Nostalgic Recap

Muraho friends, colleagues, family members, partners, Kagame intelligence-gathering internet trollers, and random stumblers! 

A last view of Rwanda

This is the last and long-awaited installment of the summer 2012 travel blog.  Our band of intrepid adventurers left you last as we were closing out the final days of our time in Kigali.  We ended our last night of the trip over dinner and a heated game of Scattergories with Sean and Jenny…the game ending in a bombastic display of head-to-head word play between Jenny and I (I am pretty confident that Jenny won but am content with this, as she is a professionally trained journalist and I am but a number crunching engineer.)

In project news, our post-assessment trip 522 and post-monitoring trip 531 documents got submitted on time to EWB at approximately 5:31am, after the team had unwisely taken time out of our feverish writing trance for another game of Scattergories.  The documents were reviewed by EWB-USA, and we had a hugely successful conference call with Tiffany Martindale, our EWB-USA project manager a few days after returning to the states.  EWB-USA thought both documents were of superior quality, and we are happy to report that we are officially cleared to move forward with preparing for the implementation phase of the ROP school project.  (This involves a thorough assessment of building options, materials, and monitoring plans due in mid-August which Kyle, Jacob, and Matt are working on already, followed by a preliminary design report and a final design report due in September and October respectively.)  We also have to raise the funds, which Emily, Andrew, Jordan, Andy, and others are already starting to tackle. 

To recap our time and highlight our accomplishments this summer, I would like to use a little something I call a bulleted list of AWESOME PRODUCTIVITY:

• Forged good relationship with ROP partners and established responsibilities and expectations for our partnership
•  Completed preliminary land survey of future school site and made cool topographical map
•  Completed geotechnical survey of future school site
• Established relationship with Kigali One Stop Center and determined requirements for permitting new building construction
• Signed community agreements with Sector and Umudugudu leaders ensuring volunteer labor for the school project and community support
• Formed relationship with Kigali Rotary Club in order to partner in finding funding and support for the school project
• Gathered information on cost and availability of building materials for more accurate future budget estimates
• Established contact with EWSA, KIST, and CITT to gather information about energy, water, and sanitation practices, costs, and availability
• Exceled at Scattergories, fed milk to stray cats, haggled with moto drivers in Kinyarwanda, and otherwise increased personal and cumulative team awesomeness

As the beginning of fall semester closes in, our team has a lot of hard work and a lot of fun bonding times ahead of us.  We are looking forward to a pre-semester team barbeque, two pre-semester document submissions, and a lot of coffee-laden early morning conference calls to Rwanda.  THANK YOU to everyone who enjoyed reading our blog this summer!  We appreciate your support and are excited to share more new project developments with you soon!

Because there were not enough pictures in this blog post, I would like to finish with an illustrated example round of Scattergories.  The selected letter is "C":

1. Things Andrew likes to do

"crouch in a hole"

 2. Cutest animals in Rwanda

"cows"

3. Something you can purchase at this shop:

 "cell phone cards" or "cheese in a can" are acceptable answers and both give you a score of +2

4. Ways the travel team displays affection

"comical gymnastic feats"

5. Things that float in water

"carafe of air"

There is No "I" in Team

And then there were 5….

                Our house in Kigali feels more spacious these days. While that may seem like a good thing, but if you ask me, I would take cramp quarters anyday if it means having as many laughs as I do with our team! Kara left this past Friday to head back to Denver. The following morning Sonya left for South Africa for her practicum. (Side story: remember how Sonya got her wallet snatched here in Kigali and had a doozy of a time getting it back? Yeah well…she managed to lose it again only hours after leaving the country, “somewhere in between Kigali and Jo’burg” to quote her directly. Oh Sonya…)

                Although our team is diminishing in size, our to-do list appears to be growing exponentially. On Tuesday morning, Matt and Andy left bright and early to catch the bus back to Kibuye on their way to L’Esperance. Victor asked us to return to help him out with the small little favor of installing a lightning protection system for the solar panels at the orphanage.  Matt was not here when we were at L’Esperance in the beginning of the trip, so this is his first time! I am sure he will have so many little helpers to make the work enjoyable. BJ is also heading up to the orphanage this morning to join the other two. She had to venture to Gakinjiro (the GIANT construction market in Kigali that has everything you could ever dream of needing to build anything in the world) to pick up some supplies for the lightning protection system. If all goes according to plan, the three of them should be back in Kigali by the weekend. 

