8 October 2008 (Day 8 Rwanda)
Got up early and waited for Emmanuel, Chrysologue, and our RAV 4 driver Oscar to arrive before heading to Huye (Southern Providence) which is just over a 2 hour drive away from Kigali. We picked up Sofia the area director for ASSIST Rwanda. She navigated the rough dirt roads which all looked the same to me, but obviously are not.We visited four different sites. First area we met with the local government (21yo revenue guy, 28yo accountant, 30 yo something and a 32 year old something else - which just amazes me that they're SOOOOOOO young!) After a quick coaching sessions we headed to our first ihene site, where we met & spoke with the head of the cooperative for a few minutes. During this time Vicky had a great idea so she announced that next year they should have a meeting of all the cooperative heads to help them discuss their problems/questions/ideas for the future. The girl thought it was a great idea, but was rather shy about expressing it verbally, but you could tell from the look in her eyes.
Two more sites were visited again with local government being met as well - stats like about 65% are under the age of 35 while only 20% are over the age of 50 were given to us. We saw many many ihene and small children who loved to touch my muzungo (white) skin or my hair.
One of our last stops on that day was to meet with Jean-Paul. He's a 21yo child headed household (CHH) but who actually has no other family left at all. The local people have helped him build a house and an ihene enclosure (see Itafari Foundation blog for the photo).
Our final stop was to meet with 3 girls who have 12 goats at a former scout camp site. It was so nice we decided to sit on the lawn to chat until it started to rain, when we rushed back to the RAV4 and headed back to Kigali.
Before going to the hotel, we stopped at Nakumatt to pick up all of our dry ingredients for the ex-child combatants spaghetti dinner tomorrow, before we finally were able to have dinner at our home away from home.
NOTE: from 8am till 9pm we only consumed 1 Fanta l'orange and half a protein bar each! Oh btw no bathroom stops either!
posted by Sara @ 3:32 pm
2 Comments:
why no bathroom stops?
no bathrooms along the way - they use holes in the ground and it's like there are any rest stops or restaurants with toilets which you can stop at along the way
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