Hey friends and family,
I apologize for the lack of blog yesterday!! Our internet cafe was down last night and today has been a hectic, but amazing day!!
I will give you a little update on both yesterday and today and will have to upload some pictures tomorrow as it is very late here now!
First off, we should give an update that Carole and Willy and the Village Make Over (VMO) team have joined us here in Cyankia. VMO is our partner NGO (non-governmental organization) that has worked with the people of Cyankia for almost 10 years. We so value our relationship with VMO and the guidance, support, advice and love they have given us throughout the duration of our partnership. The reason we work with Cyankia is actually because VMO started there almost 10 years ago and recognized the need of engineering team's involvement there and we were fortunately able to fill the spot! So they are here with us, and as a result we have been attending some of the events they have set-up and they have been attending some of our activities.
Yesterday was a very big, ceremonial day. We started out the morning by meeting with the mayor of our district and the stand-in chief (the current chief was in a car accident and is currently recovering). Carole and Willy shared with the mayor the work that both VMO and EWB had done and what had been achieved. Following this we went to a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new opening of a potato storage house VMO had supported.
Following this moving ceremony we returned to the community to have a meeting with the beneficiaries of all of the implemented projects. We had thought we would be hearing the stories of how people were affected the projects and we did, but we were also given very kind and generous gifts at this meeting as well. We were given an entire package of potatoes, a live bunny, and a poster that said "I love you" (I will post pictures of all of this tomorrow). These were all such generous gifts and were so thoughtful that it almost brought me to tears.
Following the incredible ceremony we were able to administer a survey of the people there, collecting the more specific details of how individuals were impacted by the projects.
As for today, it was also really fantastic. We went into community at our usual early morning start. VMO was working on teaching lessons to the farmers they work with and we headed to our tank system sites. Today we were focusing on assessing how "healthy" the systems were. We checked on the condition of all the roofs and gutters and assessed the tanks. We decided that because the chiefs at each site had not yet had a chance to clean the tanks, this would be a good thing to do with them for the first time, so we booked these appointments with the leadership of the community.
Following checking on the tanks, we had about an hour and a half of "down time" during which we had an absolute blast hanging out with the kiddos. We started by playing patty-cake and then we started to dance and play simon-says. I then asked if they could teach us a song which they were very shy to do, but once Curtis and I had sang for them, they were much more willing to do so. Curtis then started a great game of tag with all of the boys, and I hung out with the girls. I was also able to hold the most adorable little baby for almost 20 minutes which was just such a joy. Following this exhausting, but amazing play session we walked back to Munini to collect some drawing codes of a local building we were interested in looking into.
We then returned to our hotel and translated 1/2 of the surveys (total: 80 so far) we have collected so far into English.
As I mentioned earlier, I will be sure to post a lot of pictures tomorrow showing all of our gifts and the times we had with the kiddos and the ribbon cutting ceremony, but I should sleep now as we have an early morning tomorrow!
As always, and wifi bidding, we will write tomorrow!!
Much love and many hugs,
Nikki
I apologize for the lack of blog yesterday!! Our internet cafe was down last night and today has been a hectic, but amazing day!!
I will give you a little update on both yesterday and today and will have to upload some pictures tomorrow as it is very late here now!
First off, we should give an update that Carole and Willy and the Village Make Over (VMO) team have joined us here in Cyankia. VMO is our partner NGO (non-governmental organization) that has worked with the people of Cyankia for almost 10 years. We so value our relationship with VMO and the guidance, support, advice and love they have given us throughout the duration of our partnership. The reason we work with Cyankia is actually because VMO started there almost 10 years ago and recognized the need of engineering team's involvement there and we were fortunately able to fill the spot! So they are here with us, and as a result we have been attending some of the events they have set-up and they have been attending some of our activities.
Yesterday was a very big, ceremonial day. We started out the morning by meeting with the mayor of our district and the stand-in chief (the current chief was in a car accident and is currently recovering). Carole and Willy shared with the mayor the work that both VMO and EWB had done and what had been achieved. Following this we went to a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new opening of a potato storage house VMO had supported.
Following this moving ceremony we returned to the community to have a meeting with the beneficiaries of all of the implemented projects. We had thought we would be hearing the stories of how people were affected the projects and we did, but we were also given very kind and generous gifts at this meeting as well. We were given an entire package of potatoes, a live bunny, and a poster that said "I love you" (I will post pictures of all of this tomorrow). These were all such generous gifts and were so thoughtful that it almost brought me to tears.
Following the incredible ceremony we were able to administer a survey of the people there, collecting the more specific details of how individuals were impacted by the projects.
As for today, it was also really fantastic. We went into community at our usual early morning start. VMO was working on teaching lessons to the farmers they work with and we headed to our tank system sites. Today we were focusing on assessing how "healthy" the systems were. We checked on the condition of all the roofs and gutters and assessed the tanks. We decided that because the chiefs at each site had not yet had a chance to clean the tanks, this would be a good thing to do with them for the first time, so we booked these appointments with the leadership of the community.
Following checking on the tanks, we had about an hour and a half of "down time" during which we had an absolute blast hanging out with the kiddos. We started by playing patty-cake and then we started to dance and play simon-says. I then asked if they could teach us a song which they were very shy to do, but once Curtis and I had sang for them, they were much more willing to do so. Curtis then started a great game of tag with all of the boys, and I hung out with the girls. I was also able to hold the most adorable little baby for almost 20 minutes which was just such a joy. Following this exhausting, but amazing play session we walked back to Munini to collect some drawing codes of a local building we were interested in looking into.
We then returned to our hotel and translated 1/2 of the surveys (total: 80 so far) we have collected so far into English.
As I mentioned earlier, I will be sure to post a lot of pictures tomorrow showing all of our gifts and the times we had with the kiddos and the ribbon cutting ceremony, but I should sleep now as we have an early morning tomorrow!
As always, and wifi bidding, we will write tomorrow!!
Much love and many hugs,
Nikki
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