4 cents a day.

Today was our last day in Gitarama.

My experience going home to home through the countryside gave me a whole new perspective on poverty.

For instance, we went into one 2 room, adobe brick house. They have 7 people in their family and their monthly income is 5,000 Rwandan Francs or $8.92 a month. That's 29 cents a day. FOR 7 PEOPLE! 4 cents a day per person! Can you imagine what they would do if their crops failed? How in the world could you feed 7 people with 29 cents a day?

Or the family of 6 that has no land, makes less than a dollar a month repairing plastic shoes, only eats once a day and can't pay school fees so their kids work instead of going to school.

Or the family of 10 that has 8 kids in primary school, only eats one meal a day and doesn't even have the resources to boil their water before drinking it.

I was laying in my "bed" feeling a bit overwhelmed on Wednesday night. It was right after dinner and I had eaten a rather large meal (by my standards at least). I sat there thinking how full I was. How I had wished I had eaten less. And then I thought about some of the kids I met that day. Albertine, Eric, Pololine, etc. They would probably do anything to go to bed with a full stomach. Many of them eat at noon and that's it for the day. Some rice and beans to last the entire day. Who am I to wish I had less?

This is Eric.

Eric again.

Cutie.

Pololine loved Audrey's water bottle.

Audrey and one of the households.