Brrrrr....it's cold in here.-> An Ode to My Warm-Blooded Team Mates

WISCONSIN!MINNESOTA!

I feel like I'm home again. The leaves have changed color and are in the process of falling. This however is a very unique and unknown phenomena to people such as two of my team mates Rebecca and Lauren. Rebecca is from Orange County, California and Lauren is from Austin, Texas. With both hometowns being such different climates than my own, it is an interesting experience seeing their reactions to the trees and snow.

As I, and many of you know, when we see these brilliantly colored landscapes we take it for granted. We see them in passing and just say "Oh, thats cool!" It wasn't until leaves started falling while we were on the road that Becca, who had never really seen "fall" having lived in California her entire life, saw her first multicolored tree. We honestly stopped the van and allowed Becca to get a picture.

What made her experience even more awesome was the sight of her first snowfall. Growing up in California, she had seen snow at snowboarding/ski hills but never seen it fall. Upon our approach of Minnesota, we encountered our first snowfall of the year. It gave me an entirely new appreciation to the wonder and beauty of nature, especially in these wonderous states I am experiencing for the first time.

I SAID OVEREASY!!!!!!

Tragedy struck today....Big G (our van) was victim of a brutal act of vandalism involving a carton of eggs, a get away driver, and a car full of j*ck*ss*s....

We are staying with one of our contacts, Celeste. Her parents got back from the store and informed us that our beloved vehicle had been EGGED!!! WHO COULD HAVE DONE THIS? WE ARE TRYING TO END A WAR! HOW COULD SOMEONE HAVE THE NERVE TO DO THAT TO US?? So many questions were running through my head. I was sad. I was distraught. I was at a loss of words. I immediately took action, and Lauren and I headed to a local car wash to clean our precious off. Oh what an adventure this journey has become!!!

Gone, going, gone, everything is gone!

It's gone! I made the decision to cut my beard then shave it completely. Here are the pics.

A Great Severance of HAIR!!!

BEHOLD!!! I have FINALLY beaten my older brother in the everlasting competition for the presence of facial hair (and devilishly good looks). To celebrate this happy and joyous occasion I will be severing all of those hairs in an orderly fashion. I have included pictures of its current state.



Pictures of the aftermath are coming soon. (DON'T GO ANYWHERE).

A Brief Note of Rwanda's Genocide

We (Middle America Roadies) attended a screening at Webster University. While we were there, I (Pat), started talking with a Rwandan student named Olive and she told me her story. Later on, at the overnight in the quad, I saw her again and asked her if she'd like to write down what she told me. And THIS is what she wrote:

Hi Patrick,

It is really hard to start the story because one really never gets a phrase or a sentence to start it, but in short i tell you this:

I was a happy child before the Rwandan Genocide which left me a double orphan and hopeless. My whole family was killed in the genocide. I mean my grandparents, my parents, aunts and uncles, and of course my sweet brother, surely the list can be endless.

My birthday is July 3 and I was born in 1988. So the genocide happened while I was 5 years and only two months before my sixth birthday.

Based on history, hatred was created between the tutsi and hutus during the colonial period. As years went on, Rwanda's people who had earlier lived happily ended up divided: oppression, discrimination and other evil things you can imagine became the order of the day.

It was April 6th when darkness and evil powers filled people that the genocide started. However, genocide acts had started in 1990's and 1994 action was taken. Hutus turned against their Tutsi neighbors and killed them by burning, slaughtering them like animals, part by part, throwing them in pit latrines, burying them alive and many other evil acts.

After the president's plane had been shot down, massacres begun. On that day, I woke up and found my parents in a sad mood that I had never seen them in before. A few hours, killing started and we fled our home, and went to hid in the bush. Friends turned against us and could not hide us. Instead they called on, the militia to kill us. It was my first time to see my mom cry, after her friend offered to hide us but later chased us out of the house on seeing the killers. It was horrible.

My father died about four weeks after the genocide had started. My mother almost survived the slaughtering but she was killed later in the camp. In fact, I was close to her when she died. I thanks God I was able to make it up to now. I never understand how mom would die and leave me. I guess people (the killers) didn't see me. Oh it was God's love, so that I could maybe tell my story.

At a certain point my sister and i met a militia who almost shot us but he didn't not have bullets as he tried to shoot. Some of the young people like me or other survivors of the genocide found their refuge in the dead bodies. They covered themselves up and pretended to be dead.

At one point, I gave up hiding when i was left alone. I became hopeless when i saw many of my family members dead, and then friend were now enemies, and they became inhuman. During the genocide, animals were better than the killers. However not all Hutus were killers. Some Hutus were good and hid Tutsis but this was a huge risk because some Hutus were also killed as they tried to hide Tutsis.

A great number of Tutsis who hide in churches were also killed there and some religious leaders also participated in the killing.

I was so fortunate that my uncle whose ordination was on the day when his entire family was killed in church, found me. My uncle was in Uganda at the time but travelled to Rwanda yet the genocide was still going on to celebrate mass in his childhood church were his family had been killed.

He found my sister and my cousin brother alive and we made it to Uganda. He left us with his friends and he continued to be a missionary in Equador and Peru. Later he made friends who are helping my cousin brother and I in our education.

Back home in Rwanda, I have two sisters alive. We are really happy children, because we believe we have a nice future.

From this experience, I want you guys (whoever reads this) to know:
>Hope
>Love
>Forgiveness

If Rwandans really loved one another, we would not have had genocide.

Forgiveness is the way to build a new generation and a way to a happy life. We are trying to reconcile so that we can live together again like we used to before evil was "planted" in peoples minds.

We should have hope for the future. I am a blessed person, I have a family now (a mom and dad) who really love me like their other children. I'm so loved and hope for the future. I can now stand and strongly say, "NEVER AGAIN," any where in the world.

Forgiveness is the hardest thing to do, but in order to live peacefully and promote the never again theme, I am willing to forgive whoever asks forgiveness from me.

Every year in April, we have a memorial period for our beloved ones.

MAY GOD BLESS YOU!