                Andrew and I are holding down the fort here in the city for the rest of the week. Just to let you all know, here are some things going on for the team this week: The 522 and 531 are due this Sunday; our geotech assessment by KIST is wrapping up; the city building permit documentation is still in the works; and community agreements have been sent to the umudugudu (trying saying that 10 times fast) and the sector. We are also doing some groundwork on fundraising from sources both in Rwanda and stateside. Before we leave country, we still want to map the community surrounding the build site, get an official land survey of the property, interview contractors and do some more sourcing of materials. 

Bertin from KIST helps us perform our the geotech testing

Whenever our group sits down for team meetings and makes a list of stuff we need to do, the amount of tasks we come up with can seem quite daunting! But somehow they always manage to get done... 

                Now that I am thinking about it, the sheer amount of stuff we have done on this trip is far more than the travel team, as six students, could have ever done on our own. Celestin (ROP’s director) has helped us work across language barriers to forge strong community ties. Sean and Jenny are always a phone call away whenever we need ANYTHING- a house, a car, food recommendations, modems, you name it. Wellars (from the real EWB Rwanda) took 3 hours out of his Sunday night to find all of the materials for the lightning protection system. Ray, Sam, and Patrick, along with the entire team at Great Lakes Energy let us borrow an assortment of tools and their very very expensive multimeter, without even a down payment! Bill and Daudi from Cal-Poly connected us to Rotary here. Manna Energy also lent us tools and helped guide our materials sourcing efforts. The leader of the Sector has given us her word to mobilize the community to help in constructing the school. AND there are the hundreds of Rwandans who have helped us when we are lost in the city or can’t tell whether an egg is soft or hard boiled. 

Wellars showed us some of his projects when we went materials sourcing!

                Even across the Atlantic our EWB-CU teammates have got our backs. Jeni facilitated an international wire transfer like a ninja. Emily is furiously coordinating fundraising schemes. Kyle and Jacob are working overtime to produce a 3D rendering of the school that we can show to people here. Kim doing gratis site planning. Oh and of course, who could forget Steve and Kara, our mentors that agreed to come live and work with us here, before they realized what exactly they were getting themselves into… There are countless other examples and people that I am sure I have left out (1000000 apologies for that).

But my point is this: Without all of the help we have gotten along the way, this trip would be very different. Our lengthy checklists would feel far more daunting if we did not have this kind of support network around us. Seeing how many people care about this project is incredibly heartwarming, and makes me very excited to see what is to come!

Jordan

MTV's The Real World Kigali

This is the true story…of eight team members…picked to live in a house…work together and have their lives taped…to find out what happens…when people stop being polite…and start getting real…The Real World: Kigali.

Kigali House: Where all the drama happens.

Tune in for MTV’s 29^th season of The Real World – this time in the heart of Africa: Kigali, Rwanda.  Watch as six University of Colorado students and two valiantly patient professional engineers tackle life in the big city and learn to fend for (and even feed) themselves.

Andrew: team member or savage paparazzi cameraman?

 

-cut to interview of Jordan-

“I mean, the house is bomb,” quips rising Civil Engineering Sophomore, Jordan Burns, “but it is hard to find an edible live chicken in this neighborhood for under 3000rwf!  Combine that with the difficulty of cooking in a kitchen full of ravenous twentysomethings eating peanut butter out of the jar, and you get grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner 5 nights a week.  It’s a culinary travesty.”

The kitchen gets crowded on grilled cheese night

 

Watch breathlessly as the roommates venture into the city!

-cut to clip of a helmeted Sonya fearlessly haggling with a glowering motorcycle taxi driver

“NO!  We agreed on FOUR-hundred francs, not SIXTEEN HUNDRED!  FOUR-hundred –magan’ANE!  OK – thank you for being honest.  *SIGH*

-cut to interview of Andy-

“I can’t believe Sonya paid 400rwf for that ride.  I would have totally talked that guy down to 300!”

Andy, happy after a good moto bargain.

 

Witness house drama of epic proportions!

