This week I'm taking us back into the past - to March 12, 2020 to be exact. It was one of the last days that borders were still open in Africa, but we didn't know it at the time. We were blissfully ignorant of what was to come.

Tim and I were in Rwanda, planning to head north into Uganda the next day, and we were traveling with our American friend Leo (for a recap of what we did in Rwanda, check out this blog post).

We stayed the night in a bar called One Degree South on the shores of Lake Kivu. We hadn't originally planned on staying in a bar overnight, and had just stopped there for lunch, but after meeting Hicham, the charismatic restaurant owner who was Lebanese/American and grew up in the Central African Republic, we didn't want to leave. Hicham and his wife were fascinating people. She was from Michigan and did charity work every day across the border in the DRC, and so we spent the night entranced by all their incredible stories.

I don't like to admit it to myself, but it has become harder for me to sleep. I find myself staring at the ceiling at night, worrying about what will become of the US, how things will progress here in Uganda with the Corona Virus, and how the world will overcome such an all-encompassing and heartbreaking disaster as this pandemic. Will things ever be like they once were?

But right before Tim and I arrived here in Uganda (where the border closed around us due to the pandemic), we had the opportunity to travel through a small country that could really teach the world something about getting back on your feet after tragedy strikes: Rwanda.