10 Days in 10 Minutes

So much has happened since my last post, I don’t even know where to begin! Well, last week was the end of our Issues in Peacebuilding class and we all presented our final projects. My group presented on the government in Rwanda before, during, and after the genocide. We wrote a pretty ballin’ poem about it. If anyone wants a copy I can send it to you! Then we spent the weekend in beautiful Kibuye at Lake Kivu. Before we left for Kibuye we visited PHARP, which is the organization that our professor works for. It stands for Peacebuilding Healing and Reconciliation Program. Their main purpose is to create an environment where people can begin the healing and reconciliation process and also get training for future work. We met a group of ladies who were being taught how to sew. We sat in on their morning Bible study and listened as they sang songs and praised God, I couldn’t stop smiling. At the end they asked us to sing a song so we sang Amazing Grace. After we sang a few verses we all sang a verse of “halleluiahs” together. It was awesome. Then they sang one last song that was about thanking God for everything that he had given them. They were dancing around and even pulled a few of us to dance with them. As corny as it sounds, seeing them like that made my heart leap with joy. So after that incredible morning we set off for Kibuye.

This is the view from one of the hotel balconies

There we swam, hiked, and just relaxed. On Saturday we took a boat ride to Napoleon island where we climbed to the top in like 16 minutes. It was the fastest and hardest hike I’ve been on. It was great.

Napoleon Island, from the boat

Scaling the mountain

View from the highest point of the island

Climbing back down was a feet in and of itself. At one point we were climbing horizontally across the side of the mountain trying to find a way down. Eventually we all made it down safe and sound. We then boated over to Amahoro (Peace) island where we relaxed in hammocks, climbed trees, and walked around the beautiful little island. Sunday morning we went to a little church that our professor had connections with. One thing you should know about Rwandans is that they love to sing. As a whole Rwandans aren’t very expressive, but when they do express their emotions they do it in song, so their songs are always very powerful. This little church had 3 different choirs that all took turns singing. The actual message was only 45 minutes and the other 2 hours and 15 minutes was all singing. It was great. Then after church we headed back to Kigali.

Last Monday started research week for our other class, Social Context for Community Development. We’ve been in rural Muhazi going around to different cells interviewing the people there and filling out a questionnaire. We were split into groups of 2 and each group had a translator. The questionnaire focused on 4 main areas, which are: general conditions, health, livelihood, and access. We spent about 6 hours every day out in the field collecting this data. On one hand the research was hard to do; to see and be in the conditions that these people live in everyday and to actually hear from them what the problems are. On the other hand it was good because now the program is better equipped to help these people in the future. We are spending today compiling the data into 4 presentations and on Friday we will be going back to Muhazi and presenting out findings at the sector office.

Now for what I’m really excited for! We found out our practicum placements a few nights ago! I’m going to be spending a month at Center for Champions in Rwamagana as their Health Advocate. Basically I’ll be teaching kids from ages 10-22 about nutrition, fitness, hygiene, disease prevention, etc. This is such an amazing opportunity that God has given me. It’s definitely out of my comfort zone, which is nerve racking but also really exciting. When we first talked about practicum sites I was hoping to be placed in a hospital malnutrition ward, but when I heard the description for Center for Champions I knew that’s where I needed to be. We head out to our sites on Monday and we’re there until March 20^th. I can’t wait to get involved and see what God has to teach me through these kids. I'll definitely be writing more about my time at Center for Champions in the coming weeks.