practicum begins

Well, it’s the end of my first full week in Rwamagana. It was sad to say goodbye to the rest of the GoEd crew. Ali and Kelli who were going to Kionza, and the others left in Kigali. I really enjoyed singing them a goodbye song before we left, and hugging everyone goodbye before we squished tightly into the matatu.

My practicum has been pretty good so far. Seven others from the GoEd team and I are staying at a guesthouse at the Avega compound—it’s a nice place, we all have our own rooms with our own bathrooms. The room service is pretty nice too. They take our dirty clothes and wash them and dry them, so by the time we return to our rooms at the end of the day our laundry is finished.

I’ve been working at the Center for Champions, a home/school for orphans and street children from Kigali. Most of the children are orphans that have been given a better life and opportunity here than they would in the streets. My official title in the practicum is “Communications Coordinator”, in charge of social media updates, marketing sponsorships, and making videos, updating pictures, et cetera. It’s been pretty good.

The first day we arrived was very busy, and overwhelming. The people who are at the Center for Champions practicums met with Melissa, one of the staff, when we got here. We toured the campus and spoke about the code of conduct, as well as what each of us would be doing. After the tour, we met a few of the boys that are here—friendly and funny fellows. This week has been a process of learning their names and getting to know them.

Patrick on the left, others playing ball in the background.

Melissa took us to the market for the first time so we could buy some water. We bought a few boxes and took bicycle taxis back to the compound. That was a unique experience, quite exciting! Carrying a huge box of water bottles on my leg as we breezed through the Rwandan countryside on dirt roads hemmed by banana patches and corn. I loved it.

This week our first major task was to put on a dental hygiene workshop for the catch-up students. The catch-up students are the ones that missed out on primary school earlier in life and are now taking six years of it in three years at the Center. Anyway, we were tasked with presenting good dental hygiene. I didn’t expect it to be so fun. We acted out a skit about what happens when you don’t brush your teeth. Afterward we gave the students their own toothbrushes and toothpaste and gave them an opportunity to practice what we taught them by brushing their teeth in class. I got some good video from that, and pictures too.

Mikaela wields the giant toothbrush we used in our skits. It was a lot of fun.

My first project will be to make a video that can be sent to Crest and Colgate and other dental hygiene companies for some sort of sponsorship. The goal is to get free materials by demonstrating the Center’s intention for excellent hygiene. Pretty cool. I worked on the footage all afternoon. Tomorrow and next week I’ll get some interviews to splice in and out and make a nice little short to send off. I’ve also been working on logos for the Center, and taking plenty of pictures to begin updating the Facebook page next week.

Overall, the work has been good, and I’m really glad I’m with the group I’m with. It’s been really nice to crash in my own room at the end of the night, as well as just hang out with the other seven people here.

There is a really nice one-stop shop up the road where they sell these fried things. They make my tummy feel really weird, but they are so good—they have meat and a hard-boiled egg inside a fried wrapper in the shape of a triangle. Ryan and I have been frequenting the one-stop shop for them. They are 50 cents, and amazing.  

There is a lot of physical activity here. Yesterday we played basketball for about two hours. After dinner we came back to the center for hip hop dance night. It was hilarious, and beautiful. It’s pretty much all guys at the Center, so walking into a room full of guys breakdancing, hip-hop dancing, and just having an awesome time listening to bangin’ tunes was so cool. I loved it. I got to dance again with Africans—this time my new friends. There are all kinds of age groups, and it was awesome to get down with little Idi and Claude, and also to break with Alexis.

Thanks for reading. I could share a lot of other stuff, but I’ll save those stories for when I get home. This experience has been positive thus far, but I want to make sure that it remains a productive time. It’s tempting to just play with the children, but I have to remember that I’m here to promote the Center in different ways, and not just benefit myself and the children by hanging out with them and playing with them. Yes, that’s so important. But I am convinced that my role here is more than just immediate love for these kids—I think that what I do for the center long term through marketing, advertising, media, or whatever else is what I’m ultimately here for.  

One last thing—the kids love it when I beatbox. They think it’s the coolest thing in the world. Leonard was rapping yesterday when I was beatboxing after the basketball game. 

This is Leonard. He's good at volleyball and rapping.

lake kivu and such

It's been quite a while. I apologize for not updating anything very much. I feel like no one reads this blog anyway, so I don't have much motivation to write here.

We left for Kibuye after lunch on Friday. The journey was quite incredible. As soon as we passed out of Kigali, the landscape changed drastically. The mountains jutted out of the ground, green behemoths with carved out levels, where farmers had landscaped to be able to farm at ridiculous angles on the hillside. The highway wound up and around through the banana tree scattered hillsides, corn patched slopes, red earth roadside. It was so beautiful! I loved the trip. I also listened to some metal for the first time in a little while, which I enjoyed.

