Yesterday was another fantastic day!  In the morning we were taken to another potential Food Security site - Kibilizi.  A poor area, with not much land, but a community already demonstrating working together to help each other.  There is quite a commitment to education with a pre-school started in April of 247 for children ages 3 to 7!  This includes a number of 'street children'.
We met with representatives from the community who told us some of the things they were doing.  For example, one woman talked of an association that she belongs  that meet each week. At this meeting, each member puts in 100 Rwf (that would equal to less than $.25 in Canada).  From this they are able to help each other.  They give out loans to members as capital to try and start income generating activities, and collect the money back with small interest.  With the money they make, they buy animals to try and combat poverty.

After lunch we had a few visitors.  Kabanda, the student Mackenzie's class at Pender Harbour Secondary supports, brought his mother by for a visit.  They had some nice gifts for everyone!  He is a very nice young man!

Then we headed out to do some more APAP visits!  We made it to three farms!  Rachael reports that these farms are three that are very consistent in their animal husbandry.  One man, Aldephonse, is a businessman who has vision.  He has a biogas set up at his farm that uses the cow manure to produce electricity for a stove and a light! His wife also runs an association that teaches local women who are struggling for income (widows and orphans) how to make baskets, drums and clothing to sell. Another opportunity to shop!!!!!!!

We rushed back from farm visits to the office to meet with our agent, the Bishop of the Kigeme Diocese.  We were able to give him an overview of what we've done and seen so far.  He expressed his appreciation for all the projects and acknowledge the great things the team was doing in building relationships!  He commented on the large number of friends he could see that Mackenzie, Samantha and Hannah have made - simply by playing out on the street by the guesthouse!

Time is going by way too fast!  Our days have been so full and busy - but great!

The youth camp was fantastic!  Getting to see so many of our students together in one place, for the three days!  We had very good attendance, 97 out of 105 students attended!  Of the absent students, 2 were in their last year and sent word that they remained at school for extra prep for the big national exam!!  A few were sick.  Three of them will connect with us before we leave!  Unfortunately, we removed 2 of the students from the list as they found other sponsorship.  

The whole idea of working together on a community project for the afternoons was fantastic!  The students really relaxed, and asked a lot of questions and generally worked to develop relationships with all of us!  Some students, who have been in the program for a few years and hardly have said a word to Rachael or I were opening right up!  What a great time!!!

Today John, Jack and Diane left us to start their journey back to Ontario.  We will miss them, they were a wonderful addition to our team and were a big help!  Imagine travelling all the way to Rwanda to make such wonderful Canadian friends!  We are now back to a team of 8!!!

Today we went to another potential new site for the 'Food Security' Program, Muse.  We again were very excited about this site and the vision the parish pastor has for this community!  One highlight form the information we gathered was the work they do with two associations of children they are working with - 15 children in each.  They are starting young, teaching them the concept of savings and credit, how to generate money, and then manage it.  Since they have started, all the children have their own rabbit!  

Thursday saw the start of our youth Camp!  111 students have shown up for this three day event!  Great teaching this morning on forgiving themselves and others on events in the past.  This was generally referring to the genocide, as a number of the students would have been around, and /or their families would have been affected.   We even heard stories of what happened to some of the adults in the room.  A great theme in Rwanda is to be silent, don’t talk about it, but the students were told that they need to speak to get past it and move on with the rest of their lives.

This afternoon found our team with all the students up in a field by the primary school clearing the land for another building.  It was a fantastic experience as the students loosened up and the shyness was lost.  Lots of great conversations and questions – about Canada, about their sponsors and so on!  These students are hungry to connect with their sponsors!  We also all got a lot of Kinyarwanda lessons, which I think I promptly forgot!

Been a few days since the last entry!  A busy few days!!!  The last 2 days, we left the Kigeme area and went to the Eastern Province to visit our Veterinary Student, Felicien, who is attending Umutara Polytechnic University and is just about finished his third year!  It was very nice to see Felicien, he has been a very good friend since we began visiting Kigeme!  He is doing very well, and gave us a tour of the campus introducing us to the Dean of Students who continued the tour!  We also heard all about the history of the university from the assistant to the head of the university.  We learned that the government is supporting the science disciplines, so is putting more and more resources into the place!
We woke up Wednesday morning and got ready to visit the Akagera Game park, in the same area.  We saw more animals!  Zebras, giraffes, antelopes, baboons, a couple of hippos, various birds of prey and a couple we have to look up!!  We also saw an angry water buffalo, who took exception to us invading his privacy!

Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, we stayed too long in the park and had to rush to Kigali to try and get a bus back down to Kigeme.  Almost ended up spending the night!  But thankfully, between the person accompanying us and our friends back in Kigeme, arrangements were made!  We arrived back in Kigeme after 10 pm, exhausted and hungry (breakfast was a lot earlier!)

