Okay, so this post is a LOT late. Life in Wisconsin began full-swing when I got home, but I figured I should write my last post for Rwanda before I depart for Ecuador (which is in 6 days)!
Our work at HDI led up to a long-anticipated final week: SHARE training week! This is the week we spent many hours editing manuals and planning activities/lessons for, and it was extremely rewarding to see the beginnings of the results. First, I'll explain what SHARE training is. This is an opportunity for the leaders, or peer-educators, of local anti-AIDS clubs to come and learn all the information they can in order to prepare them to more effectively train their peers. These are secondary-school students, which is comparable to our high-school level. Students can expect to learn information from many topics related to sexual health and reproduction, ranging from puberty to HIV prevention to stages of pregnancy.
Last year's GROW team had put together a preliminary manual full of various activities and games, with the intention of making this training week both informative and interesting! We spent a lot of time editing the manual and preparing ourselves to lead each of the activities. When SHARE training week finally came around, we realized we really had to just go with the flow, as some things took longer than we had to expected and we had to cut out or modify other activities. It was not only a huge learning experience for the students, but for us as well! Here are just a few of the things we learned, in list form because I am bored of paragraphs right now:
- How to speak slowly, clearly, and in simple terms (language barrier)
- To keep, and regain, the attention of students
- To drop assumptions in order to understand where their views might be coming from
- To evaluate our experience and our work
- To communicate some of the problems we encountered, and propose solutions
We will be able to take these new skills with us into the future, especially as I believe we all have learned how important education is in any field. As far as the immediate future, we have some ideas for additional directions we would like to see our work with HDI go. We have, and will continue to, communicate these ideas with HDI and collaborate to increase sexual health and reproductive knowledge in Rwanda!
(I wish I had pictures of SHARE training for you, but my memory card mysteriously got re-configured or something after the training and I lost those images!)
While that was an exciting week, it was hard work and was complicated by our team getting fairly sick, with two of us making hospital visits. When the weekend came, we were ready to relax, and what better place to relax than Lake Kivu? This beautiful area is where we spent our last couple of days in Rwanda, and we enjoyed every minute of it.
Our hotel was called Paradise Malahide and is in Gisenyi, a city in the Western Province of Rwanda. It was super nice!
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| On the grounds of Paradise Malahide, looking out over Lake Kivu. |
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| Maggie and Abby (and I) exploring the shoreline near our hotel. |
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| More of Lake Kivu! Congo is on the other side, and with how peaceful it was on this side of things, it was hard to imagine the warfare happening on the other side. |
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| Our room! Which was actually our own little, circular building. There was even a bathroom inside! So cute :) |
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| 2/3 of the beds! Abby's obviously ready to go to sleep! |
We discovered almost right away that there were canoes available for us to use, so we hopped in one and aimed for the island that you can see a few pictures above. We didn't quite make it... maybe only halfway... but it was worth a shot!
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| Maggie pushing us off! Our canoe might have been leaking a little bit, and our paddles were very different sizes, but we at least got a little ways off of shore! |
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| Abby's artsy shot off the front of the canoe. |
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| Enjoying the change of scenery - from busy city to peaceful lake! |
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| Momma's gotta untie all the hard knots :P |
Later that evening we used Abby's Rwanda guidebook to find a restaurant suggested, then headed into town! I think the restaurant we chose was called Bistro at White Rock, it it was probably less than a mile from the Congo border! We walked up to the border just because of all the news we'd been hearing on it, then went and had one of the best meals of our trip. Bistro's food, especially it's dessert, were delicious! The next morning, after a nice breakfast and a last stroll around the shore, we headed back to Kigali to say our goodbyes.
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| Border between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. |
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| Our complementary breakfast was sort-of a strange mix of various small portions of things, but it was good! |
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| A lizard that came up behind where we were eating :) |
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| Another American at our hotel took this picture for us! |
For our last night in Kigali, HDI's executive director, Dr. Kagaba, organized a going-away dinner for us! While the order took a long 3 hours to make (even with a few annoyed visits to the kitchen made by Cassien), it was great to be able to talk to everyone before we left. We're certainly going to miss these people and have had an incredible time in Rwanda!
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| GROW team with Maureen and Juliet! |
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| Our house :) |
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| Some of HDI! Kristy, Maggie, Me, Cassien, Abby, Nessa, Juliet and Maureen. |
Rather than flying for four days like we did on our way to Rwanda, coming home only took two. I said goodbye to Maggie in Johannesburg, and Abby in Paris. Who knew that six weeks could bring near-strangers so close? I'm so glad it happened though, and I can't wait to see them again when I return to Appleton in January! While Rwanda was fully of crazy experiences and a ton of learning about myself, I am thankful to be home again. Being away really made me appreciate what I have here, while at the same time giving me courage to run off again! Ecuador, here I come!
