Goodbye Rwanda - Monday 6th

As our time in Rwanda come to an end and we head in various directions towards home I thought I'd reflect upon what a team of 7 achieved - with the support of many from home. If you have prayed for us, supported us through attending a high tea or just donated, you made all of the following possible.

Musanze - Shyira Diocese

• trained 65 early childhood teachers
• trained 40 diocesan staff, school administrators in English an IT

All of these people were accommodated, feed and transported to the training.
We use translators and the one doing IT was trained so he can now deliver the training.

Supported >60 young mums in gaining the skill of tailoring through purchasing

• 7 treadle sewing machines (thank you Hope UC)
• 3 electric sewing machines (thank you Hope UC)
• electric iron
• US $350 worth of fabric, zippers, cotton thread, scissors, tailoring tools
• US $1,000 was left for a years worth of ongoing training and more materials

We also left 14 laptops with the Shyira Diocese

Eastern Provence - Association of Christina Teachers (ACT) Conference

• trained 50 primary teachers
• trained 15 nursery teachers
• trained 12 admin staff in IT
• left 1 laptop with the school we used for training

Fruits of Hope Academy

• trained 6 young people in computer networking
• trained on computer maintenance
• fixed many computer issues
• installed a shared 2TB hard drive for use within the school
• provided IT training session to all teachers
• purchase 20 new mice for the computer lab
• purchased a BIG print/copy/scan unit
• provide teacher support to all staff. This included observing and demonstrating teaching methods
• purchase 180 textbooks
• purchased a enormous amount of stationery
• left 4 laptops with the school

Goodbye Rwanda until next time.

Church at Rukara in the Eastern Provence - Sunday 5th

Sophie, Nathan and Helen decided to sleep-in today. Nathan has been unwell and the others just needed sleep. For the rest of us plus Fred it was up early and off to church in the Eastern Provence, about a 2hour drive.This is a very poor area. The church meets in the building shown down below. It doubles as two classrooms during the week when a cloth partition divides the room.

There were about 60 adults and 30 children jammed into the small building. No guitars, not keyboard, no electricity just a drum and beautiful singing as dancing for Praise and Worship. Like all African services it runs for 3 hours. Cheryl had to give the message - 1hour.

Our driver Donald got pulled over by the police on our way to church. After some discussion they agreed to let him drive us to church and then he'd return and sort out his license and the speeding fine.

Church building and classrooms

View from the church window down to the lake.

Some of the local children who had been at Church

We stopped for lunch on the way back. The place was very much like an Australian Pub Beer Garden. The parents were having a drink and food while the kids played in the garden on swings.

We arrived back at AEE around 4pm, Fred headed home where he had family arriving at 5pm for a baby shower. Cheryl managed to catch up with Tash, a mad Kiwi, who lives in Ethiopia but was in Rwanda for a wedding.

Steve

Didas and Claire's wedding - Saturday 4th

Wow what an amazing day we had today. A Rwandan wedding is quiet an experience - it goes all day and is a mixture of traditional and western components. Here is the groom (Didas) in his traditional outfit.

We are all waiting outside of Claire's parents house to be invited in. The first part of the ceremony is an introduction. The groom's family visits the brides family home. The brides extended family sit on one side and the grooms on the other.

The elders of the extended family do all the talking and bargaining. The steps seem to be

• each family gives the other a drink before they speak
• the families bargain around how many cows must be paid to the brides family
• they check if there are any issues between the families
• some elders go and check the cows are real, have good water, are well fed and healthy (they just walk out the gate and wait an few minutes and return)
• its is agreed the cows are good
• the bride is brought out with some other girls. Its is suggested they take a different girl, she is rejected. This continues until the bride (Claire) is offered and accepted.

Finally got the right girl!

Poets from each family then name the cows so we know they are real.
The brides family provides food and drink to both families and friends. I guess there were greater than 200 people!

Then its was a change of clothes and off to the Church wedding. This was held in Claire's church and it took us a while to find it.

After the church there were photographs in the garden at the old Novotel Hotel.

