Hiiii anyone reading this,

I have too much to say and too many people to say it to, so hoping this'll reach the important ones.

Update on Uganda: picking up from where I left off last year. Too wonderful being back and too little time here. Uganda is where I need to be. Jolly Mercy has developed a lot, new [permanent] classrooms and new staff, although CALM Africa have been struggling due to the continuous heightening of food, petrol and general living prices. Happy as always to be working with their amazing team, and constantly in awe of them. It's the school holidays so our focus is outreach. Working with some of the same families and some new; poverty has really reached a higher level of desperation here now. It's too accepted that a family of up to 7 children will not acquire food for a day. Every day that comes it is questionable whether food will be provided, if school fees could be paid or if the health of each child could be maintained without such basic necessities. Every day is purely about survival.

With the help of another volunteer, latrine number 5 has been funded by us and is currently under construction. This time for a family of 7 living in one room, I don't need to go into detail about the extemity of their poverty because it's become so normal for me to see now. The building in which their room is also contains what is to become a second office to CALM Africa, in the Kira district- where last year we built 2 of our latrines and set up sponsership and support of those families. Here CALM want to set up a vocational centre for elder children who cannot afford to start their eduction or are apathetic to do so. CALM cannot open without the imposition of a latrine for their students/workers - so a second latrine is to be attached to the first to cater for this need too. In regards to the other families we support, I want to look into business opportunities and potential for earning; realising you can't help everyone is so frustrating and disheartening that I'm realising sustainable and self-sufficient aid is the only realistic route to go down. 2 weeks left to hopefully leave a more sustainable level of aid than before. A month really is not long enough here.

Tomorrow we've been invited to celebrate Eid Ugandan style, as well as feature on Ugandan radio. Next week we're lucky enough to get to attend a Ugandan Introduction, courtesy of Joseph Luganda (congrats!).

RWANDA - 10th - 12th August.

This I have a lot to say on. Too much. Within the first week I had entered the country twice and obtained 2 Ugandan visas - apparently even crossing the border for just one night voids any previously bouht visa. 2 10 hour buses and 24 hours in Kigali was easily worth the charge of $50, although I think any shred of faith I'd had in humankind prior to my trip has been left in the Genocide Memorial.

I was naive enough to think that my knowledge from A-level politics would be enough to understand what had happened, but no magnitude of knowledge would have prepared me for what was there. It'd be futile to try and reguritate it all here, especially as there is so much more research I need to do, but I have to try and tell you something about it. The Tutsi-Hutu divide impositioned by Belgian (Tutsi being anyone with ten or more cows, and Hutu given immediate lower-class status by owning any less) is the sole cause of Rwanda's climatic destruction in 1994. The western world created this meaningless socio-economic split which they only then came to completely abandon and ignore. The inital stages of the Tutsi killings led to the formation of the Interahamwe, a Hutu-led militia who were not only funded but also trained by the French army.

The methods of slaughter were what nearly caused me to have to leave and be sick. But I'm glad the information was as detailed as it was, because the world really does need to know what it could have stopped. A photo of a Hutu couple, under which in a glass case there was a set of chains, with which they had been tied together and buried alive. People were thrown into pits 10 bodies deep and trampled to death by each other, or thrown into a full latrine, or hacked and chopped by machetes. Women were forced to kill their own children or children forced to watch their parents die. Hundreds of bones remain in glass cases, even some clothes, and so many photos of those murdered. So many ways to die; anything beyond where imagination allows you to go. This was 18 years ago, and would have been us if we weren't the lucky ones who were born where we were.

The UN were actually directly warned about the impending genocide but Kofi Annan declared there was not enough information to intervene (I'ma write to him and ask him if he's visited the memorial in Kigali, seeing as his disregard allowed for this to happen). The whole world indifferent to this entire nation; every single part of Rwanda destroyed and every single Rwandanese a victim or killer - either way, witness to attrocities that would traumatise them eternally. Every Rwandese that I walked past or spoke to in Kigali who was over 18 was a survivor, or partaker, in the genocide. On the night bus back to Kampala I sat next to a Rwandese my age, who told me he'd been born in an exile camp in Kampala but entered Rwanda in 1993, to piles of dead bodies. That was before the worst of it. He told me 'the white-men abandoned us' and that they didn't understand why. I just sat there next to him, desperate to apologise for the behaviouir of the 'white-men', momentarily disgusted at having to be associated with it because of my skin.

Kiagli now, 18 years on, has made unbelievable progress. So clean, so so clean, and developed. Pavements and even bins. A complete contrast to Kampala. There is a noticable atmosphere of serenity and quiet in Kigali, the Rwandese have worked extremely hard and their efforts cannot be denied. As a people they are possibly even more friendly and welcoming than the Ugandans, something I didn't think I'd ever witness. Everyone wanted to help us and went out of their way to do so. It's impossible to comprehend that these people are living amongst the killers and torturers of their relatives, and every adult that was present in '94 would have witnessed death, torture and merciless violence. Once I realised this, it became clear that Rwanda is still far from its recovery. What I learnt and what I saw has been permanently carved into my mind, and I can never forget it.

'When they said 'never again', after the Holocaust, was it meant for some people and not for others?'
- Felicien Ntagengwa

'The UN will come for us'
-the last words of a child before being hacked to death

Now only Kenya left of East Africa.

Soz for getting way too into this.

Big love x