-cut to clip of house meeting led by snarly-looking BJ-

“Ok guys, this house is getting disgusting.  This is why we assigned weekly chores to everybody, but instead of holding each other responsible for your assigned cleaning jobs, you guys just keep procrastinating “because you have to get a jump on the 522 document” and paying each other off with Mutzigs!  And don’t even get me started on whoever’s job it was to clean the bathroom this week!  …oh, that was my job?  Never mind.  Anyway, I’m instituting Umuganda on these premises effective immediately.  Mandatory volunteer labor for all.  That toilet’s not going to clean itself, team!”

Preparing to go in manually.

 

And watch as the team experiences heartfelt bonding moments…

-cut to clip of the team at breakfast-

Andrew: “Hey Sonya, you’ve got something on your face.  NO wait that IS your face!”

Sonya:  “Ughhh.  Whatever Andrew.”

Kara: “Aww stop fighting, you guys are friends.  Pass the peanut butter.”

Steve (over Skype):"I like you guys a lot better from the comfort of my own giant, empty house."

Tune in to The Real World: Kigali next week to witness the panic of tasks unfinished:

-cut to sneak preview of Matt standing on a coffee table trying to lead a morning meeting-

“OK troops, just one more week to go and we have to get ALL of these documents drafted, reviewed, approved, printed in triplicate, signed, stamped, and hand-delivered to every member of the Kigali development board by Tuesday.  We also have to finish the 522, 523, 531 pronto so that when we get back to the states, we can hit the ground running with the 524 and 525!  We also need to meet with the Umudugadu leader ,Sector leader, and District leader to get our plans approved, AND we need to draft our community agreement for the project.  AND we need to pin down that final geotech assessment!  Did anybody make that meeting with the Minister of Education?  With the Environmental, Water and Sanitation Authority’s deputy assistant minister?  And for the love of god, did anybody clean the bathroom?” 

-BJ

Umuganda!

Hello everyone! Matt Hulse here, writing my first entry for the EWB-CU-Rwanda travel blog. I've been enjoying my time in Rwanda for the last two weeks, and can't wait to share our recent adventure stories.

Friday marked the last day where our whole team and Dean Rob Davis were in town together. We spent time at the ROP making friends and making progress on our school construction project.

This weekend marked Umuganda, a mandatory public service day from 8am to 11am on the last Saturday of each month. During Umuganda, businesses close and public transportation shuts down severely. Roll this one around in your head for a while:

By law all able bodied persons above the age of 18 and below 65 are expected to participate in volunteer community work.

Always on alert to jump at mandatory volunteer opportunities, the team elected to join the community we're working with. BJ gave the best analogy: "It's like skiing on the weekend, you have to wake up early and then you want to bail... but once you're on the mountain you have the best day ever and feel great during and afterwards!" This proved incredibly accurate. After some quick gulps of coffee five of us set out for the site of the new land. We met up with Alex, Regis, and Patrick from ROP* who introduced us to the Umudugudu** leader of the new land.

*The Rwandan Orphans Project which we have been calling "The R-O-P" in the past, is actually referred to by the local community simply as rop [rhymes with mop]. 

**Umudugudu is the lowest structured level of 'local government' here, and is a Kinyarwandan word equivalent to neighborhood. Since 2006 Rwanda has been subdivided into 5 provinces -> 30 districts -> 416 sectors -> many Cells -> many more Umudugudus.

Umuganda in our community was managed by the Umudugudu leader; this is common in most communities. Even in Kabeza (the area where we are staying) which is quite a bit more urban and developed they have big Umuganda projects for everyone who lives there. Friday night on our street the next day's Umuganda place to meet and work was announced by a pickup truck with a massive PA system in the back driving around. It's not unheard of that skilled or professional persons offer their services to their local communities at no cost during Umuganda, such as a doctor providing free medical care and house calls. 


In our community we were directed to a small path crowded with shrubbery, weeds, and small trees that was due for expansion. BJ and Andy learned how to use kupa-kupas, long thin blades with a 30 degree bend about 15% down from the tip of the blade. The tool-in-motion looks similar to reaping crops with a scythe and can wreak havoc on the back if not properly used. I helped fell two trees using larger chopping machetes while Jordan and Kara cleared brush using hoes and wicker brooms. The result was a bunch of upturned gooey clay that will eventually get pounded by enough rain and turn hard into a new road!

