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.

Missing Luggage

December 28th 5:00 pm
I have been sleeping for the past four hours and the flight is almost over. I have decided that I now know exactly what it feels like when sardines are packed into a can. On the bright side the food here is much better, lots of yummy Belgian Ice cream. I think I will ask for more, Jacob over and out.

December 28th, 11:50 pm
I sit in the hotel room at Kiyovu, the Kigali hotel where we are staying the night. This is going to be the last post of the Adventures of Nikki and Jake as we have finally met up with our comrades Christian and Mike. We are exhausted but well fed, ready for what awaits us. Oh yeah, the flight. We land in Kigali and are whisked away to be checked for Ebola and Yellow Fever and get our travel visas. We then procede to gather our luggage, only to discover that our luggage is missing.Between us and a group from California, over 11 bags are missing. GREAT... Tomorrow comes the mystery thriller of The Missing Luggage.

The Continued Adventures of Nikki and Jake

December 27th Saturday 4:00 pm
Jake and I decided to meet for lunch at noon which meant we both had the mornings to ourselves. I was able to catch up on some much needed sleep and Jake did some exploring of the hotel and its magazines. We met up for lunch at noon and then hung out in the hotel lobby for a while until our taxi back to the airport arrived. Once at the airport we had about 4 hours until our flight actually left, so naturally we wondered for a while. We did find a Starbucks on our little explorations, and so we got our last frappacuinos for a while. We then went to what we thought was our gate. As it turns out, our gate had been switched. So we walked to the new gate. However, upon arrival at the new gate we found that the gate was booked for both Geneva and our flight to Amsterdam. We returned back to the customer service desk to find the same man that had helped us last night. He looked at us like we were silly when we said that our gate was double booked. He ended up looking up both flights and finding that the gates had indeed been double booked. Now that all of that has been resolved, we are currently sitting at the gate reading and writing blogs and hoping that the next couple legs of flying will be a little more peaceful and smooth sailing! We did have a fun stop in Newark though and got to see a little of the city.

December 27th, Saturday time unknown
Somewhere over the vastness of the atlantic ocean is a flying metal tube shooting through the air. And in this awesome feat of engineering Nikki once again orders milk...Such silly. We took off from the Newark Airport with little issues, only a 20 minute delay this time. Dinner has been served and after triple checking to ensure we were not accidentally given the gruel intended for the serfs in the Economy seats, (We were bumped to Economy Plus due to United missing our flight the first time) we gagged down the food. We can only hope that Christian and Mike have survived and made it to Kigali without us.

The adventures of Jake and Nikki

December 26th, Friday 1:00 p.m.
After multiple delays accumilating in two additional hours sitting on the runway at Denver International Airport, Nikki and I, the amazing Jacob, finally are in the air. We can only hope that we catch up on lost time, as we only had an hour delay in Newark, NJ for our next leg of the flight. I immediately read my only book, completely...This could be a looong trip. Nikki orders milk to the bemused stares of her fellow passangers, particularly the young boy in front of her thinking to himself, "how silly!" and then she passes out.

December 26th Friday 6:30 p.m.
We arrive at 6:30, the same time that the plane is scheduled to leave, and see on our phone app that they are delayed by 20 minutes. There is hope! We bolt out of the plane, determined to make it to our flight no matter what. I yell at Nikki to aim for the elderly as I shoulder my way through a group of children (Disclaimer: This might be slightly embellished) and we run through and over fellow travelers until we, completely out of breath, reach our gate. Success, or so we think as we see our plane waiting for us...The only problem isM that the gate is closed, doors locked. No matter how hard we plead we are not allowed on board. we are instead directed to the evil and dreaded United Customer Service.Dun.Dun.Dun.

This is now Nikki writing, so the story may be less exagerated (just as a heads up)! When we reached the customer service desk, a little winded but strong in spirits, we began what would be the first in a series of conversations with the man on duty. We began by telling him we had just missed our flight to Brussels and asking what we should do to remedy the situation. I told him that our plane was still sitting on the run-way and asked if there was any possible way to get onto the plane. He said it was not likely, but that I could go and check if I wanted to. I did go back and check with the people working the gate, but they said that because the walkway to the plane had already been detached, that it was no longer an option for us to get on the plane. Upon hearing this, I gave our mentor Mike a quick phone call. He picked up and I told him of our predicament, and he was very understanding and we agreed to meet in the Kigali hotel in 48 hours. By this time I was back with the customer service agent. He managed to rebook our flights for the following day, but an hour early and this time flying through Amsterdam. This meant that Jake and I had a full 23 hours until our next flight. The airlines did pay for a hotel room for each of us and gave us meal vouchers. We caught the train and taxi that took us to our hotel. We were both very hungry and ate a big dinner! After this, we sat down and played a couple rounds of cards and then each went to our respective room and retired.