Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone!  With Christmas right around the corner I can only imagine the hustle and bustle that's going on whether it's last minute shopping, traveling in treacherous weather conditions, or getting your house ready for loved ones to take over for a bit.

Over here I've been keeping busy myself even if it is in a very different way than I normally would be this time of year.  Once I got back to site after Thanksgiving I started to dive into project implementation.  The big one was kicking off my First 1000 Days project.  I have mentioned previously what the background behind this project is but now let me tell you about the first meeting to kick things off in my villages!
         
Through my Community Health Workers I invited all pregnant women from the 15 villages in my encatchment area to come to the introductory meeting of the program.  Based on the monthly report there were about a total of 50-60 pregnant women at the time.  As usual, this was just a verbal invite not even directly from me so it was a bit up in the air as to how many people would actually show up.  So on the day of the meeting I was prepared and ready to present on the project in as much Kinyarwanda as I could, had a whole agenda made up and wore my favorite Rwandan dress.





That morning there were a couple women who showed up bright and early after our staff meeting and by 9 o'clock I was sitting in our meeting room with only 6 women and my counterpart was keeping himself busy with Sector Official visits and patients.  There I was just sitting in silence with these women who couldn't understand me, since I already introduced myself exhausting my best Kinyarwanda, in a bit of a panic.  Luckily one of the Community Health Workers showed up and after a short conversation helped me get the women signed in and then she was calling the other CHWs.  Within a half hour the other CHWs show up with more women from their villages! As I saw them start to show up I could finally start to breath again and relax a bit.  In the end we had 35 women show up wich was so exciting to me. Seeing the mobilization from the CHWs made me so happy to be working with this group of people and it was a moment of reassurance that I get to work with a great group of volunteers from this country to make my programs successful.

All of the Pregnant women and the CHWs!

This was their voting process, lining up behind the candidates.

This meeting was just an introductory meeting.  We elected a committee to lead the group and gave an overview of what is to come.  I'm excited to say that our next meeting will be learning how and actually building a permagarden at my health center with the help of one of our amazing Peace Corps Rwanda staff members Modeste!  I will tell you all about this after we finish (I have to keep you coming back and reading somehow...) but basically it is type of small home garden that is able to be functional throughout both dry and rainy seasons providing food for the home everyday of the year.

Our fully formed Leadership Committee

I also am currently in the grant writing stage of my WASH project along with my fellow WASH volunteers.  I actually am headed to a meeting at the Ministry of Health today to discuss the overall implementation of the project.  Even though it isn't quite time to implement it into the villages yet there is still a lot of work happening behind the scenes right now.

Finally, we had our first HIV committee meeting here at Peace Corps this past week. We have an amazing group of volunteers on this committee and I'm excited for the project ideas we have coming up!

Flash back to my big family (we need an updated picture...)

Even though I have been working hard on getting projects started I haven't completely forgotten it is the holidays.  This week I took advantage of some time I had in between meetings in Kigali to do some visiting in the Eastern part of the country.  First, I went and visited my host family from training.  I didn't really realize how much I missed them until I got there.  It was like nothing had changed except that they kept calling me by the name of the most recent Education volunteer, but I'm kind of used to that coming from a big family back home anyway.

I also visited a fellow volunteer in the North Eastern part of the country.  It was so cool to see a different part of the country.  The East is so much flatter and open than the North.  It felt completely different.  I also could see Uganda from where we were which was really cool!  We went hiking in search of this allusive hippo that lives near by but unfortunately we didn't get a glimpse but we did see all of this amazing scenery! 

You can technically see Uganda in this picture!

Now, tomorrow I'm headed to lake Kivu to spend Christmas with a group of other volunteers.  Pictures and stories to come!  I hope you all have an amazing Christmas and start to the new year! 

Talk to you soon!  

Happy Thanksgiving and Almost 6 Months in Rwanda!

