Living an MTV reality show has its challenges, but outside our little drama is the hustle and bustle of a fast growing and advancing city. We have been in Kigali, the capital city, for a week now. It is clean, safe and growing. This forces us to look at our school project in a different light than originally. No longer is this a cute, little rural school for a some native children, but it needs to prepare these students for the 21st century, because they will be entering the world of a rapidly developing country.
We started the week with a meeting at the building department, “One Stop Center”. There Matt, Sonya, Andrew and I were presented with a complete checklist of everything necessary to obtain a building permit and start construction. While discussing our plans our planner brought in others in the department that could immediately answer questions about their area of expertise. Efficient building/planning department that treats us as a customer is a valuable lesson that our students can take back to their careers.
Rob Davis (Dean of the College of Engineering) and his family arrived this week. We all took a mini-bus to the ROP (Rwandan Orphans Project) for a tour of the orphanage and the new property. This was the first EWB project the dean has visited, which was quite exciting for everyone. Andrew and Matt got an interview for our video and everyone else made origami boxes with the orphans.
This is definitely city life, we have internet and have set up a small wi-fi network in the house. One night we went out to the local pizza restaurant that was hosting a trivia night, we made a respectable showing against the other “mazungu’s” (foreigners).
One day Sonya, BJ and I spent the day sourcing materials. We learned how they are making their own concrete blocks, a potentially inexpensive building material. Every market we went into was selling flushing toilets. Not something we anticipated, as there is not a single waste water treatment system in the entire city. Most homes and businesses in the city just have a hole in the ground in which they dump raw sewage (don’t think about that too long, there are over 1,000,000 people in Kigali), but clearly they are moving towards running water and hoping for better plumbing.
Meetings, meetings, meetings. We have been attending and holding lots of meetings. Using a large printout of the topo map we constructed earlier in the trip, we cut out pieces of paper representing potential buildings and placed them on the map. We have met with the orphanage directors and teachers on three different occasions to come up with a comprehensive site plan.
We made a connection with KIST (Kigali Institute of Technology). This involved two meetings, visiting their lab (their lab is as good as any university lab in the United States) negotiating prices and writing a contract. Jordan and Sonya have worked with KIST at the property the last two days on performing various geotech tests we will need to design the school and obtain approval from the building department.
We made a connection with the Senior Advisor for Urban Planning and Construction for the City of Kigali, a former University of Colorado professor. On a different occasion we were invited to attend a small meeting of consultants from Singapore that are advising on the city master plan. Tonight we have been added to the guest list for a party at the British embassy.
Our time is quite busy here. No one knows the exact formula for success but, Rwandans are moving forward quickly and it will impact our project. It also reinforces the importance of ROP’s (Rwandan Orphans Project) mission to educate street children, preparing their students for college.
--Steve Vance
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