Elephants

Street Kids Party

New Years is a really big deal in Rwanda. The day before New Years Eve Maddy, Serge, Jen and I went to the church and met all of the street kids. These are kids that ITeams is helping to go to school through financial support, or kids that really live on the street. Serge had picked out a goat that morning that they slaughtered and that the ladies of the church made for lunch. Maddy and I were in charge of games. We played every game that we could think of that could be played explained through a translator. It was a lot of fun. The boys and girls really enjoyed themselves.

All of the kids playing: What Time is it Mr. Fox?

We started the day with dancing.

I found some new best friends. We are relaxing in the grass as the boys are playing rough.

All of the food lined up in rows. For some of the kids this was their only meal of the day.

Water Walk Pictures

These are some pictures from the water walk that we did. We took jarikins (containers) and walked down a really big hill to fill them up with water. Then we had to carry the jarikins back up the hill so that the people in the village would have water to drink, cook with, and bathe with. All of the kids also had jarikins that they filled up with water. I am very thankful for the water that I have that comes out of the faucet and shower head. I do not have to walk for 3 hours round trip to get any water. God is good to me. Now, everytime I see a person with a jarikin I cringe and think about carrying the water up the hill, and say a little thank you to God that that is not an everyday occurrence for me.

The kids and I walking back after we fetched water.

The kids putting water in their jarikins from the creek.

Maddy and I with the kids and our empty jarikins. Maddy and I carried 2- 5 liter containers. Some kids had 20 liters that they carried on their heads.

Me with my jarikins ready to go. I should also mention that we picked prime sun time to go. It was 1:00 in the afternoon. It was hot.

Water Walk

Happy New Year! Today, Maddy and I are going on a water walk. We are going to a village that ITeams works with. ITeams is the mission organization that Maddy is in Africa with. All of the kids in the village have to go and fetch water every day a couple of times a day. It takes 1 1/2 hours to walk to the water and 1 1/2 hours to walk back uphill with the water. I will let you know how it goes.

Genocide Memorial

Today we went to the Genocide Memorial in Rwanda. It was really impactful to learn more about the genocide and what really happened; not just from the movie Hotel Rwanda. It was interesting to think that such hatred occurred during my life-time. People came to a point of wanting to get rid of a people group completely for one silly reason or another. The memorial also walked through other genocides that have happened throughout history. Maddy and I tried to figure out what we would have done if we were teaching in America or another part of the world. If we saw footage of something like this happening on the news. Would we continue to eat our breakfast and say, to bad for them? Or would we go and try to figure out a way to do something and help in anyway that we could? It is something to think about.