Week 6 - Regular Rhythms

So, Week 6 and we feel like we’ve hit our natural team stride.  One of the key achievements of the week was the completion of our documentary for Second Chance Rukundo Ministry which has now been sent to the supporters in the Netherlands and will be shown in churches there.  It was an honour to be able to work on this project and we’re proud of the result!  Ten minutes of quality footage…take a look by clicking here.

We also headed back to Munazi tree nursery on Tuesday, though we were sad to find out that it would be for the last time.  We weeded the morning away, enjoying our quieter time together and the peace of being outside in the valley.  The next stage of the process will require more skilled hands than ours as the baby seedlings are very fragile.  They now need to be transplanted from the ground into the soil pots which we filled a couple of weeks ago before they are distributed to the community members.  We have thoroughly enjoyed being involved in this project as the benefits are so evident.  Understandably we are going to miss it, but we are cheered by the knowledge that our work will be carried forward, making a real difference in the local village communities.

Weeding away in the tree nursery

There has been plenty of office work during the week, though our office happens to be Azizi at the moment but that’s how we like it as there’s endless tea available!  What with planning for our English and holiday clubs, preparing lessons for Compassion, and helping RDIS with various documents relating to their fuel-efficient stoves and ceramic water filters projects, we have been fairly busy.  All in all, progress is being made and this coming week we are hoping to complete the write-up report of our interviews with the beneficiaries of the stoves project.

Our office: Azizi Life

Wednesday and Thursday afternoon were both really enjoyable as we delivered English Club and Holiday Club at Zion Hill Nursery School – not once but twice! English club lessons focused on teaching our small but dedicated group of students about family members, including a pretty spiffy family tree, and later food and shopping with a small army of flashcards. Simultaneously the other half of the team ran Holiday Club activities for the hoards of teeming children outside. We were treated to endless rounds of ‘Duck, Duck, Goose’, Isaie Says, and then a menagerie of animal drawings – accompanied by relevant animal noises. Later, Amy made the mistake of complimenting a woman on her beautiful baby, leading to the unexpected and slightly uncomfortable request for Amy to take over breastfeeding. She promptly declined, retreating to the safety of the mini-bus. That’ll be something to tell the grandkids!

Our day off on Friday saw us take to the hills, venturing forth on a ‘short’ walk to a ‘nearby’ lake. Quite apart from wanting to explore more of the local area, we had agreed to help Tom, who runs Azizi Life, to check the route of a 2.5 hour walk which he has created as a means of promoting tourism in the local area (take a look here).  We had only been planning to do a section of the route and to stay out for an hour and a half but it took us almost that long to reach our destination!  Luckily, Beth had some glucose biscuits stashed in her rucksack, which sustained us during the long walk back.

En route to the lake

Our destination

Despite it turning into a mammoth and exhausting trek, we really enjoyed seeing more of the Land of a Thousand Hills, and being greeted by many small children and animals along the way (sheep, goats, puppies, a cow, a heron and a kingfisher!).  Our trip culminated in our weekly visit to the supermarket to stock up on sweet treats which we were very much in need of!

Team Champion: intrepid explorers!

As per usual, we headed over to Compassion on Saturday morning to deliver a couple of lessons to the sponsored kids.  This Saturday’s topics were setting life goals and effective hand-washing (with a natty little song composed by Amy and sung by Beth to the tune of Happy Birthday).  Whilst sometimes these classes can be difficult to teach as many of the students only attend because it is a condition of their sponsorship, we are hopeful that the students get something out of them, even if it’s just an hour’s entertainment watching muzungus make fools of themselves!

A typical class at Compassion

Saturday is also our day for structured learning sessions which are led by a different member of the team every week.  So far, we’ve learnt about human rights (Beth), deforestation (Amy), malnutrition (Debs), and inequality (Mya).  This week it was the turn of Claude who presented a very interesting introduction to current Rwandan politics.  It’s great to learn and understand more about the country we are living in, and discuss the similarities and differences with the UK, the most obvious being that Rwanda is a republic with His Excellency (Paul Kagame) as the head of state, whilst that role is occupied by Queenie in the UK.

The week was rounded off by church on Sunday morning, where we sang a new song – Your Great Name by Natalie Grant – which turned out to be rather catchy given that it was in our heads for the rest of the day!  And then, the inevitable competitive rounds of Uno in the evening.  As she predicted, Mya (who has been at the bottom of the leader board since we started) is now starting to make her comeback, overtaking both Amy and Claude…watch this space, she may yet come out victorious at the end of Week 10!

Thanks again for reading!  We're so grateful of your continued encouragement and prayers.

Until next time, with much love,

Team ICS Muhanga (aka Team Champion)

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