Today Rachael and Carolyn had the opportunity to visit children sponsored through Compassion; one, Callixte, by Rachael and the other, Alphonse supported by their parents, Matthew and Cynthia.  It was a wonderful experience to visit both homes.  Remarkable people!!!!

The Stewart's got to meet Grace, the secondary student whose education they have been supporting!  It was a wonderful meeting to witness!  Their first meeting was after church yesterday, and then this afternoon Grace joined us at the guesthouse for a little while!  She is very thankful, as she puts it, to her "Canadian Mom & Dad"!

This morning we drove a while to Cyivugiza Parish.  This is an area where they are interested in becoming part of the Food Security Program.  The leader spoke excellent English, a man with higher education.  He showed us two large patches of land for goats, and eventually cows to graze as well as growing crops for both human consumption and for the livestock.  He also showed us a very progressive barn that they have almost finished building to house the goats.  This area is one really affected by the genocide and more recently HIV/AIDS.  It is an extremely poor area with over 80% of the people living below the poverty line, earning maybe $1 a day.  Vincent is a visionary, and presented us with plans for a veterinary clinic, a plan to drain the valley for more crops, and a plan to purchase and install a water storage tank so they can begin to store and use rainwater.  Right now, to get water for their crops, family or animals they need to walk an hour and carry it back.

The last couple of afternoons we have done a lot of walking and visiting APAP farms!  They don't call this the land of 1000 hills for the fun of it!  And you know, if you go down, and down and down into the valley, you have to climb back up!!  The visits were very interesting.  We saw some farms that have acted on the teaching Rachael has done in the past and are seeing some improvement.  We also saw some that haven't, and are still experiencing frustration.  It is hard to get to the bottom of why - is it money or a lack of understanding.  Rachael will continue to persevere!!!  

During the last two mornings, we went out to two of the other areas covered by the 'Food Security' Program, Kiraro and Mugombwa.  Rachael, John, Jack, Kristy and Diane continued to teach about proper nutrition in the cow.  The rest of us have learned all about the cow's stomach!  Did you know a cow doesn't have four stomachs, but four parts to a stomach?  There is so much more info we could tell you!  The farmers were very interested, and asked many questions.  They really appreciated learning the reasons behind why they've been told to feed the cow particular things.  Hopefully they will act on what they've learned and this will lead to increased milk production in their cows which will benefit both their families and the community around them.

Wednesday afternoon, Alan and the girls engaged in some soccer outside our guesthouse with some local children.  It is really wonderful to see the interaction between our kids and the local ones.  Rachael and Carolyn attended a meeting with the APAP group, Food Security and the parish leadership in order to define the relationship between APAP and the Food Security Program.  APAP is a local association of farmers that Rachael has been developing a relationship with and helping since 2006.  It was good to meet and work out how the two groups could benefit each other.  Please see the page on our website, under the agricultural projects, for more information on the APAP association.

This afternoon we went out as a group to tour a number of APAP farms and to see how the farmers have been doing since last year.  It was nice to get out for a good walk and see old friends.  We also were able to see the new APAP bull purchased with money raised by the Udder Project.  They have had the bull for two months and he's already impregnated 30 cows.  While we were touring, we gathered up a number of local children who followed us the whole way.  The girls taught them how to have thumb wars, which created a lot of laughter!  Sam even challenged a few of the adults!!  Again, great for relationship building!

The weather has been very interesting, we are here in the middle of the dry season and the last two nights we have had thunder and lightning and very heavy rain!  Tonight as well, and we were still out at the farms!  Some rain before we got back, but thankfully it didn't amount to much!

This morning our team headed out to Gahira.  The drive there was beautiful, some great country side!  While we were there, Rachael, Kristy, John and Jack - with some help from Mackenzie, and Origene our translator - spoke to a group of 'Food Security' beneficiaries.  We learned all about the digestive system of a cow, and why it is so important to feed them both grass and the food concentrate - a concentration of high energy grains.  

We spent our last full day in Nairobi shopping at the Masai market,  tying things up at the school & packing!!  The market was great!  Almost three hours of checking out all the possibilities, choosing and negotiating!  We all bought a great deal of stuff.  

In the afternoon we headed out to Mathare North to tie things up at the school!  We needed to finish our order with both the Bead group and the Tailoring group!!!  So, lots more stuff to bring home in addition to what we purchased in the morning!  As well, we settled up with the tailoring group for the uniforms for our students that we ordered!  

We also were able to give gifts to some of the staff who were around.  The rest we left with the Headmaster to give to them!

A number of our students from standard 8 came to see us and say goodbye.  They sure are appreciative of the support they are getting and asked us to make sure their sponsors knew this!!

It was very hard to say goodbye and drive away!

This morning, after a crazy time in the Nairobi Airport, we arrived in Kigali.  We were joined (on the plane) by the rest of our team, John, Jack and Diane!  After getting to and settling into our guesthouse for the one night, we headed out to the Kigali Memorial Centre.  Here the group heard the history of Rwanda, the lead up to and the aftermath of the 1994 genocide.  A lot of hard information to digest!