Just me and my tree

Another week over. So crazay.  This trip is truly flying by and at the end of each week I’m finding myself so surprised that another week is already over.  At the same time, I’m finding myself missing family and friends more than ever during this time, and I’m very excited for the time I’ll be able to reunite with everyone again.  Don’t get me wrong- I’m not at all saying that I’m not loving it here, as I’m sure you’ll see in this post.

So week three at the Center for Champions! This week has been a bit crazy around the center.  Carrie, the director, received news this week that she had two weeks to recruit 100 new students for the new technical/vocational program they were starting.  As I’m sure you can understand, that put a ton of pressure on her, and was very stressful for the center as a whole.  But by the goodness of God, between the two days of recruitment, over 200 young people came to apply for the program! The first step was having them fill out a sheet of their information.  Not only did this provide us with information, but it allowed the first round of testing, which was seeing if they had the ability to read and write.  A few people didn’t make it through, which is sad because they are most in need of the program, but they just wouldn’t have the ability to be successful in it.  The next day, we had the test.  Carrie asked us all to be there to help proctor it and be sure no one was cheating, so I had my first teacher experience!  It was sad because as we waited for them to show up they had to show ID, and many had the wrong ID’s, their pictures from the day before didn’t match with who showed up to take the test, or they didn’t have any form of ID, which Carrie said would greatly hinder their advancement to the next round as you couldn’t be sure it was the same person.  The program is designed for people with a Primary 4-6 education, so the test was designed to see if they were between those two.  Anyone who completed the whole thing probably had a higher than P6 education and therefore would not be challenged enough by the program, and anyone who couldn’t get at least half of the questions right probably had less than a P4 education level and the program would be too hard.  They were told to be between these two levels of schooling, but you could tell from the test many weren’t.  Walking around during the test, God was really pulling on my heartstrings.  Watching the kid’s hands shake as they tried to identify a circle and triangle, I just saw how great of a need there was for teachers here.  I could hear God calling me to be a teacher louder and clearer than ever before, although where that may be still remains a mystery.  After the test, Carrie and the other leaders of the center went through the tests and chose about 120 students to do interviews with and home visits before choosing the final 100 for the program. So that’s what this next week hold for them.

Besides that, I worked more on the library this week (are you surprised?). I found some more books that had to be labeled, including a box of like 70 “Lawmaking in the United States” books, which I’m sure are going to be a huge hit with the kids at the center… Speaking of, one of the older boys was looking at one while visiting in the library and pointed to a picture of Abe Lincoln and said “You know him?” uhh, Abe Lincoln? “Yes, you know him?” no… “Oh, good man.  Freed the slaves. Good man.” Mmkays!  But also this week I’ve started on a mural for the library! Actually, it’s like halfway done.  I really wanted to have it finished for this post, but then I went to Kigali for the weekend and didn’t have time (but that story is for later…).  It’s a tree made out of the word “grow” and then on the other wall I’m going to have this quote by author Joan Bauer: “We read to learn and to grow, to laugh, to be motivated, and to understand things we've never been exposed to. We read for strength to help us when we feel broken, discouraged or afraid. We read to find hope.”  So yeah, I’m stoked about that.  Obviously some pictures are found at the end of this post! Some funny things from the boys as they’ve seen me painting. Edy-“What does grow mean?” Another boy- “Grow. Growgrowgrowgrowgrowgrow.  Looks like a lot of work.” Knight- “You like the word grow.”  Andrew, our translator, as I was adding to the tree- “I see you’re still growing.” I’m surrounded by comedians.

Also, this week we had the entertainment of a Petroleum truck that crashed right outside our guesthouse! It was the entertainment for all of Rwamagana, and we quickly learned that you could look, but don’t you think about taking a picture.  We know, because Mikey took a few and was surrounded by a mob including a man with an ax that made him delete the photos.  Luckily I heard that story before I tried, because I think that would make me cry.  But we did watch one truck try to drag the other out!  Good pre dinner entertainment.  They had a cable connecting the two and right after Mikey said “This is going to snap and not end well…” it in fact did snap and sparked a ton.  The next afternoon the truck was finally moved up the road, and we took pictures of the damage, which I obviously attached.  I have a feeling it’s going to stay that way for a while…

