Inshuti Wanjye

This title means “my friend” in Kinyarwanda. We’ve made quite a few friends during our time in Rwanda, so you’re going to hear about some of them! (and some other fun from the past week).

When we had gone to the Forum in Uganda, we met many other GlobeMed GROW teams like ourselves, working for East African NGOs for the summer. Among these other teams was the GROW team from Middlebury College, who has been working for Gardens for Health International (GHI) just outside of Kigali. This past week, we had the chance to drive over to GHI with Cassien to see what work they have been doing! We were given a short tour of their office and farming area with an explanation of their project, them we joined the staff/community for lunch! GHI generally trains mothers about nutrition and health, while helping them start their own gardens to help feed their families nutritionally. It sounded like a really great organization!

The GHI office

One of the dogs on the property :) We saw two and they were so cute! And made me really miss my dog :/

Pig roast for the community dinner that would happen later that night. Gross.

Heading out to see the gardens! Cate is the first one heading out, followed by Ryan. They are the two GlobeMed students that are partnered with GHI.

This is Cassien, my boss at HDI! We all took pictures to pass some time as we waited for the HDI car to come for us.

On Saturday, the three of us were invited to go to the Expo with Maureen and Juliet, two HDI staff. It reminded me so much of the expo at the Wisconsin State Fair! There were a lot of crafty stores with clothing and jewelry, and a few sort-of “TV ad” stores with mops or blenders, similar to at the Wisconsin Fair.

Abby, Maureen and Maggie checking out a shop at the Expo. Notice the panels of tile and wood next to them for people to demonstrate the mops they are selling! Just like Wisco :) 

They had quite a few cool food designs here! I'm not sure what they were trying to sell...since selling the produce would have messed up their designs...

Right after the Expo we headed to our favorite market in Kimironko. Our first time there, we found a woman made Josephine and her fabric store. We were able to pick out fabric and describe a piece of clothing that we want made from it, and she has a really good seamstress to make it for us! And it’s cheap compared to clothes in the US! We’ve been there a few times already – it’s pretty addicting. We’ve gotten mixes of shirts, pants, and skirts! Abby recently got a dress. I had to stop after three things since I’ll probably find something like this in Ecuador too :)

Abby sitting in the little fabric stall!

Fabric :) I love this part of the market!

We got home just in time to head out again to a Chinese restaurant for Ryan’s birthday (one of the GlobeMedders at GHI). After dinner we wondered what we should do to pass time before going to a club, and decided to come back to our house to play beer pong! I should be pretty bad at it since I had only ever played once before, but to everyone’s surprise, I accidentally made a “death cup” shot that won the first game!

Teaching our housemates how to play! I guess beer pong is not a thing in Ireland :)

Every good game of beer pong needs a custodian!

Once we passed enough time, we headed out to the clubs! The three of us were pretty excited since we’re not allowed to go out dancing in the US. We started at this place called Papyrus (the same place we had our first meal in Kigali), which was a lot of fun! There was usually a good mix of American music we were familiar with and a few songs we didn’t know. Then we headed to the part of the night we were most looking forward to: the mirror club. We heard a lot about this place where apparently there are mirrors all over, and strange men just stand in front of the mirrors and dance with themselves, intent on not involving anyone else in their groove. The actual experience was not quite what it was talked up to be, but we still had a great time! There was one wall that was a giant mirror, and there were a few times we caught people dancing with their reflections. We definitely tried it, too :)

Cassien, Abby and I in the taxi!

The famed mirror that we danced with ourselves in! 

The Americans of the group! So basically, the group minus Cassien. Maggie, Ryan, Brett, Abby, and me!

Sunday morning I went to Christian Life Assembly for the last time. I have really enjoyed worshipping and learning there and am sad to leave! Once the service ended, I found Maureen and Juliet and Maureen’s friend Kevin, who just moved from Kenya. (I enjoy the fact that there is someone who is newer to Rwanda than me! Haha). We walked over to Bourbon for coffee and lunch – a nice Sunday afternoon with people and a place I’ll definitely miss when I go home!

Maureen took a picture for me in front of church once the service was over :) 

Me, Juliet and Maureen at Bourbon coffee!

This Monday, and the one before, we finally got around to going to the quiz night we had been hearing about! We met up with the other GlobeMedders and some of their GHI friends at a restaurant called Sole Luna for pizza and trivia. Last Monday was a lot of fun, but this Monday’s quiz was just obscenely hard and not fun. I’m for sure excited to be able to do trivia in the VR (Lawrence’s campus bar) when I get back to Lawrence in January!

We just have our SHARE training week, which is in progress, and a relaxing weekend at Lake Kivu ahead of us before we go home! I am sad to be leaving Rwanda and everything I have enjoyed here, but at the same time I am very excited to go home and see everyone/do everything I have been missing! I guess getting sick with worms made me a little more homesick as well, but that’s a different story! :)