Jordan swings a machete clearing brush for a new road as we assisted the community during Umuganda.

When the mandatory work period ends (promptly) at 11am, the community gathers in a nearby public space and holds a town-hall meeting. Our team was invited to sit with the community at a nearby soccer pitch while the local Umudugudu began thanking the community members. The Rwanda Governance Board [RGB] promotes that

"...the benefits of Umuganda are not merely economic. The day is intended to build community involvement and strengthen cohesion between persons of different background and levels. One such a benefit is that people can access authorities to articulate their needs and voice opinions on various issues."

Many individuals spoke up about the Vision 2020 Umerenge Program (V.U.P.) -- specifically about mismanagement concerning recruitment and biased allocation of credit and salaries to certain individuals. The Umudugudu leaders were quick to quell and console those with grievances. After every complaint the rhetoric evolved into pledges and promises for optimistic future changes and considerations.

BJ & I present at the meeting post-Umuganda to the local community.

After the formalities, questions, and thanks, a community cultural officer came up and rehashed the history of Rwanda and the significance of cultural unity. While Umuganda is always the last Saturday of every month, the June Umuganda is unique as July 1st and July 4th are both national holidays.


July 1st is Unity Day and equivalent to National Day/Independence Day. July 4th is Liberation Day which I was informed is a celebration of peace recognizing the end of the genocide. Like Umuganda, most businesses and government services are not open on these holidays while the national stadium hosts a live speech by the president and a lavish military parade.

Helicopters practicing formation for the Unity Day military parade, they always fly in the formation of 2 Hinds followed by 4 Hips followed by 2 Hinds.

We celebrated Unity Day by having an off day and enjoying a meal with Dean Rob Davis and his family before they returned to the United States. Other updates on different efforts from the travel team and those we miss back home:


Video Shoot: With wonderful camera equipment loaned by Jeff Larsen's In The Telling media group, Andrew and BJ have been conducting stellar interviews and documenting both the monitoring and assessment portions of our trip with cool footage of working team members and quality interviews. We're really excited to piece all of this footage together for educational, promotional, and recruitment pitches that can boost our team's efforts in these categories.


CVK (formerly known as L'Esperance): BJ is hard at work writing up the 531 Post-Monitoring trip report, which we're hoping to turn in on July 15th. Myself (Matt) and others will begin materials sourcing for  lightning protection equipment for the existing solar energy systems and are planning to return in the next two weeks. Everyone is excited to go back, visit the orphanage, enjoy the beautiful scenery and wonderful people.


Design: Back home, both Kyle and Jacob have jumped up to start work on the 523 Alternatives Analysis report. Encompassing most of the preliminary design work from last spring, this document will detail options on materials, roofing, foundations, as well as energy and water systems for the new school project. I am already working on the 522 Post-Assessment report and this September we'll focus on the 524 Preliminary Design report and the 525 Implementation plan -- so that we can ideally send over a team and break ground in January!


Fundraising: Much discussion has been had on the future budgeting of our project. An initial wishlist of about 8000 square feet of classrooms and office space for the new school will run upwards of US$320,000 at worst-case estimates (US$40/sqft). Andrew has put a lot of thought into fundraising ideas and opportunities for our team next year while Jordan and Andy have started a channel with the local Rwanda Rotary organization which we want to include as a potential funding partner.


New Website: Andrew and his brother, as well as Liz and Ariana back home are working on generating new content for an awesome looking web portal for the EWB-CU-Rwanda team that we hope to launch before the new school year. We'll have automation to help keep track of our recent blog posts as well as lots of multimedia and sponsorship information. This will be a great tool and information portal for our team as we kick off the new project!

A screenshot of the new EWB-CU-Rwanda Team website made by Andrew's brother!

There's plenty of other major efforts (education reports, future plans, and coordination for next year) that everyone here and back home is hard at work on. My thanks go out to an amazing team of hardworking students and volunteers that are progressing on an amazing and challenging project. That's all for now folks! Thanks for reading and feel free to leave us any comments or questions;


Matt Hulse.

