Week Four and counting...

First of all, Good Morning! It's been a pretty busy few days for us this week. Picking up from where we ended on Sunday, we hosted Boniface, one of the choristers at church for dinner in the evening. The girls (Roxane and Faith) made pancakes and Speciose roasted peanuts for pre-dinner appetisers. All together it was a great night. We had lots of stories to share and throughout dinner the jokes continued. Boniface was great company and it just confirmed how much we have settled in here. The bad news was that our water flow stopped that evening. We did not have water from Sunday night until Tuesday afternoon; apparently all the houses in the neighbourhood were affected and it has something to do with the location on the hill. Where we live is called Mont Cyangugu - so you get the point…

On Monday, God blessed us with rain – and I say that for a reason. Myself and Faith were so desperate to flush the toilet, that at the first drop of rain, we rushed to get some bowls to collect rainwater. We called it ‘being resourceful’, Valentin called it getting Malaria (really?!) and Speciose said we could get Hyperthermia (understandable). Anyways, we are perfectly fine, no coughing, sneezing or symptoms of Malaria.
All through the day on Monday, we had been working on an Action Plan for the Improved Cooking Stoves project.

So Tuesday, we went back to Gatovu, got signatures to approve the photos we had taken previously and went round the houses we surveyed to find out if the households had indoor kitchen spaces as well the type of cooking stoves used. The day was productive but on Thursday we concluded that we should have checked these when we did the survey.

The next day, Michael, Faith and Patrice went to Mundima village while the rest of us went to town to find out the availability of the resources needed for the Rondereza stove. While in town, we bought a card and chose a birthday present for Speciose (hostess/best cook in the world!).

On Friday the first thing we did was to give Speciose a birthday surprise.We sang happy birthday and presented her with a card and a gift, she was very surprised and quite emotional. It definitely lifted her spirit; she’s been going through a tough time recently. Like a family, we shared hugs and kisses and made sure we ended her day by showering her with lots of prayers. The rest of the day consisted of discussions and planning.

At team meeting we discussed our progress with the cooking stoves and made a plan for the following week. Actually, this is concrete proof of how busy our week has been. We are basically co-managing the Improved Cooking Stoves project so we have to set everything in place in order for a smooth running, and we only have 5 weeks left to select, train and install 50 stoves in Mundima and Gatovu! Anyway, so we have meetings three times a day, basically before or after breakfast, lunch and dinner

We also looked at some examples of how organisations implemented cooking stoves in other countries. It is a big project and we need a few lessons from the professionals, as they say ‘Experience is the best teacher’.

Later in the evening, we were invited to dinner with some colleagues from England, they also happened to be members of Faith’s church (Her church has a partnership with the church here in Cyangugu)…The food was delicious and we thank God for a beautiful day.

So today was Umuganda; national cleaning day. Every last Saturday of the month, citizens are obliged to participate in a communal clean-up. We joined the citizens in hoeing the weeds on the cliff and digging trenches to aid rainfall run-off. We got a lot of attention when we first arrived, everyone talking about the ‘muzungus’ (white person/s), I'm sure they made comments on how we handled the hoe but we didn’t really pay attention to that and they got used to us after a short time. Roxane, Faith and I started with hoeing but after 5 minutes, soldiers took over. I thought it was because we were ‘young ladies’ or because we were doing it wrong but I noticed, that only men were doing the hard work. The women collected the rubbish (weeds) to clear the road. An hour and a half later, Umuganda in our neighbourhood was over.

In the afternoon, we went to help out at the feeding clinic nearby run by the Mother’s Union. We helped clean the centre and played with the children. Before porridge was served, we were happy just watching the children plays some local games. I joined in one of the games; I call it “only girls allowed”J. We sang some songs and helped serve porridge, it was an eventful day and there were more children than last week.

Tomorrow, we will be attending Zion Temple, a local charismatic church instead of our usual early morning service. Service is from 9am to 12pm, it will be our second time there. Really looking forward to tomorrow and the week ahead.

Till next time – Happy Reading! God bless X