My new favorite spot!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!! For those of you who don’t know Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! All of the food and family and the amazing fall weather, it doesn’t get much better.  This year I am spent this lovely day with my amazing Health 7 Peace Corps Family.  Our Country Director let those of us who were able to stay in our villages for the first 7 weeks before IST celebrate at her house in Kigali with an actual American style turkey dinner, pumpkin pie and all!  I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to spend my first Thanksgiving away from home with.  We started the day off with an amazing french toast breakfast, a game of baseball and after eating way too much, we all fell into a bit of a food coma.  It was an amazing day.

Now, what have I been up to this past month since returning from IST?? Well, slowly but surely I’m getting some projects started.  Here is the overview of the two main ones:

First 100 Days:

Malnutrition screening in Kabingo Village

Cooking demonstration in Kabingo

My Health group is the guinea pig group in implementing this project as our primary health project.  Basically what it is, is working with a group of pregnant mothers and mothers with children under 2 years and promoting a number of topics via education and one on one home visits in order to promote the reduction of malnutrition.  The first 1000 days, from conception until the child is 2 years old are the most critical in prevention of chronic malnutrition, otherwise known as stunting.  Stunting doesn’t only apply to physical height but also the stunting of brain development and the ability for the child to succeed in the future.  Here in Rwanda the stunting rate for children under 2 is almost 50%.  Clearly no an insignificant number.  What I am planning, and we’ll see how it all goes, is to start meeting with these future and current mothers to promote Pre Natal visits to the health center, Good nutrition, and focusing on prevention of early childhood illnesses.  All will take a lot of education and dedication to behavior change.  This is just the beginning so there is more to come as I get things going.

WASH:

This is my main secondary project.  WASH is a Water and Sanitation project done by many Heath volunteers here.  It is supported directly through the Ministry of Health of Rwanda and provides a great way to teach and promote proper hygiene at the village level.  I am working in collaboration with a number of my fellow H-7 volunteers on this project.  Individually we will create Hygiene Clubs within our respective populations.  We will hold a training for District and Sector officials who will then train our Village level trainers.  These Village level trainers then put on all of the weekly sessions.  These sessions include topics such as basic handwashing practices along with how to build handwashing stations, proper waste disposal, and different disease prevention topics.  What I think is great about this project is that these lessons are taught to the community by their own community members.  I’m just providing the tools and information they need in order to promote hygiene in their own communities.  We are just in the beginning stages where I’ll be meeting with District and Ministry level Officials along with writing a grant for needed materials.  I’m excited to get this up and running, as I believe I mentioned in a previous post Hygiene is the biggest health issue in my area.

HPV Vaccinations

Distributing Deworming Drugs

Other than getting those projects up and running I’ve been working at my health center everyday as usual.  We just got two new services here.  We now have official Pre Natal Services and we are now able to distribute ARVs to HIV positive patients.  It’s really exciting to see this health center grow.  I’ve also been visiting malnutrition screenings which is always a fun time with all of the kids.  And finally I helped out during Mother and Child Health week where we were able to give deworming drugs to children, iron to pregnant women and HPV vaccines to girls in the schools.  It was great seeing how many people we were able to help within that one week.

Girls being vaccinated

HPV Vaccines

 

I hope the holiday season is starting off amazing for everyone.  There is a lot coming up with my projects and I am so excited to keep you all posted! I would love to hear from you all too.

