Weeks 9 & 10: Grieved by grasshoppers…and goodbyes!

So this is it, our final full blog!  We’ve reached Week 10 in record quick time, or so it seems.  Since we last wrote, we’ve been kept busy with some usual activities, some new work, and trying to avoid thousands of grasshoppers, but more on them later…

The usual work has consisted of teaching our final lessons at Compassion and English club, and entertaining the kids in our last holiday club sessions.  It’s been a wrench to say goodbye to everyone we’ve met through these activities, especially the kids who are always so excited to see us and play!  Needless to say, there were a fair few tears shed as we drove away from Zion Hill for the last time yesterday.  There were so many children crowding the team that the boys had to escort the girls into the bus like bodyguards before Freddy, our driver, hurried us away as if we were in a getaway vehicle!

 

We’ve also been trying to finish up our various office projects.  In fact, the production sub-team (Claude and Debs, with the help of John) is working on the documentary about the Diocese of Shyogwe, even as I write.

But these haven’t been our only tasks in these last 10 days.  We were also, finally (hallelujah!), able to construct fuel-efficient stoves for five families in Nyagasoze, a nearby village in which RDIS is just starting up some initiatives.  We have been wanting to be involved in this work for a long time, particularly since we learnt of the real value of the stoves through the interviews with beneficiaries which we did back in Week 5.  It’s been brilliant to build something tangible which we know will really benefit the households, and we’re hopeful that the project will continue after we leave so that even more families will be able to profit.  There’s certainly a knack to constructing a decent stove but the team has proved that they have engineering brains as well as brawn, both of which are needed in this case!

 

Stoves in various stages of construction and the finished product

And so, a few other highlights to mention…

The marker pen (spoons) game

Over the last few weeks, we’ve got to know one of the ladies at church much better.  Anne is a VSO volunteer from Kenya who is here in Muhanga to help out at the local Teacher Training Centre.  She’s been so friendly and welcoming, even though she’s only been here about the same amount of time as we have!  Anyway, it was Anne’s birthday last week, so we popped over to her house to help her celebrate and enjoyed some party food and games.  The competitive spirit of the team members was revealed as we played snakes & ladders, and “board marker pens” which is an alternative to the card game “spoons” (trust a teacher to have more board marker pens than spoons!)!

Group photo!

The last Saturday of every month is Umuganda (Rwandan community service, where everyone gets involved in helping out in some way) and so last weekend, we joined the Compassion students to help them tidy up the area outside Zion Hill Church, hoeing the flowerbeds and weeding the lawns.  It was great to spend some time with the students outside of the classrooms so that they could see we were more than just teachers!  We chatted away and Mya was even presented with some pictures which one of the students, Grace, had drawn for her to say thank you for her teaching.

Hard at work

Umuganda group with the Compassion students

The church services we’ve attended over the last 2 weeks have also been pretty memorable.  Both Sundays have been “double church Sundays” as we’ve attended our usual English service at Gahogo Parish, and then followed up by attending a Kinyarwanda service afterwards.  The Sunday at the beginning of Week 9 we stayed on at Gahogo as they were having a special service with a visit from a well-known Rwandan gospel singer.  The church was literally packed to the rafters and everyone was joyfully singing and dancing.  There’s definitely no awkwardness about raising your hands in a Rwandan church!  And then this last Sunday, we attended Gatenze Chapel in a village about 20 minutes’ drive away.  The chapel building is still in the process of being built and so currently there’s no roof.  Halfway through the service, it started to rain so the whole church got up, picked up the benches, headed for a nearby building and crammed into one room.  This issue had no effect upon the sheer joy that the congregation radiated and we couldn’t help but be uplifted and impressed by their love and welcome.

Gatenze choir welcomes us

The dash inside

Gatenze Chapel service indoors

We sadly had to bid farewell to Gahogo Church last weekend, but they put on a special evening for us to say thank you for our involvement and to pray for us.  They also plied us with tea, samosas and sweet breads before presenting us with Certificates of Merit!  It was lovely to be able to hang out with the people we’ve got to know there and we have felt very blessed by their support and encouragement.

Amy with some of her snowflakes and our Christmas tree

Now that we’re in December, we’re very conscious that Christmas is coming up fast, though it doesn’t really feel like it here, as Rwanda does not go mad for Christmas shopping, lights and decorations like the UK does.  But on Sunday evening, we decided to bring a bit of sparkle to Azizi Life and have our own version of Christmas.  This included Christmas dinner (roast chicken courtesy of Debs’ cooking skills!) accompanied by Christmas music.  And the lounge was decked out in home-made decorations (Amy is a dab hand at making snowflakes, and Mya, our resident artist, drew some Christmas illustrations), complete with a Christmas tree with lights supplied by Azizi.  It certainly started to get us in the mood for the craziness of the festive season that we’re about to return to in the UK!

One highlight of the past week which sends a shiver of fear down our spines is that we have been terrorised by a plague of GIANT grasshoppers!  Or, at least, the girls on the team have been terrorised…Claude and Isaie are entirely nonplussed and have actually been our knights in shining armour, constantly coming to our rescue by removing the pesky beasts from just about every nook and cranny in our house.  Many a time have they answered a knock on their door and a pleading face, or responded to a high-pitched scream as one of the girls gets the merest touch from an over-excited grasshopper.  But seriously, it’s been traumatic!  If the plagues of Egypt were anything like this, then we’re certainly glad we weren’t around when Moses was in town!  For some reason, the rest of Muhanga does not seem to be suffering from the same plight as Azizi Life – nowhere else do they seem to be congregating!  Maybe they can just smell our fear…though the grasshoppers, too, should be careful as on Sunday, Mya decided she would try out the “delicacy” of sautéed grasshopper (apparently it’s meant to be a delicacy).  Poor Graham the Grasshopper.  But now, poor Mya, as it seems that Graham’s family are now out to get her as they have landed in her hair and attacked her mosquito net at night!  Grasshoppers are one bit of Rwandan wildlife we won’t be sorry to leave behind…

Grasshoppers gathering...

Giant beasts!

Graham the Grasshopper - Mya's dinner!

And so that brings us to the end of our time here in Muhanga.  On Friday, we return to Kigali for our debrief, and then we go our separate ways – Rwandan, English and Welsh – on Saturday.  But even before then, we have the prospect of more goodbyes to prepare for – with RDIS, Azizi Life, John and Freddy.  Big sad face.

For debrief, we’re preparing a video to show the highlights of our ICS experience and so we hope this will help us to remember all that we’ve enjoyed here.  Once it’s ready, we’ll try to post it on this blog too, so watch this space.

Until then, all that remains is for us to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who has been reading (well done if you’ve got this far!) and supporting us.  We so very much appreciate it and we look forward to seeing you soon.

With much love,

Team Champion – RDIS Muhanga

x x x x x x 

We're going to miss this view...

The team with the RDIS staff