One day, I took a break from my library and went down to play basketball with the boys.  It was probably one of the strangest afternoons I’ve ever had at the center.  After a little while, we started playing basketball and one of the boys, Samuel, was behind me.  I turned around and asked him if he’s good at basketball, because if the person behind you makes their shot before you do, then you’re out.  So I said “are you good at basketball?” and he was like “yes, I am.” Grrrreat. So I turned around and then Jean Bosco, one of the tallest and strongest boys at the center who is pretty funny, slides behind me in line.  I turned around and said “NO, now I’m really going to lose!” as Samuel peeks around Jean Bosco and says: “You are going to die.” Ookay.  About a minute later, someone started playing with my ponytail.  I turned around, and Jean Bosco had this big grin on his face as he was playing with my ponytail.  “Good?” I said with thumbs up, “yes.” he responded. Alrighttt. We took our shots, went back in line, and the ponytail playing continued, as did playing with my “whispie hairs” as Mikey referred to them, and poking me with my own ponytail.  Very strange.  Then Samuel smuggled a giant stick into the multipurpose room and poked Jean Bosco’s butt with it, and I had to request that it left the room, and he continued to try to smuggle it in many more times.  Then Edy, one of the 12 year olds who visits me in the library all the time, played with my nail polish and then winked at me.  Then we played another round of knockout, and Samuel was in front of me, and I told him I was going to get him out.  “No,” he said, “you’re not good at basketball.” Yes I am! “No, you’re not.” Ouch.  Later we played four on four 2 point games, and when my team played against his, I scored a basket. AYYY! He gave me a big high five and decided “Okay, you’re good at basketball.” Thank you. “You come back tomorrow.” Yeah! “What time?” I’m here all day everyday. “Really?” Yes, I’m just usually in the library. “Do you want me to visit you tomorrow in the library?” Yeah, you should stop by. “Will you give me a book?” No…sorry.  Needless to say, he didn’t visit me in the library.  (Let me end this by saying he speaks phenomenal English compared to many of the other boys at the center- it’s impossible to have conversations like this with many of the other boys, which makes these rare moments so much funnier.) So yeah, a strange afternoon all around.

This weekend, anyone having a practicum in Rwanda was allowed to come back to the house for the weekend.  Mikey decided he wanted to go back, and I thought a trip back home would be really nice, so I went along with him.  Our two leaders, Kat and Mitch, were at home, along with three other wonderful girls, Kat, Emmie, and Andrea, who are living at the house for practicum, and some of the fantastic people that work at our house were here as well.  Our weekend was filled with Anastasia, Mean Girls, Indian food, Kat cutting my hair off, ABC Bagels (donut and bagel- no shame), visiting Les Enfants de Dieu- an orphanage which is the girls’ practicum placement, getting woken up by Aidah, cooking delicious Mexican dinner and eating delicious crepe-ish things made by Kat, and trying Nutella for the first time.  A wonderful much needed weekend.  The way there, we walked a bit down the main road to get to a bus station, paid less than two dollars, and hopped a nice little bus.  Only about an hour drive, and only a few stops, which was really nice. The way back, Mikey and I left our house around 7:30 Monday morning to walk to the bus stop and waited for our “bus” to show up.  Unfortunately, not as many people want to go to Rwamagana as Kigali, and I mutatu was our chariot home.  18 passengers, a baby, the driver, and an hour later, we squeezed out of the mutatu and walked to the Center.  Rough transit.  Needless to say when the fourth person in our row got off a little more than halfway through our journey, Mikey and I “yesyesyesyes”-ed it a lot.  Those things should NOT have four people in a row, it’s inhumane. 

Welp, since the internet here has been down, you get more fun! I got to finish my painting, so I attached some pictures of it, AND they also show off my new haircut! Yahoo!

Me painting!

Back wall before...

Back wall after!

Close up of the trunk so you can
actually see what the tree is made of.

This is how you paint in Africa

Me and my tree! Gotta get the silly one in so
 you don't forget that side of me.

Shema and Edy (my two library friends) using the library!

The damage of the truck...