Andy walks away in celebration after completing Umuganda with ROP volunteers.

Guns, germs, and bar fights

Late on Thursday night, Kara found herself confessing that two of her teammates were at the police station while everyone else was mingling at a British High Commission cocktail party…

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Earlier that day, Andrew, Kara, and I were finishing up the geotechnical assessment at the ROP land. Although we contracted out most of the assessment through KIST, we collected some samples for simple tests that we performed in our backyard with the help of jars (to look at the sand, silt, and clay layers as the soil settled in water) and sunshine (to measure water content).

Collecting and weighing soil while innocent children play nearby.

While we worked, the usual group of small children gathered around us in fascination, and one of them in particular seemed extremely intent on going through my bag. I tried to stop her multiple times, but in the last five minutes before we left, she managed to take my wallet out of an inside pocket in my bag. When I realized this back at the house, Andrew and I hopped on motos and zoomed back to the site before darkness fell. We recruited a worker from the ROP, Alex, to join us on the quest to find my wallet. As we turned the last corner, still about a quarter mile from the site, people started tagging along—everyone had already heard all about this. By the time we reached the little girl’s house, we had accumulated a crowd of over 50 people, and it was complete chaos. The girl had given the wallet to her father, who we later found out headed straight to a bar with five of his friends and blew through all the Rwandan francs (about $100) before heading to his job as a security guard. When Alex first called him, he denied knowing anything about the wallet, but the rest of the community went up in a roar of anger and several people called him back to yell at him. I desperately wished I could understand Kinyarwanda as Andrew and I stood on the sidelines listening to the shouting. Hours later, Alex and the wife took off on motos to the husband’s work to convince him to return the wallet. Andrew and I sat outside in the dark, still surrounded by people. Another worker from the ROP showed up and called the police, and within half an hour, four giant camouflaged men with AK-47s stealthily appeared in the crowd. I was watching the road the entire time and didn’t see them approach. Meanwhile, Alex managed to get my wallet back, without the money, from the gun-toting security man who was “very, very angry”—this was before we found out that he was also drunk. Alex said he had to be “careful.” He and the wife returned just when the police truck showed up to collect us. We perched on the back and held on for dear life as the truck lunged down the dirt roads. Although we were freezing and hungry, Andrew and I still had the capacity to enjoy this exhilarating ride. We arrived at the police station and were ushered into a room with dirty walls and a single light bulb hanging from a wire. After I wrote down my statement, the police left to find the husband again.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group was at a party at the British High Commission, where at an after-party at a nearby pub two Ugandan women ended up in a hair-pulling, name-calling, table-throwing fight. Needless to say, some of our teammates retired early and everyone had many stories to tell at the end of the night.

The police managed to retrieve most of my money. We found out the next day that the man was thrown into prison until he paid off the money he spent in order to set an example for the rest of the community. The ROP director, Celestin, visited him to tell him about the school we are building for families like his who can’t currently afford to send their children to school. Today I received a call that the rest of the Rwandan francs have been paid off and went to the police station again to retrieve the money. It was a fascinating experience mostly because of the way the community handled the whole affair—they easily could have defended their neighbor and deny knowing anything, but everyone participated in helping me get all of my belongings back. This would never happen in the US.

On Friday, we said goodbye to Steve, who returned to the states despite our continuous begging for him to stay. We miss you, Steve!

Yesterday was “National Work Day,” a day dedicated to community building throughout Rwanda, which Matt will write about soon. Stay tuned! So today is our first intentional “no work day.” We are taking time to lounge, catch up on news, read, and talk to family and friends. Oh, and of course… work out!

Matt trying out the make-shift weights we found in our front yard.

-Sonya

Overcrowded, noisy and unsanitary…then we leave the house

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.

On different occasions we met with local engineers and foreign architects to determine some of the unique aspects of working in Rwanda.

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

Independent livin'

               Dear world. Despite the best efforts of local malaria carrying mosquitos, we are still alive and everyone is healthy.

