Winter trip begins!

Muraho from Kigali! It's our second day in the capital, which means that everyone still needs afternoon naps, but we're adjusting quickly.
We somehow managed to get all of our bags here (and bags and cookstoves for other people), which was extremely difficult and involved lots and lots of tape...

The last day and a half have been busy with phone calls, shopping and errands, terrifying motorcycle rides through the city, the making of delicious food with other Coloradoans (is that a word?) who now live in Kigali, and planning our trip in more detail. Oh, and trying not to fall asleep during conversations, which was quite difficult.
So, we wanted to give you an overview of the purpose of our trip and a general outline for what we'll be doing in the short time we are here.
We just had an incredible meeting with EWB Rwanda, organized in 2005 with the help of students and alumni of the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). This group has been partnering with visiting EWB groups (including ours!) and gave us an impressive list of completed projects. We hope to find a project that we can collaborate on over the next couple of years, as they have great contacts and ideas of what people really need. We'll be meeting again at the end of our trip.

Tomorrow we are heading to the orphanage, where we plan to bring in the new year (with champagne! we're fancy) and stay until around Jan 5th. During that time, we'll be monitoring the irrigation and the rainwater systems to make sure everything is still working, as well as checking up on the pump, cook stoves, and slow sand filters and doing some water quality testing. We'll also do a water use survey. Then, we'll be conducting a survey of the stream and of most of the orphanage property. We're going to train some of the staff on how to use our awesome hand-made flow and pressure meters (thanks hydro team!) so they can continue to take measurements during the wet season. We'll be taking a day to map out the Birambye lodge area near the orphanage. And of course, we're planning some fun educational activities for the kids.
After our time in Mugonero, we'll be heading north to Gisenyi to visit Eric's biomass pellet/cookstove factory, and will take an overnight trip to Imbabazi, another orphanage in the area. We might meet up with a peace corps volunteer, who has contacted our team, to do a quick assessment of the situation in his community.
Around Jan 10, we plan to come back to Mugonero for a couple days to see Victor, and to talk to him about goals for the future, fundraising plans, and our exit strategy.
On Jan 13, we'll be back in Kigali to visit another orphanage, meet with the EWB Rwanda group again, and go out to dinner with a Rwandan we met on the plane. We fly out on Jan 15th and should be back in Boulder on the 16th!
That's the general plan for now. We'll update again from L'esperance!

Sonya