Jean Bosco and me at basketball

Leonard, (oh shoot, I don't know his name),
and me at basketball

OoOoOoOoh, We're halfway there...!

A waitress walks up to a table. “What will you be halving?” she asks. Confused and assuming they heard her wrong, the customers just order what they were planning on having, which was peanut butter and apple slices.  In a few minutes, the waitress returns with apple sauce and places it on the table. Confused, they ask, “We didn’t order this, we ordered apple slices and peanut butter!” The waitress responded, “Right, well the apple slices we half, but peanut butter, well we don’t half that.”

Welp, here I am, halfway through practicum and halfway through my time in Africa.  (If you couldn’t tell, which I’m sure you could, I just wrote that lil joke myself.  I really wanted to start out with a joke or pun using the word “half,” but that’s surprisingly harder to find than I expected.  As a result, I wrote my own. I thought it was funny...)  I left for DC 60 days ago, and I’ll be flying back into DC in 55 days.  So insane to think that this journey is already halfway over, but when I think back on what I’ve experienced and think ahead to the absolutely amazing people that are waiting for me to come home, I feel incredibly at peace with it all.

But anyways, back to Africa. Before I talk about this past week, I wanted to make some clarifications to my last post because some people asked questions.  One, my job as Evangelism Intern was going to be about organizing chapel services for the catch up students, church for the boarders, bible studies, choir, stuff like that.  Not all the students that come through the center are Christians, so that job really is about evangelizing and both reaching out to them, and encouraging the students who are already following Christ in their walk.  But, I’m really happy where I’ve found myself instead over the past two weeks.  Also, the staff, like the students, pretty much only speak Kinyarwanda. Carrie, the director, and Melissa, who has been there for three years but now only works two days a week at the Center, are both from America, so obviously speak English, and  then Andrew, a Rwandan, speaks very good English and serves as our translator most of the time.  Also I realized I never stated that I'm here working for the month with two other girls from my program, Aleaha and Madi.

Alright, so week two! This week we welcomed Mikey, another Go-Ed student, to the Center, which has been a lot of fun. Something that hasn’t been fun, has been working through sickness.  All four of us have, in different intensities, found ourselves sick, and as a result have placed ourselves on a very strict “toasted bread and fruit” diet.  Thankfully, we’re all back to not cringing at the site of food and eating things that aren’t just the color yellow.  Fortunately or unfortunately, feeling sick has stopped me from desiring to go to sports time, which, due to the insane rainy season here, has been off site soccer and indoor basketball all week.  This means I had two more hours a day to spend in the library, and even more than that if I skipped out on going to COCA or recess time, which I did often (Jonas and Jonathan, the German interns, run all three of those things, so it’s no necessity to have any of the four of us attending as well).  This means, drumroll please, MOST OF THE LIBRARY IS DONE! I’m very proud.  All the textbooks have been labeled, inventoried, and put on shelves (over 900 books total!), as have the teacher resources in the teacher's lounge (432 workbooks, overheads, lesson planners, etc.), and the topical books, fiction books, and children books have been relabeled if need be, organized, and shelved.  Strong boys, as we tell them we need, have helped me move shelves full of books to where they should be- but let’s not ignore the guns that I’m getting from toting books and textbooks and shelves throughout the room! It’s been incredibly encouraging to watch the library progress, really satisfying to know I did all that work myself, and also humbling to know that I can complete the work of two years of interns and workers before me.  As much as I love working in the library, some days spent in there alone have been, well, lonely. But when students poke their heads in asking for books, or thanking me for working on their library, or when Carrie tells me that she’s been praying for someone with a heart for the library to come along, it really makes it all worth it.  So that’s been the bulk of my week.  I’m really happy to attach some updated shots of what the library looks like now, and I’ve added some more “before” shots to my last post along with clarifying the descriptions so you can really see the difference so far.  This week I’ll finish labeling shelves and start decorating, and soon the library will be open for business! Yahoo!