And then we headed to the reception. This was a combination of western (clothes) and traditional (music, dance and ceremony). At the reception the grooms family provides the food and drink.
They had about 12 wedding cakes. They cut each one and then they were presented to various people and groups - parents, close family, work people. We (Hope Global) were presented with a cake. It was a real honour.

It was often hard to get a good photo. The whole day had been photographed and videoed. The photographers would often completely block our view. The video guy had a light that seemed brighter and hotter than the sun - we almost had to put sunglasses on. They also do crazy thinks like video the bridal cars moving. They stand in the back of a moving utility and hanging on with one hand while videoing.

The traditional dancing was amazing. People spontaneously went out onto the floor and started dancing.
It was beautiful day. The bride and groom looked amazing, happy and very much in love.

Steve

Fruits of Hope and then Memorials - Friday 3rd

The plan today is to visit Fruits of Hope to see the Maths textbooks we purchased and then head off to the memorials. Most days we drive to the Church side of the valley and walk across to the school. This means we walk past the preschool classrooms. Well today all the children were out and swamped us as we arrived.

Helen with teacher she had trained in prior years

Many of the team know the preschool teachers so it was great to greet them again.

The 180 textbooks had arrived! Once they are stamped with the school details they'll go into classes.

The teachers were also happily printing exams on the new printer. We'd brought along more banana bread for morning tea so everyone was happy.

Sandra, Nathan, Sophie, Helen and Cheryl outside the school library. The murals depict the story of Rwandan education. The first image is of an elder sitting under a tree teaching children via stories. The two on the wall behind the team are the final images. They depict the future where every child has access to university eduction and a computer. The image of the child looking into the distance symbolises unlimited potential. Once educated the child can see beyond the horizons.

After leaving the school we headed to Kigali Genocide Memorial. Not sure how to explain how you feel as you move through this memorial. Let me remind you that 1 million people died in 100 days while the world watched or was in denial. There are over 250,000 people buried on the memorial site. More are added each year as bones are found.

The final stop of the day was the Belgium Memorial. The site has been left as it was found. The Belgium soldiers lay down there weapons and were then killed.

Each of the pillars below represents a fallen Belgium soldier. They were protecting the Prime Minister. She was murdered as well.

At the end of the day we headed out for dinner. The team hosted Fred and his three brothers (James, Ian, George) and their wives. The restaurant is called Heaven. It rained heavily! but luckily we were under cover.

Steve

Fruits of Hope Academy - Thursday 2nd

The plan today was to spend until 2pm at the school and then go to the markets for a bit of tourist shopping. The new large printer/scan/copier we purchased for the school had arrived so Nathan and Richard spent most of the day setting this up.

Sandra spent the time collating all the training feedback surveys and attempted to re-print the incorrect Eastern Provence training certificates. I say tried because although we waited all day for the corrections, they never arrived. We'll pop back tomorrow to do them.

Sandra hard at work

All of the left over resources - paper, pencils, chalk, exercise book, pens, rulers, scissors, rice sacks..have all been gifted to the school.

Helen, Happy and Louise

We still had some fund raised money left. The team decided to use the funds to purchase maths text books for P4,5 and 6. For each grade we purchase 30 x 2 different text's. So a total of 180 books.
When teams come to do teacher training perhaps English is the emphasis. We sensed that while English resources had been well catered for, maths had not. In fact they had no maths text's for P4,5 and 6...

For morning break the team brought along banana bread as a gift for the staff. They really enjoyed the gift and appreciated that something was being done for them. Many had not had this bread before, but really liked it.

After lunch Cheryl ran a short session on what it means to be a leader and the various leadership styles.

School Staff

Then it was time to say goodbye - well almost. We'll be back tomorrow to check out the new maths books and reprint a few certificates.

We headed back to the markets to buy fabric and souvenirs for ourselves and some fabric for vocational training at the Fruits of Hope School. They have some sewing machines but not much fabric.
When we were in the fabric area of the markets the people were calm and did not hassle us. As soon as we entered the section selling souvenirs they pounced! We were "encouraged" to visit their special shop. All prices were flexible downwards. Its was a bit of fun and as always we felt like we had a bargain and they were happy as well.

