THE FINAL CHAPTER
Yesterday morning we left our accommodation at St Andrew’s in Kabgayi and headed to the Genocide Museum in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali. The guided tour of the museum was a very sombering experience and it brought up many ‘unsettling’ feelings. It was a very tough hour and a half, learning about the background of the genocide and the events that led up to it, the horrific events that occurred during the genocide and the aftermath of what occurred. It left all of us pilgrims with many questions like how can this happen and why? It also left us in admiration of the proud Rwandan people and how they have begun working very hard to rebuild their beautiful country. Primary school enrolment has risen from 950,000 in 1994 to 1.67 million today and secondary places have increased five-fold to 200,000. The victims and the people of Rwanda, are very much in our thoughts and prayers.

The Rwandan people have been very welcoming and very happy with the fact that we chose their country as a place to visit. We left Rwanda, Brother Stratton and other hard-working Marist Brothers after being immersed in their culture for 3 days, with a great love of the people of Rwanda.

We then at 6:30pm caught a plane to Nairobi, had a brief stop there and then headed off on a 8.5 hour flight to our final destination, London. In London we are staying at St Giles Hotel, right near Oxford Street and many tourist destinations including the Thames River, Buckingham Palace and the Lords Museum.

This morning we also had our final official Pilgrimage meeting and said our final goodbyes, thankyous and prayers. Special thankyous were given to Br John McMahon, Marie Dorrington, Carol Wark, Br Tony Caddy and Mgr Peter Jeffrey for their hard work and dedication in their efforts to organise and guide us through the pilgrimage. It has been a ‘life-changingexperience’ for all of us. The Marist spirit is very much alive and well in all of us as we all go back to all parts of Australia, to love and serve God!

Looking forward to sharing our experiences with our friends and family.

God bless