On Tuesday of this week though, I did leave the library during sports time to watch the boys play soccer.  They check out cleats from the center and go off and play at a dirt field about a ten minute walk away, since their field isn't ready to be played on yet.  When I got there, I couldn’t help but laugh that there were four cows grazing right on the edge of the field, but I guess that’s Africa for ya.  Madi and I brought along a football to throw around, and attracted two adorable little kids, Sylvie and her brother (I never asked his name… oops).  Every time I’d get the football thrown to me, I’d toss if over to both of them, and they’d toss it back, and they started getting fancy/funny as they got used to the football and my funny faces and expressions.  Soon the little boy came up to me and grabbed my hand and said ball, pointing to the unused soccer balls.  So I grabbed it and we moved down the field and kicked it around, which they loved much more.  The boy came up to me again and motioned that he wanted to dribble against me, which was hilarious.  He absolutely schooled me, except when I’d scoop him up and take the ball away from him.  I then played a version of money in the middle with some older neighborhood boys, which again, I got schooled at.  I took out my camera after, which the kids loved, and got some fun and adorable shots of them and funny pictures taken by them, a few of which are below.  A little girl held my hand the whole way home, even though she had to wipe the sweat off when she left. Oh well.

On Friday, Sabatto (that’s what his name sounds like, hopefully that’s how it’s spelt too…), one of the boarders, invited Madi and me to come to his school to a church service they were having where he was preaching.  We went along with him, and enjoyed a really nice walk, filled with conversations of my favorite parts of Rwanda, questions about life in Rwanda and school, and as we  passed countless cows and goats, questions of if we have the same animals in America.  Finally, we reached the school, which is a secondary and primary school combined, so it was swarming with children.  They were very excited to see a muzungu  and as we followed Sabatto to the classroom, we had quite the mob of children following us.  That will never get old, and when I get back to America, I’m really going to miss having kids like me just because I’m white-  I doubt I'm going to be able to make a baby instantly stop crying when it sees me, like I can here.  When we got to the classroom, Sabatto had us sit up in the front on the side, as we were visitors and also for easy translation purposes.  We listened to, and participated in, tons of absolutely beautiful songs by the choir.  Again, Madi got a recording that I’m definitely going to have to take and share when I’m back home.  Standing in that classroom looking outside at precious kids and banana trees, listening to beautiful Kinyarwandan songs and clapping along, I felt so full and just had to thank God.  After some songs, we took a break to pray, which just insists of everyone praying out loud at the same time.  How beautiful and powerful!  Then back to singing, including “Hosanna,” which is one of the songs we actually know a few words of and the dance too, which was really fun! After that was visitor introductions, where you stand up, say Hallelujah, and talk a bit about yourself.  Now let me tell you, Rwandans love their Hallellujahs.  Anytime someone says it, everyone responds back AMEN! and the louder and more frequent it happens, the more they love it! Madi got up and gave a powerful Hallelujah. Mine, not so much.  We all laughed. Thankfully, that’s on the recording too.  Then more singing, some preaching from Sabatto on Romans 12:4, and then more singing.  It was such a beautiful and fulfilling service, and a ton of fun on top of that too.  When we left, we were already late to dinner, so we hopped on bike taxis.  They’re just bicycles with big seats on the back to sit on, and they only cost 100 francs, so they’re a good deal too.  It’s something I’ve wanted to do since getting to Rwamagana, as they’re everywhere, and I was excited to finally be able to.  Sadly, we were riding at night, downhill, and my driver was on his phone for part of it then decided to race the other bikes, so it wasn’t as fun as I was expecting. I think I was either praying or cringing the whole time, which must have been a sight because when Sabatto saw my face, he burst out laughing. I yelled to him “IS THIS SAFE?! THIS ISN’T FUN!” but he wasn’t holding on and I was holding on for dear life, so I think I just have much to learn.  Thankfully we made it home safe and sound and back for toast and bananas.

Other highlights (not of the good kind…) of the week include- waking up at 2 am to a giant bug on my head that had gotten into my mosquito net, watching a cow walk down the street and fall on the pavement, getting caught in countless rainstorms, and not having running water for many days (when I skyped my parents yesterday they said they could smell me from America…).  But thankfully, Africa is still beautiful and amazing, and we still have hot chocolate every day for breakfast.

So yeah, another long post, but I’ve heard that people enjoy reading about my adventures, so hopefully long is okay! Check out some sweet pics below, and have a fantastic week! Still sending lots of love and prayers from Africa!

