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!).
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)!!
No comments:
Post a Comment