Last Saturday in Kigali my classmate Sarah and I competed in a Frisbee tournament. It started at 7 in the morning and we finished around 6 in the evening. I was on the Gray team, but unfortunately my friend and I were on opposite teams. I played six games and each game was at least one hour. My team had a mix of talented players. We had a couple of players from Burundi and Uganda, a bunch from Rwanda, and a couple of Americans. They were all really good and it was so much fun playing internationally. We did pretty well overall, we lost 3 and won 3. We almost came in third, but due to one point in overtime we came in fourth. By the end of the night I was really sore but it was so worth it. I have to say it was weird not playing with my team from school, I miss them. But I made some new friends and scored a bunch of points. I am now am pumped for summer league once I get back home!!!
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Week Two
Sorry I have been really bad at keeping everyone updated. Please forgive me. I just have been so busy. This last week in Muhazi has been really interesting. We surveyed one more area but it was hilly, covered in weeds, and people have already started planting for the next season. These past two weeks I have become very passionate about the project, but in my heart I had a feeling it was not going to work out. There was just to many factors working against us. Just seeing the conditions of the fields made me realize that we were to late in the season to be successful in the project. Plus we had no tractors! The two tractors that we originally were leasing from the prison fell through. Because there were no tractors I had no work for three days. Last Thursday evening we finally got one tractor but it was in bad condition. On Friday it was in shop for most of the early morning. Then when we finally got it to the site it ran out of gas. Then the tractor’s battery died twice throughout the day! Friday was just a stressful day. We hardly got anything done and we are suppose to have at least 60 hectares done by next week.
Practicum Week One!
I am on practicum if you are curious on why I have not been on the Internet. Practicum is like an internship except you are graded. I am very interested in agricultural development and I was given the opportunity to work with Procom. One of my teacher’s Dwight Jackson heard that I was interested in agriculture so he had me work for his organization. Dwight is the leader of PROCOM his vision for Rwanda is to increase the farming production for low-income farmers. Rwandan’s economy is subsistent agriculture. Most people farm by hand which makes their yields small. Plus you have the problem of competition because most people sell the same crops. What Procom is doing is they are leasing the land from people in Muhazi. PROCOM goes in with tractors and machines and plants a butt-load of corn. Then the corn is sold to the government and the profits are split between the organization and the people. The main purpose however is education, PROCOM’s goal is to teach Rwandans more productive farming techniques. Through using tractors and modern farming techniques the livelihood of the community can be impacted. This is their goal in development, through teaching and showing the community how to achieve a bountiful harvest. This is my practicum!
Last week was my first week on the job. My job was mapping out the crop areas in Muhazi. I have been working with Felician a Rwandan farmer that works for PROCOM. We have been traveling around Muhazi with a GPS. We have been making maps of what land we can use for planting. It has been fun hiking around and meeting the people in the community. My Kinya-rwandan is very bad but I am slowly learning more.
Let me just say that Rwanda is called the land of a thousand hills for a reason….. Most of the land that we have been scoping out is on a slope. This is bad because it is very difficult to drive a tractor up a slope. Also there is a big problem with the soil and weeds. The land has not be taken care of so the soil and the weeds could take awhile to become productive. After about a week of hiking we have laid out about 300 hectares (that is about 740 acres). Now all that we need to get the farming started is tractors. Our original lease with three tractors fell through so now we are desperately trying to find some. By the end of the week if we have no equipment we will have to call the project off, because we will miss the next season. Overall Felicain is a fun guy and I have been so far enjoying the practicum.
I am living in Rwamagana it is a medium sized town about an hour outside Kigali. I am staying at a guesthouse with seven other of my classmates. Four of them are working at Center for Champions a school for street kids. Three others are working at the hospital. We are all having a great time and getting to know each other more. Even though we had to learn how to adjust to different foods and shower temperatures we are all having a good time. I feel very blessed to be having this experience and learning more about agriculture. I will have weekly updates because the Internet is unreliable. I am doing this practicum until March 20 then I will be in Kigali for the rest of the semester. So please keep praying that farming in Muhazi will start soon.