~Erika

My Favorite Time of the Year

Hi everyone! As you obviously know, it's October and this has always been on of my favorite months of the year.  Back at home its usually starting to get that crisp fall feeling in the air, I break out my sweaters, and of course everything I eat or drink somehow has pumpkin in it.  Being on the other side of the world now, I have to say besides of the lack of pumpkin spice everything, it isn't too different.  The rainy season has actually started up here finally.  At my site I wake up to a freezing cold house after having to bundle up to sleep comfortably.  Also, a "rainy day" here is very different than a rainy day back home.  Rather than it being grey and gloomy for days at a time what happens is everyday I'll see or hear the big rain clouds moving in and as it gets closer you start to hear the rain hitting the banana tree leaves and then it hits, the rain is falling harder than I've ever imagined making it so the banging on my tin roof is so loud I can't even hear my music anymore.  This lasts anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour.  The next thing yo know its sunny and blue skies again.  I've learned from experience to be careful walking out into your dirt compound after the down pour (dirt turns to mud and is quite slippery, that is all I will say...).  So far during rainy season I see rain at least once a week but usually it's everyday.  I wanted to share what this second season of Rwanda was like because I'm really liking it.

What kind of work have I been doing?

Happiness.

So, it's now been officially 2 months since I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer.  I've been at my site for about 7 weeks and currently I am in the second week of my 2 week In Service Training (IST).  Prior to IST I finished my Community Needs Assessment and wrote up my report and presented it to the Health Center Staff.  Writing the report gave me a little flash back to college, it turned out to be about 20 pages and even included graphs and statistics!  In short, the report took all the information about my community I had been gathering over those 7 weeks and established what the biggest needs are and how I plan to try to help make a difference and improve the overall health of the community.

The main issues within my community are hygiene and poor nutrition.  Hygiene is the most basic disease prevention so without proper hygiene practices the doors are open for anything to enter a persons system.  There is a large problem with people not treating their drinking water by boiling or chemical purification with bleach.  This leads to intestinal parasites which often cause horrible illnesses and even death in both adults and children.  Also, not having access to water in general  causes many people to skip laundry day or a shower in the morning which leads to many skin diseases, another common issue seen in the community.  I could continue on but the main point is when people aren't washing their hands at the proper times, or not drinking clean water, etc. there are horrible consequences that can end up being debilitating, expensive, and even fatal.

Some Beautiful children who requested to get their photo
 taken at the most recent malnutrition screening

The second big issue that I will be focusing on at my site is poor nutrition.  Every month the Community Health Workers in all of the villages measure and weigh babies and children under 5 years old to determine whether they are malnourished or not.  Currently the malnutrition rate in children under 5 in my health center's encatchment area is about 1.6%.  This may not seem high but this isn't taking into account the many children not screened and even though they may not be categorized as severely malnourished, when you hear that the average child within your community is only eating 1 or 2 times a day and a diet of mainly starches makes you realize that it really is a bigger issue than the statistics say.  The big issue is people having access to food.  There is so much different food in the market, but due to lack of money and education on balanced diets people just aren't able to utilize the resources that are right in their community.  

When I get back to my site this next week I am finally going to be able to start implementing projects rather than simply observing my community.  Look out for the next posts because as I do projects I'll definitely go into more detail and (hopefully) be able t show you the impact of my being here which I'm very excited for.

Some fun things about my Rwandan Life

So besides working and writing my community needs assessment I've been integrating into my community and then starting to see different parts of the country slowly but surely.  One thing about integrating is there are definitely some days I'm really in the mood and some days where sitting in my house drinking coffee all day sounds a lot better.  But there have been some awesome moments which I will share.  So first, I have mastered the art of holding a conversation with people in the community without saying more than a few "yegos" (yes) and different inflections of "mhmm".  My understanding of Kinyarwanda is improving but the responding part is lagging behind a bit so it is starting to be comforting knowing that my lack of response is still enough to make the old woman at the market so happy by the end of our "conversation".

SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM!!!

Finally, as I mentioned earlier in the post, I am in the last week of my 2 week IST.  Currently I am in the capital Kigali, but last week I got to travel to the southern province for the first time to the the city of Butare.  This city is nothing like the rest of Rwanda.  The one commonality is that it is beautiful just like everywhere in the country but being there I just felt like I was in a completely different place.  Also I had Chinese food (your quality greasy americanized and in this case rwandaniized Chinese food) and I had soft serve ice cream.  After being in the village for 2 months I felt like I was living the high life.

