Umunywanyi: Forming a Friendship So Tight that When I Hurt, You Hurt

Hello friends and family,

Today was an emotional and very significant day for both our team and the members of the community. Per usual, I will give a debrief of everything we did, but I want to start by sharing how grateful I am to have been able to spend the last three weeks working in Rwanda.

 

I have, since I can remember, wanted to do development work. I feel so passionate about this, that I have chosen to pursue a career in the development sector. So to come to CU and have the opportunity to be the project manager of our EWB team was such a blessing. And furthermore, to have traveled to Rwanda twice now to put our work into action has been so incredibly significant and meaningful for me.

This trip in particular has given me a deep insight into the life I hope to lead in the future. I have learned that although there will be hard days and days when nothing goes right, that in the end it is always, always worth it. That everything has a way of working out and that the effort put in has a way of multiplying itself and making a difference in the lives of everyone involved.

We were able to build relationships with the leadership and families in the community that have made leaving so terribly hard. We said goodbye today, and in the bus on the way home I couldn’t help but tear up a little. These people have been apart of our lives for the past three weeks in an integral way, and we will continue to work and partner together in the same manner and capacity, but saying goodbye is always so hard.

I am so incredibly grateful to have had the experience of working in Rwanda and am so looking forward to continuing our fantastic, blooming friendship with the community of Cyanika.

Okay, enough sappiness now. Let’s get down to what we did.

We arrived in the community at the usual time and met at the government building. We had arranged to have a final meeting with the Community Vision Board (the leadership of the community). Our team spent several hours yesterday evening preparing our agenda for the meeting and ensuring that we covered every single detail we needed to prior to our departure. I will share several of the highlights and major decisions reached in the meeting:

1.     We were able to decide, as a group, on a form of payment known as “paying it forward”. In practice, this means that we were able to agree that each site that already has a water system will contribute a portion of money towards the next site being built. This will continue until all 12 sites have been built. The idea behind this was to insure community buy in. It also helps to create a fair system, because those who have had water for longer will pay in more money than those that get their systems later, but those that get their systems later will have to walk further to get water until then.

2.     We identified the next two sites where we will build systems, based on their dire needs for easier access to water.

3.     We signed our contractual agreement with the Chief of the site where we will plan to build next summer.

4.     We exchanged our deep felt gratitude for each others friendship, commitment, and partnership. As one of the chiefs put it, we have reached “umunywanyi” meaning we have made a commitment to each to protect and love each other through thick and thin. Mezack, our translator put it “When you get hurt, I feel hurt too”.

Following the successful meeting, we took a group picture seen here.  

Following this, we visited one of our sites for a final goodbye and took some pictures of a building near the site which we are going to try to imitate in our design for next year’s implementation.

After this, we translated some of the surveys we had collected and collectively debriefed. This evening we were able to have a celebratory dinner with Mezack, where we thanked him for his huge involvement with the project and the integral role he plays in all of our work.

As for the several days we have left, we will be spending them in Kigali sourcing materials and meeting with our suppliers and then traveling home!

This will be the last blog we post for this trip, so on behalf of the whole team, thank you so much for sticking with us through our adventures! We are so grateful to have had such a successful trip and to have achieved everything we set out to accomplish. We are so thankful for the support we receive from family and friends at home, as without you all we wouldn’t be here!

Until next time,

With much love and many, many hugs,

Nikki and team

Also, here are some other pictures from the trip in general! 

 

Our great little team together (except for Travis who was taking the picture!).

 

 

Our fantastic mentor Travis. We are so grateful to have had him with us and to have had his guidance and ever present sense of humor. He took fantastic care of us when we were sick, provided excellent insight into the work we were doing and always had a good joke to tell. Thank you so much for sticking with us Travis and we are so excited to continue working with you in the future!

 

 

 

Curtis hard at work, cleaning one of the tanks. 

He also loved playing games with the kiddos, although I think that he preferred playing tag and chase over patty cake!

This is him teaching a plastic lesson to the maintenance chiefs of each site. 

Curtis was a great travel companion. He too always had a great sense of humor while still ensuring that we were serious enough to get our work done. I have very much enjoyed traveling with him for the past three weeks and am so looking forward to working with him in the upcoming years!

Finally, it seems that most of the pictures of me are with babies or children, which is definitely fitting as I am the "baby-crazy colleague" mentioned in the past blogs! So here are several of my pictures.

 

This was a week old baby!

 

  

This was the baby that woke up and was surprised to see that its mother had changed. 

  

And this little cherub passed out in my arms. Mezack offered to have one of her siblings take her from me, but I asked if I could continue holding her to which I was told of course. She slept there for almost 1.5 hours and I was absolutely loving it!

Again, sending so much love and many hugs from Rwanda!! 

Take care and until next time!

Murabejo (Goodbye)!!

 

Much ado about nothing

Preface: One of our readers told my colleague to tell me that I try too hard in these blogs. In response, I say that is an ironic statement coming from you given your own habits and i want to remind you that people in glass houses should not throw stones.

Today was our second to last day in community.

The bus picked us up at 8:30, and our favorite blue shirted spunky driver was back. I believe he is running some weird business on the side, as we always have some cargo or shipment to deliver along the way. He is still not as curious as the foreign exchange/t shirt shop man however.

This morning we remeausred Ntarama because last time Travis paced out the distances with his 12 inch foot and Nikki didn't think it was accurate enough. She was wrong.