Research in Muhazi
One great part about Go-Ed is we are involved in research and development work. Being an Economic Development major it is important to get experience in the field. So for one of our classes we spend a couple of days in a sector doing research about the community. We were given a questionnaire and a translator and went to different Umudgudus (villages). We were doing research for Procom (the organization that I am doing my internship with). Procom is a christian non-profit that works in agriculture development, they are trying to work with the community in Muhazi and other sectors in Rwanda. Rwanda’s economy is mostly subsistence agriculture. That means what they produce is what they consume and sell.The government is pushing towards modernization and that means more productive yields. Procom’s goal is to use agriculture as a way to help the community create a livelihood.
So through last Monday through Wednesday we went out to the Muhazi sector interviewing people in the community. Everyone had a partner and translator. I worked with my classmate Nicoya and a translator named Happy. On each day we would get about 8 interviews. There was a list of people that we tried to target for our interviews because they were leasing there land to Procom. Sometimes it was difficult finding everyone, however the community was very open to us asking questions. Typical questions were as such, “what crops do you grow? How long does it take you to get clean water? What is your monthly income? ETC”.
On Thursday we complied everyone’s research and made posters. One of the biggest findings for me was out of 120 people who had jobs 101 sold crops. Then 60% of monthly income was 0-10,000 FRW that is about roughly 0-15 us dollars a month. Most households had an average of 6 people in the household, so if you divide the income between all the family members it is very small. Researching was hard, you saw a lot of poverty. Many kids were malnourished and had ringworm. It was hard to see but I hope this research will help these families that are suffering.
On Friday we went to the district office and presented our findings to the leaders of the community. Many people seemed shocked at the numbers, and they promised that they would try to change some things. I hope this is true. Keep praying for the families in Muhazi. Also pray for me as I continue work in Muhazi. Pray that Procom can do work in this community and that it will benefit their lives.
Please forgive me for my grammar I am not having the best internet here so I do not have time to read it over.
Trip to Kibuye
Our teacher Pastor Anastse this past weekend took us on a weekend excursion to Kibuye. Kibuye is in the western province and it is on lake Kivu. We stayed at hotel Golf that bordered the lake. This area was so beautiful it was completely surrounded by tall mountains. The lake was huge it had so many islands. Apparently most of the islands are building resorts. So maybe in ten years Kibuye could be a top vacation spot. The lake was so warm and our group swam for hours. Kids joined us in the water and we played water games. It was so fun because they were so small, that we could carry them on our backs. We also went hiking on an island. This island had a mountain in the shape of Napoleon’s hat. I cannot explain to you the beauty I saw when I reached the top. It was so breathtaking the sky was clear and in the distance we saw mountains and islands. God just made such a lovely earth. Its times like these that we just realize that we get overwhelmed by God’s work. I can just tell you this I am so blessed to be in Rwanda and experiencing life to its fullest. I thank God that he put this trip into my life it has really changed me.
Fun Events in Rwanda
I know my blog has been heavy reading but I promise you I am having a good time. Here are some fun events that my friends and I have done since I have been here.
Bowling:
Our cook’s son Julius went to secondary school. In Rwanda that is a big honor! You have to pass a test that is really difficult in order to be able to go. Julius did very well so now he is going to school in Uganda. So we decided to throw him a party! Julius and the house staff have never been bowling, so we decide to throw a goodbye bowling party. So we went to Club Mambo a club that has a bowling alley. It was so funny the bowling alley is not mechanical; there are men in the back that set up the pins. So they are constantly rearranging the pins. I bet they have a thousand hand bruises. This was the first time our house staff went bowling so it was pretty hilarious. Jenette had no idea how to play so instead of rolling the ball she just dropped it. She pretty much left a couple of dents on the floor. Aida fell a couple of times after releasing the ball. It was so much fun and extremely hilarious. Then we ended the night with a pineapple upside down cake that Sara and I made.
