is beautiful, although I think a large part of my initial awe was because the mosquito nets hanging from the ceiling make it look like we are staying in some kinda old castle with canopy beds. We are sharing the house with the landlord Emmanuel and potentilly others as the house is used as a guest house for other Friends Peace House visitors. The downside of the house is that the toilet and shower don't work and there is no fridge. This morning I had my first ever "bowl shower", and do feel a lot better, althought I didn't manage to get all the shampoo out of my hair. All in all, for the $ 50 Canadian I couldn't ask for much more. (don't worry mom it feels pretty safe)
I beter end this before the power goes out again and this message will be lost.
Much love from Rwanda,
Kathryn (spell check's in french so sorry for all the mistakes!)