We then went to Gasebya to snip the roof after we discovered that Much of the roof was blocking the gutter and not allowing water to get in. I am curious to see if the tanks will fill up all the way now. We had a plastics lesson planned for 12, and finished snipping at 11:30.

By the time 1:15 had come and gone, nobody was present for our lesson. Travis says th is was our first experience with Africa time. Just a little more patience was necessary, and our plastics lesson was a great success.

Sad to think our time in community will be over tomorrow and our time in country not long after. However, I am looking forward to a cheeseburger next week.

A Photo a Day

 Hello friends and family,

I apologize for the delayed blog post!! As I am sure you have worked out, our internet has been on and off throughout the duration of this trip and last night happened to be one of the "offs"!

Because you have a blog from Travis to read, I have decided to share just a couple of the picture highlights from our past couple of days and at the end of them I will give a little summary of what we did yesterday and today!

I hope you enjoy!

 

This is Curtis and me surveying land. As Curtis put it "on my first couple of surveying experiences I have had cows and goats trying to eat my equipment" to which Travis responded saying "if you can survey here, you can probably survey elsewhere too."

 

 We have spent the past couple of days cleaning the tanks with the chiefs of each village. This is Wilson. He had cleaned his tanks before and was showing everyone else how to do it.

  

This was the fantastic community dinner we had with the leadership of the community.

Today we played a lot of soccer! 

 

 Curtis and I were on opposite teams.

And at one point in the game a cow ran through the field which very quickly cleared of children. 

 

 

 We also gave the kiddos what we call "helicopter rides" which they enjoyed very much. We worked on the skills of making lines and taking turns too.

 

These were a set of twins that I was able to hang out with all day.

As for today and yesterday, here is a really brief overview of what we were up to!

Yesterday we started by cleaning the tanks at our two furthest sites. As I mentioned in the picture above, one of the chiefs had already cleaned his tanks and was able to teach the other chiefs how to do it. Following cleaning tanks at two sites we collected several interviews of members of the community and the leadership of the community.

Today we started the day by cleaning tanks again, this time at a different site. Following this, we collected more interviews and then had an involved game of soccer. Following this we translated half of the surveys we have administered this trip and finalized our documentation. 

Thank you so much for staying with us throughout our adventures if you are still reading! We appreciate your support!

We will be in touch soon!

With much love,

Nikki

A Blog from Travis

We are taking a break from your usual bloggers for a guest post.  I am Travis, the team’s travel mentor, and I have spent the last week with Nikki and Curtis here in Rwanda.  Did you know that deep in the book of EWB regulations, there is a little known section that obligates travel mentors to write mid-trip evaluations of the students they travel with and post it on the internet for all to see?  It’s true.  You can look it up if you don’t believe me.

Let us begin with Curtis.  The good: he is thoughtful, observant, and a logical thinker.  He often walks so fast that he is forced to stop and wait for the rest of the group to catch up.  The bad: he never stops to wait in the shade.  He is always stopping in a patch of bright, hot sunlight.  For an otherwise intelligent young man, this is a curious thing as the African sun rarely offers relief when you are already hot.  Also, he once said I was “looking a lot like a bureaucrat” because I was sitting while he and Nikki worked to survey a water site.  In theory, this is insulting and I should have docked points for it, but I was too busy sipping cool water and relaxing in the shade to follow through.

On to Nikki.  The good: she is organized, caring, and passionate about the work we are doing here.  She is great with the kids, and eternally optimistic.  The bad: she does not throw things with great accuracy.  You are probably reading this and thinking this trait is not really a bad thing, and normally I would agree with you.  But it turns out that when you are standing on top of a 10-foot tall water tank and she is the only one available to throw a bucket up, her execution of the toss is fairly limiting.

Together, they are energetic, motivated, and bright and when they are on top of the world, I hope they will recall their experience in Rwanda as instructive and worthwhile.  In large part, of course, because of all the stories I told them that started with, “Let me tell you what it was like when I was your age…”

Title

And then there was the walking. The kind with plenty of dust and length and scenery to make one content for a couple of days. It was after the visit to the health clinic. A government funded building with all of the things one expects from a government funded building. Clean concrete floors mirroring stucco walls guided us to the office the executive of the clinic. after establishing that English was the common language for all present, we were invited for a cup of juice in her home. 

The furnishings were the most plush I had seen in two weeks, the perks of being an executive of any kind. The juice was sweet, a little overtly so. My baby crazy colleague got the opportunity to hold another one of her favorite little bundles of joy. It was the soundest sleeping little thing I have ever seen. However, once it woke up, it became the most confused little thing I have ever seen. No doubt attempting to comprehend the abrupt and drastic change in her mothers skin color. After a pleasant visit we were escorted into the maternity ward to visit with the mothers who had just a day ago delivered. There were 4 blankets to hand out and 4 mothers.

Now came the aforementioned walking. Jacques wanted to show us one of the villages in dire need of water. From where the water was fetched and where it was delivered was a 2 hour hike one way. We journeyed that hike. When we reached the village it seemed that our visit was the first they had heard about our water project. This aroused concerns among the team, as we can't build where the community has not decided to build. And then they asked for a school. With these two realities fresh in our mind and a quick voyage to the border of Uganda, we started to Nyrotoshu. 