Working hard building a perma-garden.

Well, this is what I've been up to lately.  This is my everyday life and being here is starting to feel normal so sometimes it's hard for me to think of things that you all would like to hear about so if there is something you're really wanting to know about or hear about let me know and I'll incorporate that into the next post.  And, like I said as I start projects, I'll be really focusing in on them.

I hope you all enjoy a pumpkin spice latte for me and I'll continue to take in all the scenery I get to experience everyday for you.

Learning how to carry things the Rwandan way!

                                                             Take care!

 

One Month As A Peace Corps Volunteer!

As of yesterday September 18th I have been a Peace Corps Volunteer for a month!  There have been times where a day feels like it's dragging on but a month also seemed to fly by!!

At my site i have my own house complete with outdoor kitchen room, shower room and latrine. Despite this being the first time I've lived completely alone it's finally starting to feel like home, buhoro buhoro (slowly, slowly).  

Some insight into my everyday life so far: 

Every morning I get up hopefully workout and have breakfast, (its so nice having my morning coffee back!) and then head to my health center staff meeting at 0730. It may seem early but since I now wake up with the sun at 0515 its starting to feel normal. I then help one of the nurses with the education session they do each day, the topics range from HIV/ AIDS to TB to Breastfeeding and Nutrition. This also has been giving me a chance to ask questions to the patients about community health which helps me with my CNA which I will get to explaining soon! Then I do small jobs here and there like being a pharmacist (counting pills and putting them in bags) or inputing data or just sitting talking with other workers but I try to keep myself busy. I then go home for lunch and come back in the afternoon to do activities like school visits or home visits in the community. I finish my day off at home where I cook ( or attempt and then just eat ramen when my stove won't light which is a lot...) I eat, and lately a group of kids coming over wanting to do sport which is so cute and then I do some chores and then read and head to bed. So there you have it a very general view of everyday life in the village. It changes every now and then with market day thrown in there or spontaneous visits from co workers but its all starting to feel just like normal life.

One thing I've really been doing a lot of is reading. In those longer periods of time where I have free time I just read and so far I've read 3 books in one month! I have read 6 books since being in country which is more than I've read just for entertainment's sake in a while! Heres my list so far:

    ~The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman

    ~ Looking for Alaska - John Green

    ~Red Rising - Pierce Brown

    ~ Golden Son - Pierce Brown

    ~ Paper Towns - John Green

    ~ The Poisonwood Bible -Barbara Kingsolver

All were incredible books and I would recommend them to anyone! They were all recommended to me by amazing sources as well!

Finally a little about my actual work. So right now, I am completing a Community Needs Assessment where I  learning about the community itself, what it's creates needs are in terms of health, and how I can eventually start to implement projects to improve those issues. I have been interviewing groups of patients at the health center, school officials and teachers, local officials, and your everyday village citizen. I will be completing a report in the next couple of weeks to present to my health center staff and then my fellow Volunteers in our Health 7 group during our In Service Training the second week of October. There we will have two weeks of technical training to take back to our village in order to FINALLY start getting our hands dirty.

In my next post I'll update you on what I've found in my village and tell you all the things I learn in IST but until then here are some pictures I've taken lately from hikes to visit community members thinking for work is a pretty awesome thing !!! None of these are from the internet. I promise this is real life and I get to see it everyday!! Also, I would love to hear if there is anything in particular you want to know about Rwanda, Peace Corps, me, anything! My internet connection is next to nothing but I can answer emails and FB messages very easily and would always love to hear from you! 

Take care!!

 

The End of Training, Swear In, and The Start of Something Incredible...