                The past week has seen us transition to a new phase in our time in Rwanda. As we move from the beautiful verdant hills surrounding Lake Kivu and our monitoring and maintenance of past projects at Children’s Village Kigarama back to Kigali, we are excited for what is to come, but sad that it’s time to leave.  We have made many great connections and friendships here at CVK and it’s hard to walk out of these kids’ lives and not know how to answer when they ask us when we will be coming back. We had a bonfire the night before our departure since the older kids had school in the morning and wouldn’t have time to say goodbye then. In the morning, we packed our bags and headed out to catch motos back to the bus station in Kibuye. The little kids who didn’t have school walked with us and waved goodbye as we drove away.

Sonya saying goodbye

The view from behind my moto driver

The moto to Kibuye

The bus to Kigali

  

In Kigali we were greeted by paved streets, fast internet, and a plumbed water supply. We met up with Noah, our landlord to be, and he showed us to the house we will be living in for the next month. The house is furnished with 5 rooms, 2 bathrooms, a small kitchen, and is enclosed by a wall and metal gate with a guardsman. At first this seemed a little over the top, until Andy pointed out that the cost per night is almost $10 USD cheaper per night than renting a single hotel room with a queen bed. Sean and Jenny, the coordinators or the Rwandan Orphans Project (our partners for the second half of this trip), spent the week before our arrival visiting different houses and negotiating for us. Sean looked at close to 20 houses, which he found through “Kigali Life” a yahoo page which acts as the Kigali equivalent to Craigslist.

Our Kigali house

The wall, gate and guard house (red, green, and white)

                One of the most exciting parts of having a house here has been navigating culinary independence. We have had a lot of fun diving into local markets to test our Kinyarwandan skills and attempt to negotiate prices. Intially, despite our best haggling efforts, we were getting ripped off, but we’ve made significant improvement and now are getting much better prices. Jordan and BJ have proven to be an excellent negotiating team. Jordan directly talks to sellers and negotiates prices, while BJ smiles and appeases those that we don’t want to buy from. They have a theory that maybe they get better prices because the women at the market prefer to deal with other women. Back at the house we put our cooking skills to the test. We had a slow start, but the meals have been getting progressively more delicious as we figure out how to cook with the kitchen and supplies available. 

Cooking

Toasting toast over the burner

                Our dinners as of late have been punctuated by mewling as a cute scrawny ball of fluff comes over to emotionally manipulate our team members into feeding it. When we gave the furball a name, Gollumn, and a bowl of milk, I realized that this kitten was going to become part of our lives. When a veterinary friend of BJ’s told us the cat could give us ringworm, I wondered if maybe it would be better if it didn’t. Nonetheless, Gollumn has decided that free milk is an invitation, and returns to see us every night.

Gollumn the cat

Jordan decides to put her rabies shot to the test

                On Tuesday, we were excited to have another team member, Matt Hulse, arrive in Kigali. Matt had previously been in Haiti working on another development project, where he taught the skills of electrician-ship (if that’s a word) to a number of local Haitian teachers at a trade school so that they could develop their own curriculum and teach others.

                 Thursday marked Matt’s birthday, and we celebrated with a homemade chocolate cake. Matt decided the best way to serve the cake was to cut circular pieces out from random points in the middle of the cake. Andy cringed.

Matt's Birthday

Blowing out the candles

                 The next month here in Kigali will be spent partnering with the Rwandan Orphans Project. The orphanage, located in Kanombe, Kigali acts as a home for 96 boys who were previously living on the street. They provide housing, education, meals, and counseling. The ROP pays rent to use the land their facilities are currently on, and wants to transition to operation on a new piece of land they recently purchased. In the transition, they want to expand their facilities and purpose to act not only as an orphanage, but also as a community center. The ROP wants us to partner with them to provide engineering design expertise and build a school on their new land to that will service both the ROP’s boys, and local children that can’t pay to attend public school.

                This phase of the trip is a pre-design assessment. Earlier in the trip we did the surveying of the plot of land that we will be building on. Our days now are filled with doing the leg work necessary to answer all the questions necessary to make our design possible. Naturally what this means is a ton of meetings. We met with city planners Donna and Joshua, to clarify local laws and find out how to get building permits. We met with a geotechnical expert who we are considering contracting to do the assessment of the conditions of our plot. We met with Sean and Jenny and discussed their vision for the use of the plot of land, had a planning activity, and scheduled 3 more meetings with them next week to discuss our timeline, budget, and their priorities for new facilities, and to tour local schools to see designs they would like to emulate. Our time in Kigali so far has been hugely productive and consequently fulfilling. I continue to enjoy people I’m with. We’ve got a good group and I look forward continuing to live with them and the work in the weeks to come.