Perhaps it is the natural inclination while hiking towards introspection that started it, but I began to think deeply about the type and nature of our work here. My colleague confessed to be in a similar mindset. 4 hours later, back at the hotel,we voiced our concerns to Travis. Travis is our amazing mentor who is generally a large help in anything we do. He eats a lot, but I have no time for light eaters and drinkers anyway.  He also offers unsolicited stories on how the internet used to  be. Basically, he's one of my favorite people and I trust him with anything and he is definitely here with us in Rwanda. He says we don't talk about him enough. After Travis lended a guiding hand through our concerns as he always does, I felt much more at peace.

Today was our last day at Shakeys, an absolutely dreadful little place. But we had to say goodbye to Paul. We got his Facebook and gave ours, parting on friendly grounds.

Surveying, Smiles and Sunny Afternoons

Hello friends and family,

I apologize for the lack of blog for the past two days! Due to power outages, wifi overuse at the cafe and timing I was unable to post anything! However, we’ve had a great past two days!

Let me start with Friday. We arrived in the community at the usual early start with the plan of land surveying our site of implementation for next summer! We walked along the path to the new site and met with the Chief of the village, Japhet. We caught up with him and asked him how his family was and then asked if it would be okay if we surveyed his land. For those of you who are keeping with us and don’t necessarily have an engineering background, surveying is the process of collecting information about the physical land of a site. So we basically collect data that allows us to recreate a 3D map back at home of the area, so that we can better plan how to build our system. So we essentially gather changes in elevation of the land and how far away they occur from a given spot.

So we set about the process of surveying our newly planned site and we had quite the process doing so. The land that we were surveying had both goats and cows living on it, which to our amusement enjoyed licking the equipment. The goats tried to nibble the tape measure while the cow was satisfied with licking both the upright measuring stick and the tape measure. However, after successfully maneuvering the animals, we ensured we had all of the key elevation differences documented that allow us to create a 3D map. We also surveyed the land of a site where we have already implemented tanks, because we are planning on adding a tank to their site as they collect water so quickly.

Following this we returned back to the main village center of Cyanika for a big meal we had arranged a week beforehand with the chiefs and leadership of all the different villages we had worked with in the past and the chiefs we were currently working with. Our in-country contact, Jacque hosted us in his house while the final preparations for the meal were made. Following this we all gathered in a big house nearby and had a fun, “family” meal together. We ate potatoes, rice, cassava leaves, beans, beef and a peanut soup. It was a feast for all of us and it was a really great opportunity to build first our friendship and secondarily our partnership with the people of the community. This gave us a close to our fantastic day.

Today was our first day off since coming into country, and we decided to use it to explore the local surrounding areas. We caught a bus to a nearby-“ish” lake, Lake Kivu. We enjoyed a relaxing afternoon of reading and eating lunch and then walked around the town of Giseni. We saw the boarder between the Congo and Rwanda which was very interesting to see. Following this, we caught the bus back to our home base and have been working this evening.

Tomorrow is a planned busy day, but we will give you the scoop on that tomorrow!!

With much love and many hugs,

Nikki

Ich bin ein Berliner

One man down, we set out this morning into a sea of ambiguity. The goal for the day was to admitted surveys to 15 people from each of our 4 villages and obtain a vide interview of every chief. This task was complicated by today being the day that most villages were having a meeting, andassuch people would not be where we usually find them.

It started off better than we could have hoped for, Jean-Baptiste was waiting for us when we arrived at Munini. We grabbed a quick interview, left him with pens and surveys, then ventured on towards Gasebya.

The walk to Gasebya was atypical of our normal route, and took us through the most fascinating town center. It looked like the main city, but transplanted several miles closer to the mountain. Ignease delivered a fiery, passionate interview at our meeting spot, and we dropped off 30 surveys and as many pens. The purpose of this was because we had walked clear in the opposite direction of Japhet, and still had to stay on our path to get to Wilson. Ignaese promised to deliver the surveys for us, and we will be sure to grab an interview tomorrow.

Thus began our hour long tramp across the volcanic countryside to Wilson. Our pilgrimage was ended one minute shy of the Ugandan border. Wilson was friendly as always, and spent a good five minutes simply smiling into our camera before he understood how to conduct an interview.

A little bit over half our day was spent in this walking, and members of our party were clearly a little tuckered out in the end. But the most exciting part of our day lay just ahead.

For the community dinner tomorrow, we agreed to buy the food. This meant shopping in the vibrant and thriving Cynaika market. Smells wafted from every storehouse. Some were a direct assault on ones nose as in the case of the boucherie, where un-cured meat hung from broad iron hooks in a most brutal fashion. shadows of death seemed to linger on this potent scent. 

Another successful day, downed me,her is back up. No battery left on this ancient device.

Photos and "Ph"un!

Hello friends and family,

As promised, here are some pictures from our last three days!!

This was after Curtis and I had spent the afternoon hanging out with the kiddos! As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, Curtis had a HUGE game of tag with the little boys, and they were playing in a big dusty arena-like area! So after they stopped playing, everyone was covered from head to toe in dust! All of the mothers were trying to help get the dust off of Curtis, but this is how he looked for most of the rest of the day!

 Unfortunately I can't figure out how to rotate this picture, but it's a picture of Curtis and Wilson (the head of the Nyrotosho site) holding hands as they walk back into the main town. Holding hands with the same gender here is seen very frequently and is often a sign of deep friendship and respect.