After a quick stop at AEE Guest House we headed out for dinner. We'd invited Didas, Pam Connell and Charles to join us. Pam is an Aussie and the current Deputy Principal at Riviera Boarding School. Every time we come she ask for Chocolate Bullets. She can't get them in Africa. Pam will be returning to Australia in August after 7 years working in Rwanda.

We had intended to have dinner at Republica Restaurant, but we found it had shutdown so we headed to New Cactus instead.
Everyon had a great night but fell into bed at 9pm exhausted. The trip is starting to catchup with some of the team.

Steve

ACT conference in the Eastern Provence - Wednesday 1st

July 1st is a public holiday but close to 100 teachers gave up the holiday to attend the ACT (Association of Christian Teachers) conference.
This is the first time Hope has run the conference in the Eastern Provence.

Just before breakfast the power had gone out. Turns out this is a regular occurrence and it probably won't be back until the evening. Not sure how we'll run computer training, run projectors and print certificates without power!


Participants registered onto laptops and received a conference bag - remember us packing them earlier in the trip! Each person will receive a certificate so getting each persons name right is critical.

Opening ceremony with Cheryl presenting the team. The conference was run at a local school. The principal is Mary who has so far started 40 similar schools! Amazing women. She explained that during her training they had a practical element to help start a school. She never stopped.

ICT (Computer training) for head teachers and principals. We had no power = no projector. We relied upon the battery life of the laptops. The lasted almost 4 hours which is amazing.
During the training we created a spreadsheet to track and report student performance and calculate ranking in the class. Most of them understood. But there is always such a range of skills.
Instead of a projector Nathan and I used A4 paper and a black marker to explain what buttons/icons to click on.

We still had the issue of how to print certificates without power. Turned out the school has a generator.

• No fuel, so we purchased some.
• Generator won't start, so they got a repair man
• Generator running and then we learnt that last week it blew up a photocopier and computer with a surge..we decided to risk it.
• Generator not generating power, we gave up.

 Solution, we took the certificate paper and USB drive back into town. Most people in business had a generator and a local person was able to print them, at 2 pages per minute. It took ages! but we got there.

In the afternoon the early childhood and primary teachers made resources using cardboard and rice sacks .The rice sacks were turned into charts of the Digestive systems, maps of Africa, things we use to farm with, things we wear, colours, shapes, tables..

Closing Ceremony and presentation of certificates

The happy graduates.

Please pray that the seed planted today might bear much fruit in the lives of Rwandan children.

Steve

Teaching @ Fruits of Hope Academy - Monday 29th

We started the morning in Kigali arranging more photocopying and stationery for the Association of Christian Teachers (ACT) Conference. This is happening on Wednesday in the Eastern Provence but we'll be packing conference bags tonight.
Mid-morning we made it to Fruits of Hope.

Planning with Fred

Most of the day was spent observing. Tomorrow morning and Thursday the  team will run classes. The aim is to model child centered learning. The teachers are very keen to see how it can be done - which is great.

Steve, Louise and Nathan helped Richard run a computer class for P6.We also fixed about 5 computers, so of the 20 in the computer lab only 2 are not working. These need to be recabled and we'll do that tomorrow. The team is chipping in and purchasing a big scan, copy print black and white printer. The cost is frw 612,000 which sounds a lot. Its about USD $825. We'll also be getting the school a central hard drive so they can save and share documents. Its a bit basic but we have to start somewhere!

Cheryl is pseaking at church tonight but we all headed back to Bourbon Cafe for dinner. Cheryl headed back to Revival Palace Church and we headed to AEE.

More than 100 conference bags being packed.

We are travelling to the Eastern Provence in a small mini-bus so most of our luggage will stay at AEE. We have lots of conference materials, computers, projectors, laser printer...to pack in. But first we'll do more work at Fruits of Hope.


