Young Judaea Year Course:

Year Course is a gap year program in Israel for teens who just graduated high school before entering college. Our nine months are divided into three sections. I start off the Year in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv, where we volunteer in the community. In the winter, we head down to the Negev (Israel's desert) hopefully to do outdoor work. Finally, we end the year in Jerusalem studying and also volunteering. Throughout the year, we study hebrew and live in apartments with fellow Year Course participants.

I am participating in the Social Action track of Year Course, traveling to Rwanda for the entire month of February. We are living at a youth village (made by Year Course alumni) working with orphaned children.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Arrived in Rwanda!

Sadly, I left the wonderful town of Arad at 7:15 PM on Sunday, January 30th for the Ben Gurion Airport. After a chaotic secrurity check-in, we finally got our boarding passes with very little time to spare. Some of the scouts, Noy, Aviv, Eyal and Ekka and counselors came to send us off which was very nice of them. We rushed to the gate, quickly bought some food then we were off the Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We hung out in the Ethiopian airport from about 4:30 AM to 9:30 AM and most of us slept. THEN OFF TO RWANDA! BUT, first, little did we know, we had to make an hour stop in Nairobi, Kenya...THEN to Rwanda. I can officially say I had been to 4 countries is less than 24 hours; Israel then Ethiopia then Kenya then Rwanda.

We arrived in Rwanda with great excitment! We hoped out of the plane, got through passport control then got all of our luggage successfully. On to the bus we went to change money and buy phones and SIM cards. We all exchanged about $250 which gave us a massive load of cash (each $1 is about 500 Rwandan Franks). After we got our phones, and of course mine didn't work, we headed on the most beautiful car ride we have ever been on to the village. Rwanda is known as the Land of 1000 Hills and boy, was it hilly (luckily I didn't get car sick at all!). The ride started off looking like normal-ish suburbs then quickly became farmland with a few mud huts here and there. The plants are a full and healthy green and the earth is a beautiful red so everything you see is red and green.

I have to go but I will edit more about the when we arrived at the village.
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