We have now been in
Rwanda for 10 days, or so my malaria pill count tells me; it certainly feels
like it has been significantly longer. There is much to take in about the new
environment and plenty to prepare for with 8 or so weeks of work ahead of us.
So and update in a
week of pictures, we finished our orientation without a hitch and moved to our
new base of operations as a team of 8. It was surprising how quickly
friendships were built in just a week of orientation and parting ways with the
other 4 teams was a mix of emotions.
Since then things
have started to take off a bit, we have met the partners of Tearfund in country
that we will be working with. We have spent this week so far being introduced
to different projects that we will be helping out with, enabling us to come up
with a strategy of how best to help in different areas.
So, in chronological
order:
The day after we
arrived at our residence we decided to get stuck into the community, 'Umuganda' was the perfect opportunity. On the
last Saturday of every month there is community service everywhere in the
country. Our local one was a 2 minute walk up the road. We did not come
particularly well equipped for manual labour but we were willing and got
involved. The practical work was relatively trivial, cleaning up the side of
one dirt road but umuganda serves as a community building tool that goes far
beyond cleaning up the streets. We were able to meet some of our neighbours and
introduced ourselves. The rest of the time was spent allowing local matters to
be discussed among community members (all in Kinyarwandan so we only picked up
on pieces here and there that were translated for us).
On Sunday we went to
a Christian Life Assembly church and got caught out in the rain on the way
home.
We also met some of
our new house mates:
On Monday we had our
first meeting with our host partners, enabling us to get to know the team that
we will be working along side, the day was also in meetings as a team ourselves
to organise all of our own rotas and get all the administrative stuff out the
way.
Tuesday we visited a
farming co-operative in Kigali where we were able to probe enough to give us an
idea of how we can help to improve their productivity and hopefully work
towards lifting more people from poverty.
Wednesday we visited
two catch up schools for children aged 10-20 who are yet to complete primary
school. The genocide 20 years ago has left Rwanda with 85000 child led homes
and thousands of orphans, many of whom grow up on the streets. These schools provide
those children with an alternative path in life.
This morning we
visited a church led self-help saving group who have used their collectively
saved money to fight poverty together. The main avenue that this has taken is
through forming an agricultural co-operative together, some 90% of Rwandans
make their living through farming in one way or another. The saving group has
also gathered all of the required materials to build a nursery that we will
help to construct at some point during our stay.
In between all of
that we have not really stopped laughing together. Our meal times frequently
leave us in stitches as we laugh at ourselves with each other. As you have probably gathered Rwanda is a
very green country and I haven't been to a place yet where the horizon isn't
littered with rolling hills.
I am enjoying my
time so far and looking forward to really getting stuck in as we begin executing
the plans from next Monday.
