Delayed Field Work

I'd have to say that I'm a people watcher. I like to see how people work, especially in situations where I can see how culture influences actions.
We were told to meet at 7:45am to leave for the field. So, at 7:45 all 15 of us show up. But there's a problem. Nobody from the Food for the Hungry office here in Gitarama had the print out of questions for the survey. Problem. But you'd think there would be an easy solution, like print them, right? Wrong. The printer is out of ink. Oh but wait, the questions aren't done yet anyway. So 5 Rwandan staff members watch one man's computer screen. Not helping. Just watching. (by now it's been about 9). Okay so the questions are done. Now let's take them to the print store. Oh wait. They're in the wrong format to print. Fix that. Get them to the print store. But not so easy. More problems. Okay finally they are printed. It's now 3 hours after we planned to depart. Anyhow, we got out. It all worked. And Africa will always be Africa and Africa time will never equal American time.

Eventually we got to our field site which is wayyy off the main road. As soon as we arrived we caught the attention of everyone (it's an extremely small village where they are not used to white people). So we began the interview process. As the day progressed more and more people came to watch. By our last interview we probably had 40 people pushing their way to the front to watch the process. It was quite fun. And I got to hold some fabulously cute children. Have I mentioned how much I love the kids here??

Tomorrow we will do more interviews and visit them in their homes. I'll get some pictures to put up here.

Gitarama Field Study

So I'm pretty sure I saw a dead guy today. We were driving and I saw like 50 people standing around on the side of the road and a man on the ground. And sure enough, he looked pretty dead. Rather sobering. We were in a bus so obviously we just kept going and I'm pretty sure only the two of us in the front seat saw it. Weird.

We got to the city of Gitarama today. We're here to do some field research. We'll be going house to house through one of the poorest sectors of the area and asking them some questions about life. The point is to gather some info like, do their kids go to school? If not, why? What is the most common sickness in the house? How much money does the family bring in? Do they clean their water? etc. etc. It's so Food for the Hungry knows the needs of the community and can better help. We'll be here till Friday.

We're living at the FH office (on a whole lot of mattresses). Tonight we found a no bake recipe, went to a market, made delicious cookies anddd had a dance party in the kitchen. Now we're watching How I met Your Mother. Productive if you ask me.

Rain, Rain.

Sometimes the simple intricacy of rain falling on my body is enough to revive me from whatever is bogging me down. I've been feeling pretty distant the last couple days. Just pondering a lot of things and forgetting to be in the moment. But it rained today (which is extremely rare as it's not the rainy season yet). And if you know anything about me it's that I love the rain. So standing in our front yard, looking out at the hills and getting poured on brought me back to reality. Brought me back to life. It's what I needed. Thank you, God.

Complexity of God.

"I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me."

- Donald Miller.

Mvuga Icyongereza n'Ikinyarwanda.

I've never taught anybody a new language. So going into PHARP to teach girls English was extremely intimidating at the beginning. Butt we've been going for a few weeks now and it's been fabulous. The girls have been wonderful and patient with us. We've done numbers, colors, days of the week, common greetings, clothing, a couple emotions and today we even ventured into some harder verbs! They are learning English so much faster than we are learning Kinyarwanda. Then again Kinyarwanda is a bit more difficult.

Would you like to learn some?

Mweramutze - Good morning
Murakoze cyane - Thank you very much
Ifunguro rya mu gitondo - Breakfast (try saying that one when you wake up)
Iherena ryo ku gutwi - earring
Kugena ku maguru - to walk

I like it, but I think I'll stick to English for now.


Other than that we've done some great classic songs like "head, shoulders, knees and toes" and the ABCs. My favorite so far has been the song I will call upon the Lord. They seem to really like it and while they don't yet know what it's saying they know it's a praise song and it's great. I'll have to record it sometime and put it on here.






Murabeho!

African Style

Because who wouldn't want a pair of Obama Jeans?

Northern Uganda here I come!

So we have this thing called practicum where for a month we are assigned to a cite in either Uganda, Rwanda or Ethiopia. We got to apply for our top three choices and......

I'm going to Kitgum!

Yes, you may think "Northern Uganda, isn't that the unsafe part of the country?" Well, at one time it was unsafe. The LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) ravaged the area a few years ago- but they haven't been anywhere in Uganda in the last 3 years. (They are now in the Central African Republic... but that's another story that you can follow on BBC if you so desire). Basically Food for the Hungry wouldn't send me there if it was even the least bit dangerous so don't worry.

So yeah, kitgum. There is place there called the New Life Center. It's like a rehabilitation center for women who were abducted by the LRA to be raped, impregnated and terrorized (the LRA was last there 4 years ago). The girls have been released or have escaped and this center is a 12 week program for the girls (many who are young mothers to children from LRA soldiers) to be able to reintegrate themselves into society. Many of them come home to no living family and are traumatized so rehabilitation is extremely important. I have no idea in what capacity I will be working there but it's like an internship so I'm ready for anything.

Check out more: http://fh.org/work/africa/uganda/newlifecenter

I'm thrilled that God has given me this opportunity and I'm excited to see how it works out. I leave for practicum at the end of September! I know this is where God wants me to be and that is by far the most comforting feeling ever.


I'll let you know more when I find out! As for this week... it's my last week of normal classes in Rwanda which is strange because I feel like I just got here! (We don't leave the country for 2 more weeks though).


Oh and today's my birthday and I can think of no better way to spend it than in Kigali, Rwanda.