Rwanda 2017 | Days 4 and 5

Welcome back to days 4 and 5 of our Rwanda 2017 trip. Whew! That’s a mouthful. We are 7 days out from Rwanda 2018 and I’m feeling very unorganized and a tad bit stressed. I’m ready to be on the ground again; however, we have so much to do the next week. Working on these posts just makes me not want to pack or prepare anymore, and just hop on the plane and GO!

Wednesday | October 18th

When we woke up on Wednesday morning, we looked outside for the shoes that most of us had left out the night before. Not seeing them, we assumed they were still being cleaned by Clarisse (the house manager). Yes, they will clean your shoes every single night. We’ve told our Rwandan friends in years past that they didn’t have to, but if you leave your shoes out, they will get cleaned. However, when Clarisse got there, she said she hadn’t seen our shoes. Turns out, our shoes had been taken while we were at dinner on Tuesday night. I had no other shoes to work in so on our way to Nyabihu, we stopped by the roadside and bought a few pairs of shoes.

We also got stopped by the police on our way to Nyabihu, and if you’ve read my past Rwanda recaps, you know this is a WAAAY too common occurrence for Cory. One year, he got pulled over like 4 or 5 times. I don’t think there has been a year yet that he hasn’t gotten a ticket for something. This is the first time we’ve been pulled over on the way to Nyabihu though, and the cops were just standing on the side of the road, which is also common. They didn’t have a vehicle but wanted us to pay the ticket immediately (honestly, probably because since we were foreigners they thought we would never pay it). They wanted to ride with us to the bank to pay it (traffic tickets are paid at the bank…?), but our car was packed to the brim. We had a brief conversation about leaving one of us behind so they knew we would come back, and Joel either volunteered himself or someone threw his name out. HA! Guys, this is just Rwanda for you- things are different there. Instead of leaving a team member on the side of the road, literally on the side of a mountain, the policemen flagged down the next car, regardless of what the driver may have had to do that day, and made them follow us to the bank with the policeman in the car. It’s crazy, y’all, and so much different from America.

When we got to the school, Joel had another session with the pastors.

At some point in the past few days, Donnie (the guy behind me) had the idea to take school pictures of the children. I’ve mentioned it countless times before, but many of these children love seeing pictures of themselves. Sometimes, that may have been the only photo of themselves they’ve ever seen. As soon as the idea was mentioned, we all agreed that it would be a huge blessing to provide the parents with a hard copy photograph of their precious child, something many of these families would never have. We have even met families who had lost children and the only photograph they had to remember them by was an insurance card. With that in mind, giving them a school photo each year would be a huge deal. So, we got to work! At the time, there were almost 280 kids and we only had a few more days in Nyabihu.

So we got an assembly line going. Dorian and the guys would “clean” the kids up by wiping their faces and hands and straightening their shirts while Donnie and I snapped the photos.

We worked as quickly as we could while Joel was working with the area pastors.

I pray that Baker is as chill this year as she was last.

Once it was time for the children to eat, we cleaned up “school photo” equipment so we could help serve the children their meal.

It’s such an honor to serve these children a meal. When Cory and I first started going to Rwanda, the school wasn’t able to provide a meal and it amazes me how far they have come in a few short years.

Looking back, I honestly can’t believe that I let Baker crawl all around this floor. I am certainly not a germaphobe but typically wouldn’t be okay with this. But we had been wrestling her for the majority of the day and she needed to get those wiggles out, so that’s what she did while we were eating lunch (she wasn’t feeding herself). Good gracious, her hands, knees, and feet were disgusting.

As you can see, my plan worked and she knocked out as soon as we started home visits. Check out that wrist roll.

I know I sound like a broken record when I talk about home visits but they are such a large, emotional part of our trip. We come in contact with so many broken people who have lost all hope. All we want to do is help them, but sometimes it’s just not possible. This young lady is the perfect example. She doesn’t speak and in the beginning of the visit, that’s all we knew. At the same time, Dorian and I asked if she could hear, to which we were told no. All this child needs is someone who knows sign language to be able to teach her how to communicate, but sign language in Rwanda is very rare, or I’ve never encountered anyone who could. In situations like this, we leave feeling defeated because there isn’t a “simple” fix, like food or money. So we pray with them and love on them and let them know that in God, they have everything they need.

Poor girl was tired!

