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.

Fresh Underwear, ah yeah!

December 29th 4:50 am

Ah Kigali. There is nothing quite like waking up rediculously earily for absolutely no reason and realizing that you are in the middle of Africa. What a rush. Christian and I did some sunrise yoga followed by a wonderful breakfast while we waited for the bums to wake. Toast and jam and fresh bananas and pineapple, so tasty. We then met Mezack to discuss plans, followed by a short walk up to downtown Kigali. It is a very surreal and yet sobering experience to walk past the presidential palace with guards on every corner carrying AK-47's and run down buildings on the other. The mall itself was not remarkable, very basic yet had pretty much everything you would expect, just smaller. We enjoyed the scene for a while, getting aclimated to the people, then returned to our hotel to talk to Willy. Lastly Willy and the gang drove to Safintra and we talked to some Indians about the grades of the steel. Which they didn't know. We decided to take some samples and test back in the US to determine the quality and strength. We ended the night with some Ethopian food, a smrogusborge of different foods, and Nikki and I (Jake) waited for three hours for our luggage. Which arrived. Sweet fresh underwear, holy cow it is nice to have clean clothes. That ended the day, tomorrow we travel to Cyanika.