A bit of the Center for Champions-
right as you enter the gate

View from the library- at least I have something nice
to look at as I spend every minute of every day in there!

The new home of the textbooks! 

The new left wall and bit of the back wall!

The new back and right wall!

The new right wall! AND EMPTY BENCHES!

Some precious kids.

My new absolute favorite picture ever.
Sylvie's on the left and her brother is on the right.
I don't know who the kid in the middle is...

Practicum! Yahoo!

Today I find myself a week into the second chapter of my adventure here in Africa- practicum.  Practicum was the main reason that I chose to do my travels with Go-Ed, because it brings something totally different into the traditional study abroad experience.  Basically, in its most basic form, practicum is a month long internship in small groups throughout Rwanda and Uganda.  We receive job descriptions and then look them over and create resumes to apply for our first three choices.  Originally, I was really hoping to find myself teaching for this month, but there were no opportunities for that, so I really looked over all the job descriptions and prayed about it.  I eventually found a job that I thought would be a good fit, the Evangelism Intern at Center for Champions in Rwamagana, Rwanda.  I got the position, and conveniently, it was my field visit site for my NGO project for my development class, so I got to get a sneak peak plus a bunch of information about the site before I even started my practicum. So here’s some of that information for you!

Center for Champions was opened in 2008 by African Evangelical Enterprise, the NGO I did my project on.  AEE is very focused on both evangelism and community development and empowerment, and they were reaching out to street kids through those programs.  They were caring for their immediate needs and sharing the gospel with them, and many kids were coming to Christ through that.  But even with knowing Christ, the kids still had to lie, cheat, and steal in order to get by, and both the kids and AEE clearly saw the problem there.  Out of that came the Center for Champions.  The center runs two major programs.  The first is for boarding students, who are between the ages of 13-25.  These students, currently 51 (48 male, 3 female), live at the center and attend secondary school in the community during the day.  The other program is the catch-up program.  This is 6 years of primary school condensed into 3 and is attended by vulnerable students in the community, between the ages of 12-25.  There are currently four classes, catch up 1, 2a, 2b, and 3, and each class has between 20-35 students.  The center has a library, art room, dorm building, classrooms, volleyball/basketball court, indoor multipurpose room used for chapel and sports, cafeteria, and a new soccer field which is almost ready to be used!

So, we showed up on Sunday at our compound.  It’s absolutely beautiful- so green and garden-y! We settled in our rooms and headed over to the center, where they were hosting a choir concert for local schools.  We got to introduce ourselves, and they were super welcoming- two boys came over right away and volunteered to translate for us.  One choir came up and sang “Soon and very soon we are going to see the King,” which I have distinct memories of singing in my home church, and then a song in Kinyarwanda, and then said that since there were visitors who didn’t speak their language, they would sing one in English, which was incredibly touching.  They sang a beautiful song about going to the river to meet with Jesus and surrendering to Him there as He cleansed you.  At risk of being cliché, it brought tears to my eyes. 

Monday we got a tour of Rwamagana from Carrie, the director of the Center, which is an adorable little town.  We saw the market, supermarkets where we can get water and cookies, Carrie’s house where we have bible study, and other landmarks.  Then we talked about what our weeks would look like and got more acquainted with the Center.  Even though my job title is technically the Evangelism Intern, I let Carrie know that I’m study Elementary Education, and she’s changed my job to focus on getting the library organized and up and running, and other classroom based things which are yet to come.  I absolutely love time spent working on the library- I could be in there all day organizing and sorting.  They boys are really excited that it’s finally coming together, because I guess it’s been a two year project, but hopefully we’ll be able to finish the work of countless other people and interns this coming month!  We also got to meet Jonas and Jonathan, two interns from Germany who are taking a gap year before college and will be at the Center for a year.

The rest of Monday to Friday is all a big blur, and it’s crazy to think that our first week is already over.  Here’s what a typical weekday looks like for us:

8- Breakfast

8:30- Report to Center for Devotions with Carrie

9-10- Work on projects (ex: library)

10-10:30- Recess with the catch-up kids

10:30-12:20- More project time

12:20-1- COCA with catch up kids (Co-Curricular Education time- Gym class)

1-2:30- Lunch back at guest house

2:30-3:30- More project time

3:30-5:30- Sports time with boarding kids (volleyball, basketball, soccer, etc.)