 This is the mayor of the district of Cyanika (where all of our projects are located). He came to the ribbon cutting ceremony we had with VMO and we ate lunch with him following the ceremony.

 Can't travel without the occasional "selfie"...

These are the bricks that are frequently used to build the houses in the areas we work in.

 

The kiddos love more than anything to see pictures of themselves striking silly poses like these seen here! 

 

 We are at the Munini site talking with the maintenance chief and showing VMO our project!

This was the ribbon cutting ceremony for the opening of VMO's new potato storage house which was so exciting to witness and to help celebrate! 

Many people know that I absolutely love, love, love babies! And so whenever I have the chance to hold a baby while we are in community I take it! I usually have to ask Mezack to ask the mother or sister if it would be okay for me to hold the baby and they are usually very willing to let me hold their cherub. The little one to the left was the most expressive and smiley baby! I would lift her in the air and she would giggle and smile and kick.

This baby on the right however was not quite as interactive. She kind of just chilled out while I held her. Curtis put it fairly accurately when he said that in this picture she's just "muggin" or pouting. We couldn't help but laugh at how serious her face looks here.

This was the ceremony where the beneficiaries all shared how they had been impacted by a certain project. To the left is a picture of the bunny we were given as a very generous gift.










And to the right is a picture of the beautiful sign our partners in the water project gave to us. If you can't read it, it says "I love you" with a red rose in the middle of the picture. Both of these gifts meant so much to us and we were so grateful to receive them on behalf of everyone who has helped with building process, designing process and ensuring the success of the water tanks throughout the history of our project. 




Curtis has also just posted an update from our day today and I will be back in touch tomorrow!!

With much love and many hugs,
Nikki

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall

Today was an important day for our future work.

The first order was a meeting with the chief, Japhet,of Ntarama. This will be the site of our future implementation. The plot of land that he had originally given is was determined to be unsafe as a result of  about a planned 100,000 pounds of water being unsufficiently supported on the hill. An entire evening in the cafe was dedicated to forming a script that we could use to help persuade the chief to come to our point of view. The necessity of acquiring a new plot of land was paramount. We were welcomed by the pig indifferently eyeing us from afar, but not much time later the meeting got underway. It became apparent that there was nothing to fear. The chief was more than happy to give us different land, and after some rudimetary calculations today we are quite confidant it will suit our purposes. While measuring the site was not impossible without a tape measure as our mentor, Travis, has perfect 12 inch feet. This meausuring however, led to my unfortunate tustle with a bush whose poison still stings me as I write.

The second and more difficult order was to address the problems at the Munini site that are not present at our other sites. We assumed that this was due to a lack of involvement from the chief, that he did not care for our system in his village. However, the meeting took a turn when it was discovered that the Chief wanted very much to be involved, but felt disowned because the current site president was not chosen with any input from him or the community, and she was completely cutting him out. We resolved this problem with the help of our omnipresent friend and source of authority Jacques as well as the executive secretary of the cell who together proposed to elect a new site president at the next community meeting.

So in a day filled with thorny meetings, the only prickly thing turned out to be one rascal little bush. The only suggestion I have received for relief, mind you, is to pee on it. Thank you to my esteemed genius colluegue Nikki for another world changing idea.

We have eaten at the most marvelous little restaurant everyday we have been here called Shakeys.  Rice, beans, meat and vegetables of the same type every night. It isn't fancy, but it is filling. As a treat, one of our local friends offered to take us to a new restaurant in town for a change of pace. The other members of my group were enthralled at the chance to once again know good food, but their hopes were quickly dashed when the new restaurant turned out to be Shakeys. Just another example of me being on the cutting edge of culinary experiences. We also told the waiter we would stop coming back if he keeps on being so rude to us, to which he replied "no, you will be back."

He's right.

Ceremonies, Celebrations and Cuddles

Hey friends and family,

I apologize for the lack of blog yesterday!! Our internet cafe was down last night and today has been a hectic, but amazing day!!

I will give you a little update on both yesterday and today and will have to upload some pictures tomorrow as it is very late here now!

First off, we should give an update that Carole and Willy and the Village Make Over (VMO) team have joined us here in Cyankia. VMO is our partner NGO (non-governmental organization)  that has worked with the people of Cyankia for almost 10 years. We so value our relationship with VMO and the guidance, support, advice and love they have given us throughout the duration of our partnership. The reason we work with Cyankia is actually because VMO started there almost 10 years ago and recognized the need of engineering team's involvement there and we were fortunately able to fill the spot! So they are here with us, and as a result we have been attending some of the events they have set-up and they have been attending some of our activities.

Yesterday was a very big, ceremonial day. We started out the morning by meeting with the mayor of our district and the stand-in chief (the current chief was in a car accident and is currently recovering). Carole and Willy shared with the mayor the work that both VMO and EWB had done and what had been achieved. Following this we went to a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new opening of a potato storage house VMO had supported.
Following this moving ceremony we returned to the community to have a meeting with the beneficiaries of all of the implemented projects. We had thought we would be hearing the stories of how people were affected the projects and we did, but we were also given very kind and generous gifts at this meeting as well. We were given an entire package of potatoes, a live bunny, and a poster that said "I love you" (I will post pictures of all of this tomorrow). These were all such generous gifts and were so thoughtful that it almost brought me to tears.
Following the incredible ceremony we were able to administer a survey of the people there, collecting the more specific details of how individuals were impacted by the projects.

