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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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