It’s amazing the physical transformation we see when someone accepts Christ as their savior. When we first entered this house, this lady looked sad and lonely.

Most of the homes we go into are small, one-room homes. Sometimes it’s hard for our team (of 7 this year) to all fit inside the home, especially when we have such big guys like Joel and Jordan.

Like always, we acquired a following while out walking. An even bigger following than normal since we had Baker.

Another devastating tragedy that takes place in Rwanda is women who prostitute themselves for money, often times leaving them pregnant at a very young age, and obviously the father is not in the picture. We often see multiple generations, sometimes three or four, living together because a child has become pregnant. One family we met was a mother who was 18, caring for her child who was 7. Often times, we have to ask for clarification to make sure we heard the numbers correctly. It is unfathomable to me that a child (because at 11, that’s what she was. Heck, at 18 she is still a child) is becoming a mother. The sadness of these kinds of situations is numbing.

Also, I feel like it looks very disingenuous to talk about the devastating situations we encounter and then post a picture of us smiling like we are having the time of our lives. Many times, the families we visit don’t realize the severity of their situation because it’s all they know, and more than likely, the people around them live in very similar situations. We really try hard to not let our emotions overcome us in front of these families and to only be encouraging to them. We have a time every evening during which as a group, we talk about stories we heard and situations we encountered that day and that is when we allow our emotions to come out.

I’m pretty sure this is when Jordan formed “The Passion Fruits”. Honestly, I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned it yet but Jordan, the tall guy with a beard, was obsessed with Rwandan passion fruit. I would dare to say that he ate probably 50 or more while we were there. One day when we were out doing home visits, he had a small following of girls that he was singing with and he named his “gospel quartet” the Passion Fruits.

I truly never have experienced a scary situation in Rwanda where I felt unsafe or in danger. There was one time where I thought we were gonna get left in busy downtown Kigali but I wasn’t afraid- just a little uneasy. However, at this visit, I was sitting in this house, looking out the door, watching Baker on Cory’s back. All these children and adults were behind her and while I know they mean no harm, my anxiety got the best of me. Maybe it was because she was on his back and he couldn’t directly see her? But I felt like the walls of the house were closing in on me and had to get out there with her just to make sure no one was going to snatch her out of the backpack (that she was buckled into) on Cory’s back.

Motherhood is a dream, sometimes.

Obviously, she was having the time of her life.

I’m not sure I will ever tire of these views. As we got back to school, we noticed some of the kids were on the basketball court so we joined them for a little shootout. There were lots of giggles from the children and us!

Boys and their toys! Cory has carried this Hulk Hogan around with him for awhile now and all the guys loved ~~scaring~~ playing with the kids with it!

As we left the school that day, our vehicle got stuck on a small hill. As Cory gave it gas to go, a big puff of black smoke hit a kid right in the face. Maybe it was exhaustion but I think we laughed about that all the way back to the house. In our defense, the kids follow behind cars WAY too closely.

We had dinner that night at Hotel Muhabura, which is another favorite of mine because they are one of the few places that sell Panache. Panache is a non-alcoholic lemon drink (I hesitate to use the word beer because it’s not, but made by the same company that makes a popular beer in Rwanda) and is made in Rwanda. It’s delicious and we haven’t introduced it to a team member yet who hasn’t liked it! We had a great devotion that night and decided as a group how we wanted to help Nyabihu.

Thursday | October 19th

On Thursday morning, Cory, Joel, Kenny, and myself went to the Musanze market to look for our shoes. If someone was going to sell them, we were hoping they would sell them there. We were planning on buying them back if we found them (because they probably needed them worse then we did) but we didn’t see them. The market is completely different in the morning than at night. It was so calm and quiet and we hardly got hassled by overly zealous vendors at all.

After we left, we exchanged some money and got gas. We were hoping to find some shoes to buy for the students at the school but couldn’t find any for wholesale.

When we got back to the house we found Baker sound asleep, thanks to the baby whisperer Dorian. So we made sandwiches for the day before heading to the school.