As for today, it was also really fantastic. We went into community at our usual early morning start. VMO was working on teaching lessons to the farmers they work with and we headed to our tank system sites. Today we were focusing on assessing how "healthy" the systems were. We checked on the condition of all the roofs and gutters and assessed the tanks. We decided that because the chiefs at each site had not yet had a chance to clean the tanks, this would be a good thing to do with them for the first time, so we booked these appointments with the leadership of the community.
Following checking on the tanks, we had about an hour and a half of "down time" during which we had an absolute blast hanging out with the kiddos. We started by playing patty-cake and then we started to dance and play simon-says. I then asked if they could teach us a song which they were very shy to do, but once Curtis and I had sang for them, they were much more willing to do so. Curtis then started a great game of tag with all of the boys, and I hung out with the girls. I was also able to hold the most adorable little baby for almost 20 minutes which was just such a joy. Following this exhausting, but amazing play session we walked back to Munini to collect some drawing codes of a local building we were interested in looking into.
We then returned to our hotel and translated 1/2 of the surveys (total: 80 so far) we have collected so far into English.

As I mentioned earlier, I will be sure to post a lot of pictures tomorrow showing all of our gifts and the times we had with the kiddos and the ribbon cutting ceremony, but I should sleep now as we have an early morning tomorrow!

As always, and wifi bidding, we will write tomorrow!!

Much love and many hugs,
Nikki

A picture is worth a thousand words, but the exchange rate here is different

I preface this by saying I prefer the lives of my sentences to be barbaric. Nasty, brutal, and short. However, Nikki has implored upon me to attempt otherwise.

This morning was a slow start, Pastor Mezack had to return to Kigali last night to give his sermon today so we scheduled a light workload day. This also gave some of our group members some much needed time to catch up on sleep, water, and protein. We got into community around 1, and where immediately greeted by a smiling Jacques. We began the 40 minute trek into the hills to our furthest site, Nyrotoshu, to survey the land for additional tanks. Nikki was able to brush up on her French with Jacques, our impromptu translator, and by the time we entered the site we once again found ourself being clutched by kids on either side.

The surveying drew much attention, not surprising what with all the shiny equipment. It quickly became apparent that there was a problem. There was a malfunction in our survey equipment that prevented any sort of decent viewing through the lens. After suppressing a brief moment of panic, we resolved to fix the problem by creating our own lens out of a rolled up piece of notebook paper held together by a ripped up band-aid. This was my first experience in surveying, and was completely enthralled by how much engineering I felt like I was doing. Wilson, my intimate friend after a 40 minute hand-holding session, once again proved himself indispensable by assisting us in the surveying process despite the language barrier

Meetings, Measurments and Games

Hello friends and family,

We have had another fantastic day in Cyankia working with our amazing partners here!!

This is our very patient and understanding translator, Mezack. He has worked with our team since the start of our project in Cyankia and he understands the mission of our team very well! He is always smiling (as seen in this picture) and goes the extra mile in order to ensure our team is safe and cared for when we are here! 

As I am sure many of you know, English is not the predominant language spoken in Rwanda and it is not spoken at all in Cyanika, so our strong relationship with Mezack is crucial to the success of our project. He helps us to translate group meetings, communicate with everyone in the community, translate surveys, and he acts as the middle man with everyone we interact with in the community. 

 

Above is a picture of the meeting we had with the water board yesterday. The meeting (as Curtis said) was very successful! We got a lot of great feedback regarding the current needs and wants of the community, the current status of the tanks, how the financial system put in place is operating, and how the community is being impacted by the tanks. 

We had a similar meeting today with the chiefs of each site, the maintenance head of each site and the financial manager of each site. We sat outside (in the stunning day we had) and discussed, in great detail, the financial management of the sites, the maintenance manual, maintenance operations, costs of the water, potential new sites and suggestions. What made this meeting really unique was that at the end of it, we asked if they wanted to know anything about us. This was not something we had asked directly before, and we were surprised by the immediate abundance of questions they had about us. They wanted to know what our home was like, what we ate on a daily basis, what the climate was like, how marriage worked in our country, if either of us were married, and other similar questions.

Following that meeting this morning, we made our rounds of the systems. We performed water tests at each site as we went (a PH test strip can be seen below for our Gasebya site). 

 

We of course also made time to hang out with the kiddos and Wilson (the chief of the Nyrotosho site). Yesterday we taught everyone how to play patty-cake and today everyone wanted to play again. They also taught me a hand game where you stand in a circle singing songs and clapping hands. We also had one-footed races yesterday, spun in circles and had went for airplane rides. The picture below shows Deborah, Rebecca, Sieve and several other children I didn't catch the name of in addition to Curtis, Wilson and myself.

 

This is a picture of three of our most involved individuals within the community standing between the tanks in Gasebya. From left to right the image shows Curtis, Ignease, Wilson, Jacques and myself. These men are with us almost everyday we are in community and are always willing to help take water tests, carry gear, measure land areas, make repairs, and chat. 

We also got a chance to see the process of brick making today. We were surveying a potential future site when we found several masons creating bricks. We asked where the bricks were meant for and we were told that they would be used to make a house down the road. 