Right now I am sitting in my own 3 room house that I got dropped off in yesterday and where I will spend the next two years of my life. 
Training finished up about a week ago with my final language check, I reached the desired Intermediate Mid level in Kinyarwanda(!), some final logistics before we become actual volunteers, and saying goodbye to the family that basically raised us to be able to go out and live on our own in Rwanda.
I just want to give a shout out to that family. My family was and continues to be so amazing and I really don't think I would've come out of training the same if it wasn't for them. Even though I left I know I'll be back and always feel a part of the family for a very long time!
Onto this past weekend... Swear in weekend.  We went to Kigali for swear in on Saturday. We got a couple of days to shop for some things we would need in our houses at site and treats we can only find in the bigger city. We also got these couple of days to hang out with eachother as a training class and relish in how great our group is one last time before we parted ways. Let me tell you, I'm so excited to be apart of this group of amazing people! We are all so different but somehow together we are just a powerhouse of a group. I love each and everyone of you!
Finally, Tuesday came around, the day we swear in as official Peace Corps Volunteers. The event took place at the house of the US Ambassador and our group was so lucky to be sworn in in the presence of the Director of the entire Peace Corps.  This is such an honor as it was only her 2nd time to attend a swearing in event. She gave such an amazing speech and I will never forget her saying, "home is not a building or a city on a map, but where your heart entwines with others..." Its probably one of the truest things for me. My heart is entwined with people who don't live in walking distance or even people who live half way across the world but I can still feel at home being 45 min from my closest volunteer or 20 hours from my family and that's because what she said is so true. That just really meant a lot to me and I wanted to share that one thought of mine.
So, as of Tuesday, August 18th, I can say I am a Peace Corps Volunteer and I'm excited to see where everything goes from here.
Next, I will be starting my community needs assessment to see what kinds of projects will benefit the community the most. From there it is one day at a time to find how I will serve my community to my fullest capacity.
My internet is very slow here so I will post some pictures on Facebook until I'm able to post them here again.
Thank you all for keeping up with me and I hope you all are well!

Site Visit,Experiencing the 1000 Hills, and More!

Muraho!

This is the middle of week 8 of 10!  There are only 2 more weeks of training left, which is so crazy but exciting.  Almost 2 weeks ago, I got to go visit my site which is located in the Northern Province of Rwanda.  I traveled with my supervisor by bus to Kigali, the capital (~1 hour) and then we took another bus to the town she lives in which was another hour away.  I stayed 2 nights with her family and already I have been told that I am now a part of their family and will be visiting many times once I get to site.  The amount of family love I've felt here from my host family here at training and now the family of my supervisor is amazing and I am so lucky to have met some amazing people so far.  

Where I will be living for the next 2 years!

That Sunday evening we headed to the village where I will be living and the health center I will be working at.  In order to reach my site from the town we had to take a moto all the way there.  So, picture me with a big hiking back pack on the back of a smaller sizes motorcycle (basically a dirt bike) cruising through the mountains of Rwanda.  The roads were not roads but dirt paths, and we crossed many questionable log bridges over creeks and rivers.  I was white knuckling the back handle of the bike and all of my core muscles were flexed the whole ride which was 40 min to an hour.  But finally I reached the place I will be living for the next two years. 

 

I spent a whole week there going to staff meetings, meeting the local authorities, including the Police Chief and Executive Secretary of the Sector.  A lot of my time was really just observing the area, the health center and making myself visible to the community for the first time.  I am the first PC volunteer to be serving in this area so it's a pretty new thing for there to be an American there.  I introduced myself to the waiting patients each day in Kinyarwanda and they loved the fact that I could speak even my minimal amount of the language.  I loved my health center and my staff.  The Center is only 1 year old and has so many visions for growth and improvement and these visions and ideas go right along with my role i.e. educating and engaging the community in the improvement of their health overall.  I am so excited to go back and actually start integrating and getting to know my community and working on projects.  Being there I felt like it was a perfect fit for me.

View from the top of a mini mountain on my moto ride!

My absolute favorite part of the visit was the moto ride I took with one of the nurses through our whole encatchment area.  I got to see all the villages we work with and 2 schools nearby.  The area is completely surrounded by mountains and many of the people life up throughout the mountains.  It is absolutely beautiful! I loved every inch of the area and I am excited to explore it even more up close and personal.