T-shirt Contest:
So all around Rwanda you see crazy shirts, literally crazy shirts. Salvation Army and Goodwill dump their surplus of t-shirts into Rwanda. Trust me me when I say this…. There are some weird shirts. Most people do not know English so they buy ridiculous shirts. I hope they don’t understand some of the shirts that they are wearing. So our group decided to have a t-shirt contest. This contest was to find the most ridiculous shirt. Trust me we found them. I found a shirt that had a picture of a walrus. I thought it said “I am a walrus” But instead it says, “I am the walrus”. Look at all the pictures on Facebook, so you can see all the crazy dirty shirts. Trust me most of the shirts are dirty and sleazy, so beware! Unfortunately I did not win but my friend Sam did. Just look at the album and you will understand why.
Meet My Rwandan Family!
Hey everyone! because WordPress is stupid I will send you to my friend’s blog who made a short introduction of each of our classmates. I tried to get it on my blog, but WordPress will not let me upload all the pictures. Ali is pretty creative and she pinpointed us all really well. Enjoy getting to know my classmates.
Love,
Rachel (Rae)
ps. She did not get my nickname right… You will see 
http://alrogers21.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=11
Ntarama and Nyamata
Sorry It has taken me awhile to post this. First was really hard for me to write because it was so horrific to witness. Second I have been so busy I have not been able to write. These two memorials I visited last Monday. Sorry about the grammar again…
On Monday afternoon my classmates and I went to visit two memorials Ntarama and Nyamata. Our first site was Ntarama, a Roman catholic Church where over 5,000 women and children were massacred. In 1994, people fled to churches for refuge. With 90% of the population being Christian, people believed they would find sanctuary and refuge in Churches. However, they found no mercy, the churches became main targets for massacres. In the Ntarama church they threw grenades inside killing many people, then went in and killed the rest with machetes, clubs, spikes, guns, and spears. Outside of the church there was two other small buildings: a worship center and a sunday school. People were actually worshiping and singing when the killers came. They killed without mercy. They brought babies into the sunday school room where they smashed and threw the babies against the wall. The wall inside is still stained with blood. The sunday school room was also used to rape and mutilate women. As I am writing this I am shaking with the memories of the site. The church itself was literally filled with blood stained clothes, to show the significance of all the people that died. 
The second site was another catholic church called Nyamata. 10,000 people were massacred in the church, but over 45,000 people are buried there. The Church was a lot bigger than the first one, but it was filled with tattered blood-stained clothes and bullet holes. Apparently, when the militia came, the people tried to bolt the door, however, the militia had bombs and busted open the door. They first threw a bunch of grenades inside, then they went in and killed the rest of the survivors. Please just think for a second…. ten thousand people that were brutally and unjustly killed. Can you fathom the thought? I don’t know about you but I cannot put into words the emotions that I am feeling.
When we went into the church there was a woman that was cleaning the floors. Her name was Saraphina and the pastor knew her. She was a survivor of the genocide and she was willing to share her story with us. However, in Rwanda, you do not talk about the genocide. If people knew she was talking about the genocide then she could have her house broken into. People in Rwanda keep each other in check. So we went down a dirt road to abandoned field. She only spoke Kinyarwanda, but pastor translated. Even though I could not understand what she was saying, her emotions and her facial expressions told the story. She and her family during the genocide ran all around the country, never finding a secure place. Her husband was taken from her, and killed right before her eyes. She and her children were able to flee, and they hid in the basement of the church. However, the militia knew they were and tried to stave them to death. By some miracle she escaped but throughout all the confusion her kids and her got separated. After the genocide she was reunited with her kids but she describe them as skeletons. She talked more about the horrific events that she saw, but she was often in tears when she described them. In the end she said “You may think I am alive, but I tell you I am dead. I am a dead person with walking legs.” This was too much for me, I was crying so hard. However, when I looked around everyone was crying as well. She told us that she wanted us to know her story and to spread it around. She told us she never wants anything like this to happen again so we need to keep her story alive. She embraced us all, and prayed with us. I took a picture with her.
I thank God that she shared her story, even though it was very hard to do. She is so brave and so beautiful. This genocide was awful, it destroyed so many lives. I honestly can’t put into words the feelings that I have. I know what I have shared with you is downright awful. However, it is part of history and we cannot ignore the past, we can learn from it. More women like Saraphina can be saved if we can spread the word on the atrocities of genocide. That is my prayer, and hopefully yours too, that genocide will never happen again.
Safari!!!