 

That concludes the summary of our day today. As for tomorrow, because it is a Sunday and Mezack is a pastor, he has returned to Kigali for the day to give his sermon. This leaves us without a way communicating with the people of Cyanika. So we have planned slightly ahead for this.  We will survey the land near the site of Nyrotosho and we will test the water at each site again. 

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!

We will check-in tomorrow again!

 

 Cheers,

Nikki

You Say Goodbye, and I say Maraho

This is the second day of our teams trip the summer of 2015. The morning started off with a lavish breakfast spread followed by a quick bout of rusty french with the hotel receptionist. Once in community we were lucky enough to meet with the entirety of the Cyanika water board on short notice. The meeting was a success, with valuable feedback in the form of a survey as well as good communication with the various members. Post meeting, we embarked on our first journey to all of the different sites to check for problems that need to be addressed and fixed. Amid the clamorong of many children for "une photo", we identified only one major leak that we intend to fix shortly. The remaining time was spent engaging in various games with the local children, the only effective method of communication being laughter. Tomorrow has a similar agenda planned.

Smiles and Sunshine from Rwanda!

Hello Friends!

This is Nikki here along with travel team mate Curtis and we are so excited to let you all know that we have made it safely to Rwanda! Our travel was very smooth with no hiccups along the way which was greatly appreciated!

We got into Kigali late last night and we were greeted by the smiling face of our wonderful translator and friend, Pastor Mezack. He took us to our hotel where we promptly fell asleep!

This morning we explored the UTC, exchanged money, met-up with a member from our team at home's friend and bought a sim card for our travel phone. We then hopped on a bus and traveled to Musanze! Upon arriving here we sat down and organized ourselves for the exciting day tomorrow and acquainted ourselves with the town of Musanze. After a dinner at Shakies (our usual dinner buffet) we sat down to brief on day tomorrow and finalize dates and objectives for our trip!

As you can probably see, we have mainly just had travel days thus far so there isn't too much exciting information to share with you!

However, tomorrow we will be heading into community and meeting with friends and leadership of the community so we will have much more to share! We will of course check in on each system and will do water tests at each site.

We are also aiming to take a lot of pictures throughout this trip so we will post those as we go!
We will write again tomorrow with an update from Cyankia!

Much love and many smiles,
Nikki

Final Day in our Home in Rwanda

Well golly (as I have been teased for saying by all three of my teammates)!! Today was our final day in Cyanika! The time has completely flown by!! I can't believe that we are already almost on our way home!

Today was a produtive day!

We began the day by teaching a lesson on personal hygene and water conservation to the kiddos at Munini. We were able to show them the water samples we had taken the day before and what clean and drinkable tested water looked like versus what unpottable water looked like. We had samples of what some bad water looked like (a black liquid) and what boiled water looked like (a tannish liquid). It was exciting to explain to the kids what the difference between the two viles were and to give them a visual representation of the importance of always boiling their water prior to drinking it. We were also able to talk about what to do with cuts, when to wear shoes and how to avoid getting headaches (by drinking lots of clean water). 

After we finished our lessons, we played some games with them. Christian tossed the frisbee around while Jake kicked the soccer ball and I played patty cake and gave airplane rides.

Soon after this, we headed down to the executive building for our meeting with the Community Vision Board. Overall, the meeting went very well! We discussed prices of the water at each site, who should be using the water and when, the goals each site had for the next time we came, and how to properly manage the money coming in from the selling of jerry cans. The members of the board had many insightful questions and comments and we were able to have good converstion about several of our key topics!

This evening we met with both Willy and the Executive of Cyankia. They joined us for a cup of tea and we caught up. 

As for tomorrow, we are headed back to Kigali! We will be doing some final material sourcing and some last minute gift shopping for friends and family at home! 

I will return to put some pictures into this blog, but the wifi isn't allowing me to do so tonight!

Much love and many hugs from Rwanda!
Nikki

My Mutant Ninja Turtle Fiend

    'Tis on this day that Captain Transit has fallen ill to the to the native disease, commonly referred to as something like "the common cold". It has not confined me to my quarters but has taken a toll through out the day. 'Twas a day no to be missed though as we had to review the entirety of the maintenance manual with the persons of each community charged with the protection of the system. All went smooth as we finished at Munini and made our way to our future site of Ntarama. After a rigorous talk with the land owner who had previously declined our original site plans, making our design for the coming semester increasingly difficult, we realized there had  apparently been some kind of miscommunication because from there on out where ever we asked to build came with a beaming "nachee bazzo!", translating to "no problem!"

         Moving forward to Gasebeya and Nyratoshu the maintenance education was carried out with out a problem. With extra time we sat down with the 35 kids that had been following us all day and had a small lesson regarding water quality and basic sanitation, of which we got surprisingly good feedback and questions. The hour loomed closer to 4:00 so we made our way back to Munini to catch our bus. My small friend from my last excursion to East Africa, Deborah, insisted on carrying my backpack that was roughly three quarters the size of her body and, when she walked up ahead of us, resembled something close to a mutant ninja turtle. We parted ways at Munini, knowing that we would be back the following day to continue our education work with the community.

Interrogation

January 6th, 2015

Today I learned that Nikki performs a mean interrogation. We showed up at the community center at Munini, where we start every day. Summoning families that were not supposed to be using the system, we intended to gather a base group of information, to be compared to people using the system. Each husband and wife were separated and Nikki and Mezack split from Christian and Myself and Willy to talk to the woman while we talked to the man. 

