A long day. A good day. We spent most of our camera time with Nicholas Hitimana. We went with him to the house where he & Elsie were living when genocide broke out. It's the first time he has been inside since 1994. They ran leaving everything they had, and the place is now abandoned and completely stripped clean.

As we drove Nicholas re-told his story. We talked about their escape from genocide. We talked about the struggle to reconcile his Hutu history with his Tutsi wife. And we took him to his highschool to talk of his dreams for Rwanda.

The end of the day we spent filming Elsie and a group of vulnerable women she has been working with. They're doing a microfinance business selling goods that they knit & sew.

A long day, but good and productive. Nicholas was more relaxed in front of the camera and very articulate. Jim and I dropped into a groove right away. It's great working with someone with so much experience... plus he's laid back and we have fun working together.

We're conducting an experiment on Richard. He's been doing a great job coordinating our in-country logistics, but was feeling bad about a couple small things... so we stopped at a roadside cafe/greasy spoon in the middle of Gitarama and fed him some three-day-old Samosas to make him feel better. Seems to have cheered him up... we'll see about the long-term effects.

We didn't have time to shoot any stills during the day, but here's a couple from tonight:

This is mission control... more crammed than before but no roped off zones.



This is the van Dijk family... Jim's wife Sharon is doing teacher training, and their family is in the middle of a two-month Africa tour. Hannah and Emily (Jim's daughters) are 9 and 11... lucky girls to be able to experience the world so young.



Tomorrow will be spent with Nicholas at his essential oils project, filming some teacher training, and possibly a Gacaca court. We're waiting for the Minister of Culture for permission to film the courts, but the document should be signed by tomorrow AM. Still working on the Kigali helicopter flyover...