First couple of days in Rwanda

The journey here was pretty long. I started at the Tel Aviv airport and took Ethiopian airlines to Ethiopia. We had a layover in Ethiopia for a while and got to explore the airport, and then we flew to Kenya and waited for an hour or so. Finally, we flew into Rwanda. I can’t believe I can say I was in four countries in one day! As soon as we left the airport doors, everyones jaw dropped by the absolute beauty of the country. Green rolling hills and mountains decorate the country. On the drive to the village  I saw traditional, expected Africa: Women with colorful clothing on carrying baskets on their heads, little kids with no shoes playing in the sand, families washing their clothes in the river, etc. It was such an amazing site to see. I’ve never felt so far away from home before. Wherever I go, everyone stops what their doing to stare at me; not out of resentment but just pure curiosity. We drove past a lot mud huts and poverty, but as soon as we got into the village, the scene changed completely. All of the cabins are clean cut and new. The village is located on the very top of a mountain the view is absolutely breathtaking. Anne Heyman, the founder of the village and my roommates mother, was very specific about the location of the village.

The students at the village  range from 15 to 21 and when I wave at them, they get so excited and happy and come up to me and ask so many questions. They mostly ask about America and what it’s like. Out of the blue, a lot of kids ask me if I have parents because the whole village is made up of orphans and it’s very peculiar when people have families and parents here. The question “why don’t you believe in Jesus” comes up a lot. But again, not in a rude way, they are just so curious. The girls are very interested in my hair and love to touch and play with it.  The village is made up of “families” which consists of around 16 girls or boys, one housemother who lost her kids in the genocide, and a counselor/volunteer(usually they are white from America or Israel). This is set up to give the kids a sense of family life and belonging because they all have broken families from home. I believe this is what makes the village so special. All of the kids rely on each other so much and really do become family. They call each other sisters and their housemother “mom”, and eat meals together, do activities together, and have “family time” each night where they sort out their problems, play games, and have various discussions.

Each volunteer is assigned a family, and last night I went to family time to meet mine. “Welcome to our family” was written on the door welcoming me in. The girls all greeted me very warmly and led me to the couch. There's 16 girls in my family and I brought them chocolate (which they devoured in a second) and silly bands(the animal bracelets that are huge in America). Only a couple of the girls understand English because it’s their first year here (they’ve only been here for two months) so after every sentence, my words had to be translated for them. We started off by playing a name game. I told them to say their name and their favorite animal. The first girl said their favorite animal was a cat, so every girl after her said that too! One girl didn’t understand the directions and said “I’m Ja-kay and I like baseball”. After that, they all asked me loads of questions. Everything was going fine until a couple of girls came in late looking really upset. I didn’t know what was going because everyone was speaking in Kiyarwandan, but the girl who spoke English the best translated and turns out, she got accepted to a university in BOSTON because her test scores were so good AND SHE'S LEAVING FOR AMERICA TOMORROW! They are very submissive and private girls but slowly, each one of the girls started crying to herself. They probably will never see their friend again, and they each went around saying wonderful things about her. I didn’t feel comfortable at all during this time because it was such an intimate, emotional moment for them. But It was so amazing to see how connected and passionate they are about each other . They really have become each others family because they have all been though so much and they’re all their to support each other. They’re always linked, holding hands, hugging and laying on each other its so cute. Thanks to Agahozo village, this girl has a chance to succeed in life.Their main motto is "If you see far, you go far" and thats symbolic to the amazing view they have of all the mountains in the distance. Yesterday was "heros day" and they each had to nominate a hero in their family and they nominated this girl (At this time, they had no idea she was leaving the news hadn’t come yet) because she would help with English and was the biggest leader in the house. The house mother said that this was a sign.. and that "you were a hero in our family, and now you will be a hero in America. You will always be our sister and in our family" and they all went around saying things about her and crying. It was amazing to experience this huge moment for them.. I've never felt so out of my comfort zone before ... so foreign ..

The food is the same every meal basically. There’s always white rice, sweet potatoes(or this weird type of banana that tastes like a potato), and beans with some sort of vegetable that’s grown at the farm in the village.They also have either pineapple of avocado. Breakfast is at 6.30, lunch is at 2.00, and dinner is 8 and they get NO food in between meals so at meals, they stuff themselves. Us volunteers brought a lot of snacks like granola bars, nuts, dried fruit, oatmeal, etc, because it’s hard to eat potatoes and beans every meal! But they eat more than I’ve ever seen anyone eat in my life.. First they make a huge mountain on their plate, and then they refill it 3 or 4 times! One girl asked me, “why you eat so little?”.

We shower in buckets! It’s fun at first, but I never get fully clean. Today was EXHAUSTING. We woke up at 6.00 to go to breakfast, then went to our service project which is building along side with local construction workers that they hire from just outside the village. We worked for four hours with them which was backbreaking, exhausting work. They have it so hard, they get up at four in the morning to walk two hours to the village and they work until 3.30 with NO BREAKS! The whole time we were working, we’d take water breaks every half hour or so but I didn’t see them drink water once. They only get paid a little over a dollar a day and I’ve never, ever seen such hard workers in my life. The tools here are so limited so they had to do everything by hand (for instance, we had to make cement today and mix it up which is very hard work). They don’t talk any English, but they caught on to some phrases today like “thank you” and “I need cement.” Were building right on the edge of the village, right next to the gate that separates the next village. While we were working, 15 or so little girls (about 5-7 years old) were walking to school and when they saw us, they ran to the fence and watched us like we were another species!  They all had matching blue school dresses and all of their dresses were TIED TOGETHER! It was so adorable. They all told me their names, and after meeting all of them, we went back to work but they stayed there for 20 minutes or so just watching us. More kids on the way to school saw the crowd and their was a long line of kids watching and yelling all the English they knew.

After our service project we went to lunch and then to the school which is a very steep, long walk to the top of the mountain! We met with the teacher that we’ll be helping in class. After school we went to our assigned extra curricular activity. Mine is girls soccer, but none of the girls really showed up so I played with all the boys for about 3 hours. The way they play is so different then in America and their skills are unbelievable. It started pouring and thundering so I ran back to my guest house, exhausted. It’s been a long but great day.