Apparently something was mistranslated, because out of the nine couples who showed, five couples used the systems. So much for the data, oh well. Christian and myself, through the help of Willy, would learn about how far the individuals traveled to get water, how often they got sick, etc. Then we would wait while Nikki continued to grill the woman into the ground. Approximately twenty hours later (approximately, plus or minus a few hours) she would finish with her victim and we would move on to the next one.  We learned a lot about the local community, their health, and other useful information. 

afterwards, we stumble back home exhausted to examine the information and try to understand the overall picture. I think I am rambling at this point, so I will end off with the statement that I will never under appreciate hot showers again. Ice cold showers are evil I tell you!

Monkeying around

January 4th, 2015

It is a weird feeling not working, but here we are today. With both our translators lecturing today (they are both pastors) we had no choice but to relax. Nikki, Mike, and myself decided to hike Bisoke, a volcano in one of Rwanda's National Parks, while Christian decided to go meditate and write in the diary (sorry journal) at the Burera lake shore. His plans were destroyed by the endless swarms of children who decided that he was the most interesting thing that they had ever seen. It is hard to find Zen with so many distractions. The lake was pretty though.

The rest of the team had a much more grueling day, with a nice brisk start at 6:30. We drove up to the park entrance to pay for permits and were grouped with the other members hiking our trail. A English professor of Linguistics and several French Engineers joined us, all of which spoke French, except me...Guess who got left out of all the conversation...After a short briefing of the hike that we were going on (in French) and introductions of names (in French) we drove approximately 30 minutes along a road so rough our driver called it our free massage. We would appreciate it more on the way down.

The hike was extremely difficult, starting muddy and steep and turning into muddy and straight up. The Rwandan guides also did not believe in stopping, at all. They were in good shape from hiking every couple of days and as a result pushed and cajoled the party into paces that challenged the best of us and even proved too difficult for one of the ladies hiking with us. She turned back only half an hour from the top. Three hours of huffing and puffing our way through the brush paid off however, resulting in the following view.

Can you guess who managed to get a chubby little finger in the blog. The entire trip was amazing, with both dense jungle and rocky outcroppings. I will attach more below, but this is the end of the story, just weary muscles and lots of sleep have been ordered and I am not one to disobey.

More Surveys and Smiles

Man today was a great day!
It was our first day of in person interviews!

As I am sure that many of you know, (from reading some of the past blogs) we have 4 different types of interviews! The one that we did today was what we called the in-house interviews and today was focused on those who were using the system. If you would like to read a little more about the different types of surveys we are conducting, please feel free to read the blog entitled "Sunshine, Surveys and Smiles".

When we arrived in Munini we were greeted by a large group of people! They had all come to be interviewed under the category of those "using the system". We were excited by the number of people who were there and were interested in what we were doing because it shows that they too are invested in what we are doing.

This first day of in-house surveys didn't go quite as according to plan. Despite the fact that we were thrilled by the number of people that had come to talk to us, the surveys were actually designed to be conducted on a person to person basis. However, because so many people had come right at 8:30, we felt it inapproprate to keep them waiting in the community center for the entire day. So we ended up having everyone who had come to take the survey take it all at once.

It was our plan from the start to interview the men and women seperately so as to have both a male and female perspective reflected in our data. We asked the men and women to sit seperately so as to ensure this happened. A majority of the people who had come were able to read and write (the surveys were already in Kinyarwandan) and they took the surveys without help. Others who weren't able to read quickly or write had the aid of both Jacques and Willy.

After everyone had completed the survey, we had each man and his wife turn their surveys in together, so we knew which two surveys were related and in the same family.

After this, we asked that 4 seperate families stay so that I could interview each member on an individual basis. We had 2 families from Munini, 1 family from Gasebya and 1 family Nyrotosho volunteer to stay and talk with us. I was able to at this point introduce the more in person and intimate form of interviews. I was able to ask questions that pertained directly to the individual and their situation and in doing this gained a lot of insightful and helpful information.

After 3 hours of these in person interviews and after talking to both the man and woman of 4 families, we did water testing at the Munini site.

After this it was time that we headed home!

Overall the day was very good! For the in-house surveys (for those not using the system) we will be doing on Monday we have asked Jacque that the families come one at a time so that we are able to talk to them all in the personal manner we did for the 4 families at the end of the day today.

Tomorrow it is our plan to hike the volcanoe near to us, Mt. Bisoko. We are able to do this because tomorrow is Sunday and both Willy and Mezack (our translators) are pastors and therefore must return home to give their sermons. We can't achieve too much without a translator so we are looking forward to an early start tomorrow!

We will continue to write blogs and stay in touch!!
With much love and many smiles from Rwanda!

Nikki

Surveys, Smiles and Sunshine

Wow! What a crazy and fantastic week we have had so far! Although not everything has gone quite according to plans, our time has been productive, educational and unforgettable. From sourcing materials in Kigali and visiting the Genocide Memorial to arriving in Musanze and then Cyanika and visiting each site to playing with local children to surveying local water users, we have had quite a week!