After site visit I went to our Northern Regional meeting and got to meet more PC volunteers in my region.  It was a great day to just see one of the bigger towns nearby and relax with other PCVS.  There is a national park with volcanoes and a lake nearby which will be great places to visit eventually.  But I got to have pizza and more importantly REALLY GOOD COFFEE!!! (instant coffee just isn't the same...)

So overall I am so excited to go back to my site and the North, to the mountains, my health center, and being able to wear a jacket in the evening!

One more big thing I want to mention is our trip this past weekend to the Kigali Genocide Memorial.  The Genocide in Rwanda is probably the most commonly known event in Rwandan history which is unfortunate because there is so much more and happier things to know/learn about.  But it is a very important and recent part of history that effects people we interact with everyday.  The trip to this memorial was emotional and inspiring. I would encourage anyone who can to come and experience the country and that particular site because it really is a very impactful experience.  I won't go into a lot of detail because I still do not feel as if I know enough to educate anyone.  However my experience at the memorial after living here for almost 2 months, having a family here and friends here and working closely with people who were here during the Genocide definitely was completely different if I had gone within the first week I was here.  I felt sympathy for each person but more importantly I was inspired by the strength the exhibit each and every day.  A lot of comments or questions I got before leaving involved my safety and the genocide and the one thing I will say is that this country and the people here are constantly working together to strengthen the people who live here and their country as a whole and I feel very lucky to be living here for the next 2 years.

Thank you all for the support you all have given me it's so great knowing you all are enjoying my posts!  I'm excited to share more especially once I get to my site and start working on projects!  My swear in date in August 18th and then I will officially be a Peace Corps Volunteer!!!

Take care and I will post some Rwandan songs on the next blog (technology is hard for me sometimes) as requested....

Talk soon! =D

My Awesome Host Brother Kenny!!

One Month In! (It's a long one...)

So as of today it is officially one month since I left the US for Rwanda.  Time is so weird for me right now, on one hand I can't believe it has already been a month, but on the other hand, it feels like I've been hear much longer.  Either way it's definitely been a great month and I'm looking forward for what is coming next!

Last weekend we all participated in a the Rwandan community event called "Umuganda".  Basically on the last Saturday of the month each village gets together and does a community service project.  This weekend specifically we got together as a group of villages and started work on a new road and market place.  This involved hoeing and digging up grass on the side of a hill, cutting down many trees to clear the area.  A few blisters later and a lot of sweat lost, it was amazing how much land was cleared and grass was removed in just a couple of hours!  It was a great way to get involved and in a sense feel a part of the community.

Following our morning of labor we attended a Rwandan Singing Competition which consisted of already famous Rwandan singers putting on a giant concert.  It was a great time and definitely added to my growing love for Rwandan music!

Other than that exciting weekend, Pre-Service Training is full of Peace Corps Sessions and mass amounts of studying Kinyarwanda.  This upcoming Monday we have our mid Learning Progress Check (LPI).  This will see what level I'm a and what I'll need to do in order to get to the intermediate-mid level that we are expected to reach.  So despite having graduated college, homework and tests have not gone away yet!  



Along with having to be able to speak the language, I also have to be able to cook.  So we took the day off this past Wednesday and had a giant "imbabura" (charcoal stove) BBQ!! We made chicken and beef and veggies and rice and pretty much all the "luxurious" food we don't get on a daily basis.  Normally, for me, a normal meal at home is rice, ibishyimbo (beans), igitoke (plantains), and a few veggies mixed in with a sauce.  Some meat is thrown in there on random days.  My family always makes delicious food, but after having the same thing for a few weeks, spoiling ourselves was pretty nice.