Even though I don’t have a picture of the car we drove right here (you can see it in the post from day 2), it gave us so many fits, y’all. Now, it’s totally laughable, but I think Satan himself was disguised as this car. It really was there to teach us some virtues of patience. As I mentioned a few days ago, we had to push start it every time we went anywhere. Thankfully, Musanze and Nyabihu aren’t as busy as the capitol, but it just became routine for a few of the guys to push it every time we wanted to crank it. Because we were jump starting it, it was messing with the alarm system, and the alarm just went off all the time. I am laughing out loud as I type this because it is really NOT A BIG DEAL and completely a first world problem, but we all wanted to push this vehicle off the side of the mountain. Also, there were two bench seats in the very back facing each other, which was great because we could all fit in it, but it was like a game of Tetris to get everyone in and out. Oh, Rwanda! We love it!

It must have been in my notes right here because the alarm was going off, yet again, as we headed to the school.

Our attempt to get to the school earlier didn’t pan out (I promise, it is hard to get anywhere in Rwanda on time) because of all the errands we had to run. When we arrived, Ben had the parents there so we could speak some words of encouragement to them. Joel spoke first to the dads and recognized how much fewer men there were to women. Single mothers are very common in Nyabihu and a few other villages we serve in, so it’s a big deal to have these men invested in their families.

Next, Cory spoke to the parents about their role in the school and how vital it was for the school and their children to be successful. He emphasized how much the school has transformed in the years since we have been there and encouraged them to keep it up!

Lastly, Donnie and Dorian spoke to the parents as husband and wife. Honestly, I can’t remember what they talked about, because it’s been forever ago but I believe it was about speaking positivity into your children and always letting them know that you believe in them.

And I was in the back, entertaining this nut.

Afterwards, we had a battle of the babies. Ha! All the parents wanted to see Baker and show off their precious children. But with this cutie, can you blame them?

Gosh, I see these photos and how sweet Baker was last year, and it really does worry me about this year. She is just not as chill as she was last year.

After the parents left, we served the children their meal. Every time we served the children, I was amazed at how patient they were for everyone to be served first before beginning to eat. Also, they said the cutest prayer every time before they ate.

We had someone donate these handmade wooden toy cars for the children. The kids absolutely LOVED them, I mean went completely crazy over them!

The only problem was we didn’t have enough for all the children. We had handed them out to some of the older kids before giving all the younger kids one first and then realized we were short (there were more kids than we thought) so we asked the older kids if we could have them back and we would bring them an awesome prize the next day. Every single one of them willingly gave up their toy cars (possibly the only real toy they’ve ever had) so that the younger kids would all get one.

The kids immediately started playing with their new toys. It was so sweet to watch.

While Cory, Jordan, and Greyson started on home visits, Donnie, Dorian, Joel, and myself finished up the school pictures.

Dorian made a fun game with the older kids to help move things along quicker.

Donnie was attempting to be funny but some of these kids don’t get our humor. Obviously.

Most of the parents hung around for the afternoon to get their children from school.

This is the fence that the men were working on earlier in the week. We were blown away by all the volunteers that came out to help after they saw the “muzungus” out there working on it. They got a large chunk of it done.

Again with Hulk! But the children loved it!

After we left the school, we came back to the house for a few minutes and had some snacks before going to the market to get notebooks for the children and a toy for the older classes. We ended up at a different market than where we went that morning which we had never been to this one before. It was an indoor market, almost like a mall. It was much calmer than the outdoor market and we liked it much better. We found watches for the children but decided to go look to see if the market had anything else–when we came back down to get the watches, the guy had closed his “shop” and gone home . It was more like an area he set up at the bottom of a staircase, but he had a cabinet he locked his stuff up in. Rwandans are seriously the most helpful people I’ve ever met. Another shop owner saw us looking for him and called him to come back. This gentlemen came all the way back to the market and sold us the watches. We were so relieved that we had something to give the rest of the children.

Cory had moved the car to the market from the street where we were parked and when we left the market to go to the supermarket, a truck (that had so much stuff in it it was leaning) had parked so close to us, he couldn’t even get in the door. I feel like I can just #Rwanda this and it needs no further explanation.

We went back to Migano for dinner but Baker was so sleepy, we decided against coffee this time. I had a pizza that was delicious! It was supposed to be Hawaiian but had beef, peppers, onions, and tomatoes on it as well. I’m sure most people don’t think we will be eating pizza and hamburgers in Rwanda!

It was Jordan and Greyson’s turn to lead devotion that night so once we got Baker to bed, they led in their awesome new soccer jerseys. Guys, they had us cracking up the majority of this trip but the small jerseys and sandals with socks…I just can’t!