em⋅pa⋅thy
–noun
1. the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
Sammy G always helps fight the winter blues.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TruthLifeDocFilms
Today is our last day in Kigali, we are all preparing for our 27 hour bus ride to Tanzinia. 27 hours straight!
It is hard to sum up everything we have done in the last week or so because it was so busy. A few highlights would have to be sitting in a ga ca ca court. The ga ca ca courts is where the accused perpetrators of the genocide are tried. We tried to get an interview with the defendant, we even got a permit to do so, but the guy with the big gun watching him was not as enthusiastic about the idea as we were, so we dropped it.
Matt Joe and myself just rode side by side on motorbikes threw Kigali getting shots of the city. It still remains breathtaking even after being here for as long as we have been. The film is going well so far, we have counted just over 70 hours of footage, so we will have our work cut out for us when we get home.
We have arrived in the DR Congo to the city of Goma just on the boarder with Rwanda. There was an instant atmosphere change upon the initial steps into the country. We did not need to hear guns shots to know we are in an area in the midsts of war. The tension you can feel is more than enough clarification of the curcumstances.
We have been given some peace of mind from locals that Goma is safe. The renegade general Laurent Nkunda was arrested on January 22. He was the leader of the rebels so without his presence the fighting has backed off. I still get some chills knowing that now that the rebels have come out of the bush they are being relocated to there base in Goma. We have driven by several caravans full of rebels. I am not able to photograph them because Tamota, our guide, warned us of high theft and crime. So we just drove straight to our hotel. The place we are staying in is safe, secure and nice. There is a bylaw that two people of the same sex are not aloud to stay in the same room. You can only share a room if you are a married man and woman.
I outlined some details about the war but on the other side it is very encouraging to see organizations like UNICEF and World Vision almost every where we look. Tomorrow we are off to the orphanige. Our friends Daviede and Diessongo from Burkina Faso arrived yesterday and we will work together for a week or so.
I will try and add some more photos when time alows. Thats all for now
PSplease forgive my spelling but the french spell check does not help anyone and spelling is amoung my weakness
Old Shawn ard
We had a 7 hour layover in London so we decided to hop on the subway and see some sights. We were able to see Big Ben and the Queens pad, although we were running on zero sleep in nearly 19 hours.
That was not the end to say the least. We ended up making it to Rwanda on nearly 34 hours without sleep. We are staying in the capital of Rwanda, Kigila. It is a very green country with amazing hills everywhere you look. It is also allot more developed then I thought. Anyway just a quick update that we made it and are safe.
Old Shawn’ard
