We are back from an amazing trip to Rwanda!  While we unpack, attempt to get the Rwandan dust off our clothes, get a handle on our day jobs, sort through our journals and over 3,500 pictures and video we want to introduce you to the country we fell in love with last week.

At 10,349 square miles Rwanda is roughly the same size of Massachusetts.  It has a population of 11 million people, making it the most densely populated country in Africa.  This was obvious the minute we left the airport; we saw tons of people everywhere we traveled throughout the week.  The land provides crops for the people of Rwanda to sell and live off of; banana plants, sunflowers (for sunflower oil), potatoes, tea, coffee, avocados, cassava and sorghum.

In 1994 Rwanda experienced one of the most deadly genocides in the history of humanity.  From April to July almost 1 million people lost their lives and 2 million residents of Rwanda fled to neighboring countries.  It is clear that the country is still recovering from the bloodshed experienced 19 years ago.  Every year from April to July the entire country is in mourning and a fire burns throughout the three months at the memorial sites.  Each person we met was impacted by the genocide in some way, but instead of being a country of sadness and hate Rwanda is certainly a country of forgiveness and hope.