We arrived at the Hotel Golf on Friday evening and spent the night there. In the morning our adventure began-- we set out on a rickety boat to hike up Napolean Island, a jutting, angular mountain island in the middle of Lake Kivu.

Mikaela is is really excited to go to the island.

When we arrived, it was a 16 minute climb to the top. A stupendous journey, and a spectacular view. I wished I could have stayed up there longer... I feel like we stayed up there long enough to snap a bunch of pictures and then head out!

Ryan on a rock. This gives you a sense of the steepness of this thing.

This was the highlight of my trip. After this big hike we boated around the lake and made it back to the hotel. After church on Sunday we headed home. I will upload more pictures of the hike on Facebook.

The first day of our research was yesterday. I went around Gasharu, a town inside a cell inside the Muhazi sector where Procom will be doing development work in the next 10 years. Patrick was our translator, a very kind, smooth voiced student from the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology. He wants to do IT work when he gets out in March. I really liked him and he was extremely helpful!

We walked around the town with the help of some other man who knew the area (I didn't get his name). The compounds were close together, with plant fences and mud houses. Some of the houses were better than others. Some of the houses were obviously built with mud bricks and had an exterior finish with a more solid, cement foundation, and other houses were sticks in the ground with mud plastered over them. The households we were able to interview had weathered Africans to greet us-- for the most part the wife or son came to greet us and speak with us, as the father was generally working somewhere. Each household offered us chairs to sit down on. We sat and began to ask questions.

Sitting in the front or back yards of small, rural African households was a unique experience, to say the least. There were generally African children frolicking and bantering behind and around us as we inquired about daily life, income, and food for these people. All with tattered, secondhand clothes dirtied with daily use, hanging off shoulders, several sizes too large. Neon, rubber sandals on most children, some barefoot and filthy footed. The people we spoke to were sometimes solemn, sometimes funny, sometimes shy, sometimes loud, sometimes talkative, always willing to answer our questions.

It was heartbreaking to hear from all nine of the households we spoke with today that the only water is an hour away by foot, and that water is not clean. Every one of the places boils their water before they drink it to decontaminate it. Some of the families made about 5,000 francs a month, or the equivalent of 8 dollars in 4 weeks. There was one mother of four that was widowed and when we asked her what her monthly income was, she answered that she had none. She grew what she needed to survive, traveled to the market about once a year, and the rest of the time just survived. It was eye-opening, and at the same time, expected. I hope and pray that in ten years when Procom goes back to measure the progress, that people will have better access to necessities than what they have today.

Today's interviewees had similar stories. One woman had no income and was getting about one meal a day, generally. She was a widow and her name was Mary Odeth Kayitesi, and she was quiet while we spoke with her in her home.

She spoke softly.

I felt horrible for her because she had received a cow as a part of the government's program to give every poor person a cow, but after the cow had born a calf, they took both back apparently. Left with nothing. Patrick couldn't figure out why, and we couldn't either, but it was sad to hear. I wished there was something more I could do for her, but there wasn't really. I just hope that Procom can indeed do something positive in the community.

Another person we interviewed was named Emerita Nyirabatunzi. She was also a widow, and HIV positive. 

She had one child in secondary school, and has to walk half an hour to the lake to get water, and then boil it because it is dirty. Her average monthly income is 1000 rwf. 

Research continues tomorrow. Practicum begins next week. I find out what I'll be doing tonight!

today tonight tomorrow

Classes are excellent. In my social context for development class, we've talked about different social institutions that are addressed and contribute to development. It's a lot of stuff that I've never even thought about before. I'm realizing through this class and the issues in peacekeeping class just how interconnected my desire to end genocide is with maintaining, growing, and changing societies... and how development is sort of a precursor to peace. I don't fully understand all of it, but all the objectives of Christian development, or basically moving a community forward by principles of the Kingdom of heaven, all point  to a place where hostility ends and reconciliation can be facilitated.

Today was a per diem day, which means GoED gives us a few thousand francs and we're allowed to get out and buy some food at a restaurant in Kigali. A group of us went out looking for Shokola, a place I found online, but ended up at Camilla's (I can't remember if that's what it was called), a Rwandan buffet. For the equivalent of about four dollars I loaded up a plate and gorged on delicious food out on the front porch, cars, taxis, motos, and buses driving by. Rwandans laughing, talking, and strolling up and down the street.

Tonight I went bowling with Kevin, Ryan, Jordon, and Nathan from Procom. It was a fun night. We went to the only bowling alley in Rwanda and bowled two games. The electricity went out for about half an hour between games.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to ride around Kigali and interview different pastors, priests, or whoever else from different churches in the city. Next Thursday I have a group presentation with Ally and Nicoya about the role of the Church in the genocide, and we're hoping to get some first hand knowledge or testimony. Who knows what the day holds!