Yesterday, the 31st of December was our first full day in Cyankia. Our main goal for the day was to finish a portion of the community surveys. First, let me start by explaining the 4 different types of surveys we came prepared to give. The first are community surveys; these are surveys geared towards gaining a better sense of the community of Cyankia as a whole. Questions included how many members of the family there were in the household, where they sourced their water, how often they were sick and what sector they were from. Ideally, we wanted to get 40 responses from several different villages for this survey. Mesack and Jacque helped us by asking 40 different volunteers from around Cyanika to participate in the survey. The second and third type of survey are the in-house surveys; these surveys are geared towards a more intimate, in-depth form of conversation. There are 2 different types of the in-house surveys. One is geared towards those using the water catchment system and one is geared towards those not using the system. We have asked Jacques to help us identify these families. It is then our plan to interview both the male and female from each family. The questions on this survey are more personal than those on the community survey. The final survey is meant for the water board; the purpose of this survey is to gain a better understanding, from a leadership's point-of-view, as to how the water systems are impacting the community as a whole and how sustainable the maintenance of the systems will be.

Anyways, now that I have explained the different types of surveys, let's get back to the exciting stuff! Our goal yesterday was to complete a portion of the community surveys (we weren't sure how many volunteers we would be able to collect on the first day). We arrived in Cyankia early and started the surveys soon after arriving. The first group of people that arrived was 18 strong. Mesack helped conduct the survey by reading it aloud and answering any questions that came up. Throughout the duration of this process additional volunteers continued to show up. Jacques helped transcribe for those who weren't able to write their feedback down on the surveys. The process was running very smoothly! By the end of the afternoon we had conducted 39 community surveys, 1 shy of our optimal goal. We have done a first walk through of the surveys and have collected some initial data that we hope to implement when adapting our lesson plans for the next couple of days.

In our down time throughout the day we were able to either play frisbee or patty cake with the kiddos in the village. Christian loves walking towards the kids and staring them down which usually freaks them out. Its so funny when he teases them and they refuse to walk near him and usually end up running in the opposite direction. I sat down to help a couple little girls shell beans, and the people passing by thought it was the most bizarre thing to see me sitting shelling beans. The kept stopping to stare and then wave. Jake and Mike enjoyed tossing the frisbee and playing soccer with them as well.

In the late afternoon we returned to Musanze and went into town to purchase several things we needed to make repairs on the tank. Christian gave Jake and me a quick walk through of town which was so exciting to see! We then stopped at the hardware store and purchased some glue and sandpaper. We also visited the bank and a general store. I got some chocolate that I can usually only get in South Africa (where my family is from) which was exciting!

And the evening was upon us faster than you can say Jimminy cricket! We spent a good portion of it playing our new favorite game - hearts. In the past, the games have been fairly evenly scored (apart from my first game that I played where my score was double that of anyone else's...). But this evening was completely different. Jake, who actually first taught me the game, was not quite in the mode of playing hearts! He won the queen of spades continually and often racked up a majority of the queens in the game... In the end he was rocking a 40 point loss. After about 2 hours of hearts, we decided to call it an evening.

We returned to our rooms and had a relatively quite New Year's Eve. While Mike turned in early, the three of us were determined to stay up at least until midnight. It was however quite challenging as we were all quite sleepy. We tried to come up with as many interesting and random questions to try to get to know each other better and to not fall asleep. We did all make it to midnight, but ended up going to bed fairly soon after the clock hit 12:00.

That takes us to today!

We had several fix-its to do today and then some land surveying to start.
On the 30th we had visited each site to check on how they were operating. We noted that several smaller things needed fixing - so we did what we could today! We sanded down and glued a first flush pipe back together at Gasebya. We also took water samples at both Gasebya and Nyrotosho. We  did an in-depth inspection of the Nyrotosho site in general as well.

After we had finished all of this, we started a land survey of the next site we hope to build at - Ntarama. We took preliminary measurements and started to determine where we may place the catchment system. Throughout the entire duration of the process we had a parade of little kids sitting on the edge of the site watching us.

After completing this we returned to Munini and played frisbee and soccer for an hour or so before returning home.

This has been a decently long entry so I will stop here, but long story short we have had a fantastic couple of days!!

I am looking forward to writing more in the upcoming days!!
Smiles and love from Rwanda!

Nikki

Captain Transit Returns....Again

        Captain Transit has again acquired a new crew of mateys to meander through the land of a thousand hills. After a morning rain in Kigali, the crew was rustled together and rode North on the iron land-ship, spying some monkeys and other small critters along the way. The ride up was nostalgic in a way that made me appreciate more and more of what had been experienced less than 4 months ago.
       After checking in with the hotel we switched land-ships and made our way up to Cyanika, recalling every pothole along the way. Upon our arrival at Munini the kids gathered around even before we got out, yelling "Christiano! Christiano!", remembering  me probably in part to the obnoxiously long hair. Walking up and seeing our catchment systems full of water and being used after the many months of work felt incredible and our goal of providing water to a community in need had been accomplished.
       We did have some work to do in the coming days after seeing the systems, but knowing they were catching rain and in working order put us in a great position for moving forward. The roof at Nyratoshu needed a little trimming, but we had also found out that it had filled all 20,000 liters of tank space in ONLY 3 DAYS. Gasebya needed a first flush replacement when we arrived but was quickly repaired, and we found after our departure of the last trip they created a very well constructed tap stand with drainage as well to keep the foundations sturdy. Returning to see that all the systems were intact and producing a continuous supply of water to the community started this trip off on a very positive note.