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)