Rwanda People

July, 2009

Scenery - Rwanda is the Land of 1000 Hills and an absolutely most beautiful country!

Cows - I was part of the team working with farmers on animal husbandry

Learning Spaces - We were there to teach but I feel we learned as much as we taught

Genocide Memorials - We always say, "Never forget." Will we forget again the next time?

Churches and Music - This country lives and sings it's faith

People - Wonderful people we met

 

Viatuer, the Food Security Veterinarian with the Kigeme Diocese. He's very excited about the supplies we brought him

 

Origene, a most incredible young man. He was our interpreter and, more importantly, an essential member of the team. Origene is going to medical school in Burundi

 

Jean Claude is a great young man studying in Burundi to be an interpreter. He really wanted an English Bible so he could preach in English. I gave him one from St. Paul's United Church

 

APAP Members. We had a great weekend of seminars on animal husbandry

 

Food Security Beneficiaries in Mugombo District. These people offered up incredible testimonies on how their cow or goats have helped them have food, school fees, clothing, and taught them husbandry, personal hygiene, and family planning.

 

Food Security Beneficiaries in Gahira Sector. Origene is translating as I talk about parasites

 

This young fellow is a cow boy for a doctor who is watching the doctors cows along the road by our guesthouse in Kigeme

 

Asinipol, the Manager of APAP. He led us on many trips and really got excited about the medical records. Here he is explaining the records to an APAP member

 

Jehova was "my boy." He helped me slide down some steep paths to houses. He also drew me unbelievably beautiful pictures and made me a God's eye. I gave him a shirt but my shoes didn't fit him so John gave him his sandals

 

Emmanuel met me on the road one day. He's a bright young fellow in Secondary 5, studying physics and chemistry, and math. He only wanted to speak English with me. We went over his notebooks - his work is excellent and talked about his future. He gave me a picture of himself as well. I gave him a tee shirt and as much advice as I could.

 

Ananias, the Bishop's Executive Secretary (he was also holding several other important positions) was terribly busy but we got some time with him.

 

Celestian, the secretary for Kigeme Church, was a fabulous young man. We helped him experience ice cream, recorders, and Lake Kivu for the first time.

 

Here is Celestian with Felicien, the vet student. Felicien is a lot of fun and is wonderful for taking 5 years to go back to school. He was the pastor of Kigeme Parish until the Bishop touched him to go to vet school.

 

Fiona is an agronomist and researcher at the Kitabi Tea Factory. We had a wonderful snack at her house after she led us on a tour of the tea factory. In this picture she is showing us how to pick tea, namley 2 leaves and a bud.

 

Bernard was everywhere and everything to us. He is a special man. He brought us yogurt one day and it was cold!

 

I don't know who these people are but this is a common way of carrying things, even hoes from the potato harvest.

 

For Community Service day (the last Saturday morning of every month, communities work on a joint project. Even the president, Paul Kagame participates). We "planned a school." We worked with prisoners in a work camp (minimum security) to take down a forest and level the ground for a Primary form 2 building. Notice how inappropriately dressed the women are. Yes,that is me hoeing with hiking boots and a skirt. I assisted in taking down two trees and took out my own tree (it was all of three feet tall but I was impressed).

 

Children, children, children! They followed us from farm to farm. They waited for us outside the guset house. It was school holidays and it was wonderful to see all the children.

These children were singing as we walked by