6- Dinner

Off to bed!

Both the Catch-up kids and the boarders are awesome kids.  There is a definite language barrier with most of the kids, but we’re really learning how to communicate with gestures and motions, and are slowly learning more Kinyarwanda.  The students LOVE teaching us Kinyarwanda, and some of them speak fairly decent English, so we’re working on our communication skills.  Some memorable moments from the week:

1- I FINALLY GOT TO PET A BABY GOAT.  If you didn’t know, my goal ever since coming to Africa was to pet a goat.  They’re everywhere, and they’re so precious.  Thankfully, there is a woman who lives across the street from our guest house who has 5 baby goats and a ton of adult goats.  We’ve made friends with her and visit often to hold her baby goats.  We say our 5 words of Kinyarwanda we know, and she grabs the baby goats by the leg and puts them in our arms.  So wonderful and SO adorable.

2- The first catch-up class a girl came up to me and started talking to me in English during our dodge ball game.  She asked me what my name was, how old I was, and my favorite food.  She was twelve and loved bananas, and then helped me carry the bag of dodge balls back up from the multipurpose room. Precious. Unfortunately I forget her name… so many to learn…

3- Playing sports with the boys in the afternoons.  They love the challenge of us trying to steal the basketballs from them as they’re dribbling, and it’s just a ton of fun to play sports with them.  We got to play some good volleyball, which I’ve missed so much, and just spend time together getting to know each other.  The guys are great- they’re really sweet and are a ton of fun to hang out with.  It’s tough not knowing what their saying most of the time, but we’re pretty used to it by now.

4-Kids! Whenever we walk down dirt roads, we’re greeted by tons of kids saying MUZUNGU! and running towards us with open arms and giving our legs hugs.  They’re so precious and adorable, and often there are one or two not wearing pants, which is sad but adorable at the same time.  They’re so cute and always make you feel loved.

5- Friday! Friday was a teacher's holiday, so there was no school for the boarding students or catch up kids, so we headed over to watch some of the boarders play in a friendly soccer match.  A ton of catch-up kids were there, who we got to hang out with.  The other day at chapel they had sang “Our God is an awesome God” in Kinyarwanda, and we sang along in English and did motions.  After playing Frisbee and teaching them funny games, I was with a bunch of young teenage girls who were teaching me a bunch of Kinyarwanda words and wanted to teach me the song in Kinyarwanda and have me teach it to them in English.  We probably sang the song like 20 times, and ended up sitting under a tree while I taught them the song in English and they played with my hair.  Then they taught me a bunch of handshakes and just said things to me that I didn’t really understand while we laughed and laughed. Such a good day. Except that I got my first African sunburn, ouchhh.

6- Church this morning at the Center.  Hallelujah, AMEN! Some of the most genuine worship I’ve seen in a while and it sounded dang good too.  They boarding students’ choir sang “Our God is an Awesome God” in English and Kinyarwanda, which seems to be a theme of this week.  And He sure is. Madi took a recording of a lot of the singing, which I’m so excited to share with people when I return home.

Well, I know this post is insanely long, but I wanted to be sure that I wrote stuff down for my own memory and also to give everyone more details about my life now that I have them.  Hope everyone is doing well, I think of you all often.  Sending my love from Africa!

Now for pictures! (Thanks to Aleaha for all the pictures besides the first one and the two of the library, which are mine) (ps, I just found out that if you click on the picture in the blog you can slideshow through all of them bigger! Just thought I'd share my nugget of wisdom.)

A bit of our new compound!

My first goat petting! Yusss. 

I'm so good with teenagers.  hahah this one made me laugh
so I put it up.  I swear I was having an awesome time, not
at all feeling the way I look in this picture.

My life here. Catch-up kids teaching me
a handshake.

Me and one of the catch-up kids I hung out
with on Friday.

Before shots of the library- textbooks.

The left wall, and some of the back wall.

The back wall.

Right wall.

Holding a goat. Another momentous day.

Standing on the basketball court at the center