Friday Field Trip!!

 

Hello all!  While the internet is good I thought I'd let you in on an interesting day we had yesterday.  We opted to skip school and go on a "field trip" that presented itself.

 

The Musanze Opportunity Center, where we are living and working, has regular guests come through to stay or for meals.  Visitors are usually from the US or Europe or are westerners living in Kigali or other parts of the country who are passing through, meeting up with friends, coming to see the gorillas, or simply getting away.

 

And that's how we met Tom Allen, an attorney and California native, who's been living in Kigali for about five years and is currently the country director for Bridge 2 Rwanda.  We've heard about Tom from friends and it was a pleasure to meet him when he came to stay here on Thursday night with a small group of American businessmen, philanthropists and entreprenuers.

 

Tom invited us to take a sidetrip with him on Friday to an area about 30 minutes away on Lake Burera and not far from the Ugandan border.  I'm never quite sure of the names of the towns or villages that we visit...they all seem to run together!  This particular village is quite poor, but has one of the most spectacular views that I have ever seen.  You will see on the pictures that this huge lake has three inhabited islands in it and mountains behind it...just over the mountains is Uganda.  Though somewhat remote, tourists do come to this area to stay at Viruga Lodge, which shares this incredible setting.

 

Anyway, Tom has purchased a lovely piece of property from some local farmers in the village in order to build a small "vacation" home on it for himself and for friends to use when they are looking to get away, think and write, etc.  His other purpose was that this very long project willk also provide employment for many people in this town for quite a few years as the site work and construction (all entirely by hand) progresses.  Another side benefit is that some of the people he employs are also learning better building skills and techniques in the process....such as how to properly mix and pour concrete (rather than the mud brick construction that is widely used in Rwanda) and using gutters to capture rain water run-off.  Anyway, you can see that Tom is well known and well loved in this area!

 

 

Now for lots of pictures....

Tom on the left, with Jean Lambert, who is 14 years old.  Because Jean Lambert did very well on his exams after finishing primary school this year (grade 6), he has been admitted to a secondary baording school.  All children in Rwanda are now required to attend primary school, but secondary school is not available because space is limited and also many families cannot afford it even if their child makes adequate scores on the national exam.  Rwandan students consider themselves lucky to be able to move away to boarding school at about age 14 and they really apply themselves!

 

Below...Jean Lambert's shoes...just in case you (like me!) need a reminder to be thankful and content.  Many of these amazing kids will wear no shoes or sometimes just one shoe.

 

 Jones family at Lake Burera on Tom Allen's homesite.  The pictures just don't do it justice!

 

It may appear that it just falls off to the lake, but actually there is a steep hill below with farms planted on the side of the hill.  In some areas the land is terraced, but in others the crops are just planted on the slope.

Below, Brain Langford with Jean Lambert and Jean of Peace, who is the foreman on the site overseeing anywhere from 6-36 laborers any given day.

 

Jean Lambert told Brian that he hopes to be a doctor some day and that he wants to go to college in the United States at TCU and he knew exactly where it is located, etc.

Merritt, above, standing on some of Toms property that has been terraced and leveled by hand.  Below he enjoys the view from what will be the back porch when the house is complete.

Bethany checks out the baby calf that was born this fall that Tom keeps on his property.  Cow ownership is highly valued by Rwandan culture and is often indicative of wealth.  A cow is still sometimes used a dowry to acquire a bride!  Here they can use the Heifer model to help others in the community have a cow that can produce milk for their family as well as sell for income.

 

 

The dirt road in the background is how we came to the village.  This is one of Tom's neighbors behind him and is a typical mud construction home and surrounding farm that supports the family.

Merritt is having a look at a "wooden bike" that Tom bought off of a child he saw riding it down the road (for a fair price!).  The kids here are very clever and can make a fairly good soccer ball out of plastic and twine.  This bike is just wood scraps nailed together and wood wheels covered in strips of old tire tread.

Because Jean Lambert lives here and has such excellent English, Tom asked him to give us a tour of the village and it's school.  Here Bethany is outside of his home, which was locked because both his parents were out working in the field.  He did show us his two young cows that he is very proud of as well as his rabbitt that is about to have babies.  When he is not in school, Jean Lambert's chores are carrying water to his home, gathering wood for his mother to cook with and gathering food to feed the cows (grasses and corn stalks).

The mural painted at the entrance to the village school.  The do dream of a better life and better education.

A primary school classroom (about 3rd or 4th grade) with boys on one side, girls on the other.  Just benches, no desks, filled to the max with children with makeshift notebooks made of some lined paper with brown paper bag covers.  Chalkboards on the wall for the teacher to do instruction.

 

The 6th grade classroom had small desks and the kids were anxious to ask us questions and practice a little of their English.  This is the last year that many of the students will be able to attend school.  Also, Jean Lambert showed us the rabbits that are kept behind the school and are sometimes given to students as a reward for excellent marks.

We are usually surrounded by quite a crowd of children who come out from everywhere.  Here we had many little ones follow us, as well as many young adults who were anxious to visit with Americans as well as asking for our emails for correspondence (they will walk for hours to get to an internet cafe to communicate with an American penpal) or to ask if we would help sponsor them to go to secondary school.

 

 

And finally, some images of daily Rwandan life from our drive home.....

 

Mud bricks that are being collected in a truck. 

 

Men pushing heavy loads up the raod on their bicycles.  They often ride down into town with an empty bike with no brakes and only use their shoes for braking!

Transporting potatoes...

More potatoes headed to town on a caravan of bikes!!

Secondary students walking together on their way home from school.

 

Not the greatest picture...but this is probably the most unusual load I've seen so far.  A man pushing a whole set of furniture up the road on a wheelbarrow...whatever works!

 

Purchasing eggs at a roadside stand outside of the "One Egg project" facility.  I hope to visit here one day and tell you more.  An American businessman who came here had a vision of somehow providing some much needed daily protein to the youngest children in Rwanda.  In the end he decided that the egg was the best source and partnered with some folks from Tyson to get it going.  They have 3 hen houses with about 1500 chickens.  The eggs are distrubuted to partners in the community who boil the eggs and serve them to preschoolers at lunch so they know that the children are actually the ones consuming the eggs.  They hope to expand the One Egg project into other areas in the near future now that they have a model that works.

 

 

Our Friday field trip was fun, but that meant doing some schoolwork on Saturday!  This is our "one room schoolhouse" which works great until the internet goes down.  I'm so thankful for our classroom manager and teacher, Brian Langford, who keeps things rolling in there and helps explain math concepts to the kids that I still don't get!

 

 

Lastly, a few people arrived on campus today from Little Rock.  They brought some gifts from the states that the kids are so happy about...beef jerky, Gatorade and mac n cheese...do we have American teenagers or what?!? 

I'm loving the fresh cooked Rwandan foods and all the veggies, beans, etc, but I can't say the same for the kids!