Planning at the ROP

Our topo map of the ROP Land

Thinking through where facilities will go

---Andrew Maier

Dogs at School and Other Tails

As our two weeks at Children’s Village Kigarama come to a close, we are finishing up our engineering work and left with more time to contemplate the complex society which we are fortunate enough to visit.  I just finished reading A Thousand Hills, by Stephen Kinzer, a book that I would highly recommend to anyone who is interested in the story of Rwanda’s history and development since the genocide.  The book attempts to explain the society and culture of Rwanda in the context of its recent history, and has been very beneficial in helping to interpret situations we encounter here.  Initially, we saw clean streets and expensive-looking infrastructure projects and a noticeable lack of obvious poverty on the streets of Kigali, and I concluded that everything was progressing fabulously and things were great.  Everyone we met was effusive in their courtesy and exceptionally helpful and kind to us.  We have noticed though, that people are in general very serious and somber – which is completely to be expected given that 99.9% of Rwandan children who were alive during the genocide were effected either indirectly by the loss of loved ones, or by directly witnessing or experiencing violence.  Many of the Rwandans we have been working with at CVK have physical and psychological scars from the genocide.  Prince, the orphanage’s assistant director, lost his entire family in the violence and grew up at CVK.

There seems to be an attitude of walking on eggshells.  From Kinzer’s book, as well as people we have talked with, Rwanda appears to be aware that a repeat of genocide violence could potentially break out if control were lost for even a brief period.  President Kagame, who by most accounts orchestrated Rwanda’s recovery from the genocide and rebirth into one of the fastest moving economies in Africa, runs a pretty controlled society.  There are debates as to whether the amount of control the government exercises over its people is necessary for keeping order and averting another outbreak of violence, or whether it is an excessive display of power from a leader who has remained unchallenged for too long.  I’ve only been here for two weeks and don’t have enough information yet to form an opinion, but I will say that from an outsider’s perspective, Rwanda seems to be making progress.  And that is pretty cool.

Here is my segue:  

Segway

Updates on the team achievements are as follows:

Our three major goals at CVK were to monitor the operation of our three past projects, the high efficiency cook stoves, the irrigation system, and the rainwater catchment systems.  We have been dominating our to-do lists most days (with occasional lapses in productivity due to enthusiastic children, rousing soccer games, and Steve’s insistence that we ‘get out and exercise’).  The cook stoves, which were found to be in need of repairs, are currently being renovated by a team of local masons who were trained by Inno, a cook stove specialist from Manna Energy, a Kigali-based organization that we have partnered with on several projects. 

The team learning the basics of stove repair from Inno

The irrigation system seems to be in good repair, other than the entire piping system being infested with giant yellow slugs (which pour out of the faucet whenever the system is turned on).  We have also been testing drinking water to make sure everything is in order and the UV treatment system is working.  Yesterday, Steve and I trekked with Prince (the assistant director at CVK) to three of the spring sources from which the kids haul water during the dry season.  It was quite a hike and I almost plummeted to my death (or at least extreme discomfort) so many times that I was allocated an extra ration of pineapple for my efforts.  Steve almost died only once, and so was not appreciated as much as myself, who managed to semi-hurdle off of cliffs about every 3 minutes. 

The intensity of the hike to fetch water underscores the importance of our education mission here, which is to encourage conservation of rainwater from the collection tanks during the dry season.  Jordan and Andrew have been pioneering the education effort, and have had great success teaching the kindergarten classes with the help of CVK’s excellent teacher, Jean de Dieu.  Because Sunday is the only day of the week that is free for the secondary school kids to attend any educational workshops, we are planning an exciting educational afternoon on Sunday for the older kids and mothers to learn about water conservation and cook stove use.