Steve
Steve

Gorilla Trekking

Yesterday Nathan and I had the privilege of trekking with the Titus family of gorillas in the Volcanoes National Park near Musanze.

We arrived at the meeting place at 7am where we organised gumboots after realising how muddy the Golden Monkey trip had been. We also chose what level of trekking we wanted to do (easy, medium or hard), we chose medium because Nathan hasn't been feeling well. We then drove 45 minutes to our starting point and as a group of six tourists with our guides and porters, we headed off to meet our trackers who had been following the Titus family so they know where they are for us. We hiked about 45 minutes through farmers fields (think very steep fields at the base of a volcano) up to the edge of the park where we entered in through a rock wall (to keep the buffalo out). From there it was an intense battle through thick African jungle, with copious amounts of mud, stinging nettle and low-hanging shrubbery (we had to crawl through on our hands and knees at one stage). It didn't take long until we met our first gorillas.

We were able to get so close to them, we were recommended to stay at least 7 metres away, but I think we were closer at some points. From there we followed the family for about an hour watching them eat (silverbacks need to eat 30kgs of food per day! Though they themselves can weigh up to 200kgs!). We got to see a few silverbacks, including the chief, some mothers and even a little baby who was so cute and decided to somersault down the hill.

As we followed them as they moved from feeding point to feeding point, we were moving a fair way up the volcano, but we didn't realise quite how far we had gone up until I started to feel quite dizzy and nauseous, then we realised I was getting altitude sickness. Nathan chatted to our guide about it and mentioned that in Australia our highest 'mountain' is 2000m high, and our guide just laughed and said that we started at 2600m! So we think we may have reached about 3000m which explains why I was feeling sick. So after needing to stop and rest for a little while, the guide dragged me through the jungle so I could sit down but continue to watch the gorillas.

After spending the hour with the gorillas (including one gorilla deciding to charge us down) we hiked back down the volcano with a few slips and slides because of the steepness.

All in all, even though Nathan had been feeling unwell and I'd felt sick, it was still so worth seeing. The gorillas were amazing to see and watch how they interact. They're such beautiful animals and it was a privilege being able to sew them in their natural habitat. We have some amazing photos on our camera, but here are a few from Nathan's phone to share with you all back home.

A once in a lifetime opportunity! Definitely worth it!

Sophie

P.S. One of the photos is of me with our driver named Safari. We think he looks like Kanye West!

Church - Sunday 28th

It was a quiet day. Church in the morning and Cheryl had to preach. We arrived at 9:30 and church had already started (singing). Church ended after 12.

We then shared lunch with Fred and his family, except Fred who is fasting till the end of the month. 

Dinner a AEE guest house tonight. Teaching at Fred's school tomorrow. 

Steve

Rest day - Saturday 27th

Nathan and Sophie headed off early to see the Gorilla's. For the everyone else it was a rest day.
Ever noticed how loud American's are? There was 3 of them going to the Gorilla's as well. Their normal voices having breakfast at 5:45 woke everyone. In case you were intereted they were fro  Alabama.
I am sure Nathan and Sophie will post seperately about the Gorilla's. Poor Sophie suffered from Altitude sickness!

Lake Kivu

Lake Kivu

As its the last Saturday of the month its community day. All Rwandan's have to do some community work - building, cleaning. Didas had come up with the car on Friday afternoon but was unable to pick us up untill 11am.
We decide to head to the Congo (DRC) border. Its about a 1 hour drive. We saw large tea plantaions and many villages. Got stopped by the traffic police twice. Did you know Rwanda has an enormous lake - Kivu. Its enormous. You cannot see the other side, which is DRC.
We sat on the beach and enjoyed "soda" and "frites"

Whitebait/Pichards drying in the sun

Democratic Republic of Congo

A slow drive past the border crossing an thru the town revealed a lot of very old homes and no army people. It felt a lot like the African Riviera - Avenues, beaches, large home and hotels with an old world charm. Are we really in Africa.

Goodbye Garden Place Hotel

We returned to Musanze, loaded the cars and headed back to Kigali and AEE. No hot water..lucky to have water.

Steve