Early Friday morning (around 4 am) my classmates and I jumped into three different safari cars and headed towards the Akagera National Park. It is two hours outside of Kigali. It is so crazy how populated Kigali is compared to the villages near the national park. As we were about an hour into the trip the houses became more spread out. The land was filled with rolling hills and covered in banana trees, coffee, corn, sunflower, and tea plants. It was so beautiful! The kids came rushing out when we drive by shouting Muzungu (white person) and money!!! They were so cute they shouted, danced, ran after our car, and jumped up and down. One of the car’s tires popped when it went into a hole. The kids came running around and we played with them until the tire was fixed.
We got into the park around 7 am. My driver’s name was Jean Louie, he always drove in front of the other cars, so our car would see the animals first. He was so great. The car was really cool because the tops came off so we could sit on top of the car. It was so much fun riding on top seeing different animals. However, everyone got so sunburned! We spent the whole day looking at animals. I saw giraffes, baboons, zebras, water buffalo, warthogs, antelopes. impalas, hippos, and exotic birds. Sadly we did not see any elephants. In one of the other cars, I think one of the driver’s dosed for a second and he went off the road. Two of my classmates were on to the top and the car started heading towards a tree. One of them rolled off, and the other jumped off. They were both okay, but now we just laugh and laugh about how they almost died. It is going to be a story that we will remember for the rest of the semester.
We camped on top of a mountain and the view was breathtaking. So we set up camp and were relaxing UNTIL….. the evil baboon came. Just so everyone knows I am terrified of monkeys (esp. baboons). So this baboon came into our campsite and walked over to where our food was. Most of our group was gathered around the food, then this baboon jumped up right next to us, and we all yelled and ran away!!!!! This evil thing snatched our cookie bag and our peanuts and walked over not to far and ate them all in front of us. So mean!!!! I bet you can all guess where I was when this happened??? That’s right the car! So for the rest of the night I was terrified that more baboons would come into our campsite, but luckily they didn’t!
The rest of the day we went adventuring, and we saw a ton of animals. I am just so thankful, that I had the opportunity to see God’s creation in all its glory. This was a once and a life time opportunity and I am so happy and blessed to be in Africa and to see all these animals in there natural habitat.
Look on facebook for photos!
Love,
Rachel (Rae)
Genocide Memorial
Around 3 in the afternoon my classmates and I travel to the Genocide memorial in Kigali. I knew already that this visit would be very hard for me to take in, but I had no idea it would be this difficult. The location of the museum/ memorial was breath taking. Everything was clean, peaceful, and calm. There was fountains, plants, shiny tiles, and beautiful flowers that surrounded the area. Just when you walked in, you knew you were walking into a sad silence.
Inside the museum there were many exhibits, outlining the genocide into very descriptive details. I had an audio guide that was very helpful, since most of the exhibits were in kirwanda. One exhibit was a huge room just filled with thousands of pictures of victims. Another room was filled with bones, femurs, and skulls. Seeing all of these remains of a once beautiful person, made me burst into tears. The hardest exhibit for me was the children’s exhbit. This exhbit was dedicated to the many victims of the genocide. There were pictures everywhere of beautiful and happy children. Each picture had a description of the child, it’s favorite food, its best friend, it’s favorite thing to do, and how it died in the genocide. That was hard to read, seeing how so many innocent kids were brutally murdered in the name of racial cleansing. At the end of that exhbit a sign stated, you children could’ve of been today’s national heroes. So true….
After all the exhibits there was a huge park outside. There were five different fountains, with chairs secluded from each other (so people could all have their quiet time to recollect their thoughts). Around the fountain was 14 mass graves that each contained thousands of bodies. There is 250,000 people buried in these mass grave sites. I wish I could put all my emotions into this post, but I cannot. This experience was filled with so many different feelings: sorrow, saddness, anger, and suffering. I just can’t believe how a million people were just murdered in about 100 days. It horifies me and makes me sick to the core, the kind of hatred that exhists in the world today. Every family in Rwanda was effected by the genocide, so my big question of the semester is how do you go back to daily life after something like this???? I have no idea, but I hope to get some answers. Please pray for Rwanda and it’s healing.
Love always,
Rachel (Rae)