FINALLY, I hope you made it this far because this is actually the most exciting part!  I officially found out where I will be living permanently after training!  My village is pretty much in the center of the country.  It is located in the northern province of the country and I will be the first P.C. Volunteer to serve at this particular site.  They didn't give us a lot of details yet because we will be visiting in about a week, but I do know that my health center is only a year old, I'll be living in a cool climate (don't be too shocked not all of Africa is scorching hot!), and I have a smaller community that my health center serves, about 10,000 people in comparison to much bigger populations other health centers in the country serve.  Here are some pictures from out Site Announcement Ceremony.  It was definitely a high point following some tiresome weeks of straight sessions and language classes.

One thing I forgot to mention, which is awesome, we met the US Ambassador of Rwanda!  She came and spoke and hearing about her experiences and how she got where she got literally gave me goose bumps it was amazing!!! I felt so lucky to meet her.

Again, I can't believe it's been a month already, and there are 26 more to go that will be full of even more than I can imagine right now.  I will try to post more frequently so you don't have o read a novel to keep up with me but if you want to know more or something I haven't mentioned always email me or contact me in an form you like.  I hope you all are doing well!

Happy 4th of July (we are celebrating a day early because Rwandan Liberation day is the same day)

Just the Beginning!

So, it's been about a week and a half that I have been in training and if I could think of one word to describe it I would have to us the word EXHAUSTING!  This past week really felt like a month.  I'm living with a host family who is great.  They don't speak any English so there is a lot of miming and head nodding involved, but as I'm learning more Kinyarwanda (yes I can actually pronounce it now!) our communication is improving day by day.  They really are a great family and are sure not to let me go hungry, they are always trying to feed me!  I can't wait for the day in the next few weeks where I can hold a much longer conversation than maybe 2 sentences at a time.

As for learning the language, it is intense!  Everyday when we have class we are learning something new and expected to know what we just learned the day before.  Definitely a challenge mentally but being someone who isn't the best at languages, being forced to learn it is probably going to be the best method!  MY Language teacher Charlotte is amazing and is always patient no matter how badly I butcher a word or 10.

 Along with language we are starting to touch on the actual work that we will be doing in our actual service time and that is definitely part of what gets me up in the morning.  As intense and tiring training is I know it is all leading to the bigger and better pat of these 27 months.  I will definitely share more details about our work as we get more training, but it's still the beginning with a lot left to be learned.

Hope you are all well!


Mwirirwe!

I Made it!

I officially got to Rwanda yesterday!  It is so beautiful here I am already falling in love with this country.  So far we have gone through some general training sessions and tomorrow we head out to our actual training site where I will meet the host family that I will be living with for t next 3 months.  There is a lot more to come but for now, I am safe, I am happy, and I am excited!  Hope you enjoy how beautiful it is... More pictures to come!

Just the Beginning...

This past Friday I officially graduated from the University of San Francisco!!!  Now, in a week I head off to Rwanda.  I just want to give a shout out to every one who has been there throughout my life and to who has helped me get where I am today.  

It's the beginning of a whole new adventure and I'm so excited to see where it takes me.  So here's a video of those who were able to celebrate this special weekend with me.  I don't know where I would be without them or all of the other people in my life!!!  =D

Just The Beginning

It's Really Happening

Just yesterday, after checking my email literally every 5 min, I officially got my itinerary for my trip to Rwanda.  I'll be flying to Philadelphia on June 1st. In philadelphia we will have a one day orientation, Staging, to get a little more information before heading off.  We then drive to JFk airport and fly to Brussels and then Kigali, Rwanda.
I can't believe it's been a whole year since I started this whole process and the day is actually almost here.

Here is what the trip will look like... It just doesn't seem real!

One Month

As of today there is one month until I will be in Philadelphia at my staging event prior to leaving for Rwanda!   It's been 1 year since I applied for the Peace Corps now and I can't believe it's been 4 years since I started college.  Time flies and I'm excited to soar with with it these next two years.  This is the start to the rest of my life.