Because we have been working so much with education this week, the team thought it would be a good idea for us to take a field trip to a local school with some of the kids.  Sonya and Andrew went to a secondary school English class at the beginning of the week (the rest of us stayed behind in bed after coming down with a horrifically virulent cold, which we did not want to spread to the children).  After having managed to recover enough to be less infectious, the rest of us took a trip to primary school with the kids on Thursday.  Jordan, Andy, and myself attended a P6 class with Mado and Peter, kids from CVK, and about 50 other children from the nearby area.  We sat three-to-a-desk, and wrote on notebooks made out of recycled newspaper, but this was by far the most focused geometry class I have ever attended.  The teacher, who is also the school’s assistant headmaster, taught in a fluent mix of Kinyarwanda and English, and encouraged class participation and in-class problem solving with skill I have rarely witnessed in the US.  I was highly impressed, and was also probably the most distracted person in the classroom due to the fact that CVK’s resident pet dog, Lady, managed to crawl under the orphanage fence and follow us all the way to school.  She would not leave and insisted on following us into the classroom, which I am sure was a horrific breach of etiquette in the Rwandan school system.  So, the whole time we were learning about finding the volume of a cuboid, I was trying to keep Lady happy and hidden under the desk.  It was kind of like one of those bad dreams where you accidentally forget to wear pants to school and you have a test, except it was real.  We also had a quiz in class, which Jordan and I passed with flying colors and received red checkmarks on our papers. 

Today is the Sabbath (CVK is run by Seventh Day Adventists who celebrate Saturday as their holy day), so we are encourage to take today as a day of rest.  That works out pretty nice, as it’s a beautiful day and we have lots of planning to catch up on for our last few days here.  On Monday, we will return to Kigali, where Sean (a coordinator at the Rwandan Orphans Project) has set up a house for our team to rent for the rest of our stay in Rwanda.  We will soon be joined by two more members of our group, Matt and Kara.  We are excited to begin our project in Kigali, but will be sorry to leave the warm hospitality and good friends at CVK.

Love and pineapples,

BJ

Today we meet our lunch!

In Rwanda things connect.  We live in a world where we are separated from so many things in our lives.   We concern ourselves with our carbon footprint, recycling, community, and how large our impact is on the world.  We often do not see the direct connection to what it is we do and our place in the world.  In Rwanda there is a connection.  There is a direct connection to almost everything that happens.  We have a lot to learn, whether it is collecting firewood for cooking or rain water (a past EWB project) for drinking and washing.   The other day I noticed Rasta, our chef, walking by with a chicken, and I went over to see what was going on.  He proudly held up the chicken, then proceeded to rip the feathers off of its neck, cut its head off, place it in boiling water (so the feathers would fall out) and turned it into lunch within an hour.

We are still at L’esperance (Children’s Village Kigirama), monitoring the many projects completed by Engineers Without Borders and other groups over the years.  One of the projects was to build high efficiency stoves; this reduced the wood usage by about two thirds.  This is a significant savings for the orphanage, both in time and money.  In order to cook every meal someone must collect firewood and build a fire.  They know first hand their impact on their world.  There is a direct connection between cooking and fuel.  Saving trees is not only saving work but saving a valuable resource in their immediate neighborhood.

Because of the intense usage of the stoves, they are in need of repairs.  From the last blog, you saw that BJ and Sonya spent a day boiling water and testing the efficiency of the stoves.  It was determined that repairs are necessary.  It was particularly fulfilling to see that one of the former orphans, Innocent, is now working at the company that builds the stoves.  Innocent came to L’esperance and supervised the cook stove repairs.  He has a good job, has purchased land, and is planning on building his own home soon.  Innocent is one of our good friends in Rwanda.  And L’esperance is a good parent. 

Yesterday we decided to go to the weekly market.  The local market occurs here every Wednesday afternoon.  It is about an hour walk or a 20 minute moto ride to the market.  Many people from around the region come to this market, it is a social event.  A community connection if you will.  Vendors are selling food and clothing.  The clothes are mostly used clothes, people are trying on the clothes and then taking them to one of the many tailors working around the edge of the market to fit you into your “new” clothes.  Things and people connect.

While at the market we stopped to have lunch.  The owner was very excited and offered us goat brochettes as the specialty of the house.  After he took our order he walked into the street to solicit one of the many people strolling by with a goat, he completed the transaction then proudly walked the goat back by our table on the way to the kitchen.  We connect.  Lunch will be ready soon!