Chicken chicken chicken.

Whilst here in Rwanda, we have all had some foods or drinks that we have missed from home.. me its an Soy Iced Caramel Latte, Green Juice and Japanese food and for Lauren its a nice glass of cold orange juice and anything made by her mummy the infamous Peggy Martin.  But the one thing all the Uk volunteering myself excluded seeing as how i am veggie are missing is Nando's or chicken in general. It would seem that Africans and  Rwandans in particular whilst loving chicken can't really afford it so we haven't been fed chicken the whole time that we have been on placement, unless you count the time that we had our team lunch at Chantelle's.

A.E.E we kind enough to want to supply us with dinner and when they asked what we wanted my answer was straight forward, Orange Fanta, Chips and Avocado with an omelette for protein. My wish was fulfilled as well. yummy!!!! The rest of the teams screamed for chicken and A.E.E doing the amazing work that they do actually managed to supply chicken that tasted as good as the Nandos chicken at home. Though i suspect this might also been due to depravation leading to no taste buds.

How amazing does this food look !!

My avocado and chips as ordered.

lys cheeky smile as she realises she is first in lincs for the chicken!!

I think we all had seconds as well :/

Thank you so much A.E.E for providing us with such amazing opportunities such as learning about and constructing kitchen gardens, building a house or two for people and most of all for treating us like family.

I will talk to y'all soon and i hope you are enjoying you weekend.

Issie xox

Making Friends

One thing i have to say about Rwandan is how welcoming and friendly they are. When we have been going to work with the self help groups, some of the women there have shared their stories about how they lost their children and husband to different things but they have also graciously invited us into their homes and more often than not offered us a mean where you would expect them to be struggling finally to even feed their own families.

We have also made friends with some of the locals and were invited to a Holy Communion by my friend Grace from my local church. Holy Communion is a special occasions for catholics since it is when they reconfirm what their parents did at baptism that the believe in God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as well as the catholic church. Igg Grace's son was also turning 8 and so he was having two celebrations with one big party.

Whilst working with one of the self hep groups we learnt how they make paint and also how to make soap. Whilst this sounds like it would be the most interesting thing in the world. It wasn't. It was just us standing there watching a few ladies mix together a few ingredients including palm oil, a base and an essential oils  to make the soap. I will share with you guys the recipe they shared with us if any of you guys out there are feeling adventurous. 

1) boil the Palm oil until it goes from yellow to white

2) leave to to cool down completely

3)add the base to some water> make sure you wear googles and gloves as this can erode you skin

4)mix the base mixture with the palm oil and add essential oil for smell and benefits

5)leave to dry and then cut into squares

6) Do not use for 2 weeks so as to rid the soap of any chemicals harmful to the body.

If any of you do try this please leave me a comment telling me how it went and good luck as well.lol.

I also met a lovely boy called Jacque who was happy to pose for a picture but also show off his self made car which he assured me was easy to make,- just take a bottle put some nails in it and use lids for wheels and 

Umuganda

From as far back as i can remember my dad has always talked about how through Umuganda he helped build all the main roads leading up to his town. His blood, sweat and tears forever drained for this purpose. It was very interesting and rewarding for me to many years later to take part in my very own Umuganda. Be it in a different community.

Umuganda can be translated to mean 'coming together to achieve a common outcome'. It normally takes place on the last Saturday of every month. This is when all the members of the community; friends, family and guests all come together to do something that will better improve their community. Be it making roads like my dad did as a young man or simply clearing the watering well like we did.

More often than not all Rwandans between 18-65 are obliged to participate in Umuganda and even expatriates living in Rwanda are encouraged to take part. Umuganda is a very special part of Rwandan culture and one that i hope will continue on for ever since the value of it is evident to see and is immense.

At the end of umuganda we all came together to pray and give thanx for everyones hard work. A local village court also took place since one of the village accused another of intentionally throwing his clothes down a toilet. The village found the accused guilty and she was fined 50,000 Rwf as well as told to leave the village since the other village member were scared she might throw their children down the toilet pit.

After doing the Umuganda we had out first team lunch away from the other group. We all got dolled up and made our way to chantel's for chicken and chips. This being africa the food took 2.5 hours to arrive but at least it was fresh and tasted amazing, though this might have been due to the fact that we were so hungry and tired.

As you can all tell i married a comedian or an idiot. I will leave you all to decide.lol :)

Reuben aka Hubby being his special self :P

I am off now so i will have to talk to y'all soon. Love y'all

Issie xox

Happy Birthday Patrick

So yesterdays post was full of pain and sorrow and since i want to move away from that, i wanted to share with you all one of the more joyous occasions that we have had whilst here. Its was Patricks 19th birthday  and so me and Lauren decided to bake a carrot cake and a nice yummy chocolate brownie. Both teams were so excited since it has been a while since we had had a treat from home. No one was thinking of the calories and it was one really fun night. We even did the Rwandan tradition of chucking water on someone when its their birthday. This is similar to birthday beatings.

They look so good if i saw so myself :)

At the end of our mini party Lys (cutest girl in the world) was really happy and doing twirls in our bedroom.lol.

I decided to keep this post short since there is not much more to say except Love y'all and talk to y'all soon. I am off to church now to celebrate the day of Assumption so God Bless.
Issie xox

A fresh Start

A lot of reasons have lead to me not blogging as much as i would have wanted and the main one has been due to the lack of positivity around me and me myself just feeling fed up and upset all the time. This is not to do with the placement projects itself but rather with the company that i have come to do my placement with. The project though furstrationing in the beginging due to lack of work are now much better and we are getting plenty more things done.As i type this now we have just finished helping a member of a self help group mud up her house thus to insulate it for the coming rain season. This was a joy to do.We sweated, laughed and had a mini mud fight at the end much to the amusement of the people there.
However, try as might at the back of my mind there is this big cloud of negatively and pain due to the treatment we have received from tearfund. For the past three weeks now me and Lauren have been living in a sort of hell. We started getting bites 3 weeks ago and thinking it was mosquitos we increased the amount of deet we were using and much to our surprise it didn't make much of a difference. Over the next few days we came to the realisation that we were only getting bit in the evenings and that rather than a random bite here and there, Moreoften than not the bites were in a line. Bed Bugs!!! I can live with one of two bed bugs but after three weeks we now have about 100 bites each and to our horror we also have puss coming out of them.Puss to me has always signified an infection and you would think that getting an infection whilst in africa when you  do a job that  involves getting muddy most days the company that promised "to be there with you", would be there with you. Well you would be wrong. The one time someone bothered to come and check up on our placement, we informed them of our problem and to my amazement we were told to live with it after all as one of my team mates likes to remind us..."we didn't come to eat  McDonalds and stuff our faces." But this has nothing to do with food. Being a vegetarian i always knew that coming to africa, i might struggle to get all the nutrients that i would at home, and this in it self has not been an issue.
This rather has to do with my health and safety and the lack of care that has been shown to the volunteers who came here in good faith thinking to work with a christian organisations to help the local people better their lives so that they to can succeed. One would think that going away with a christian organisation would be better. That the people you would work with would be compassionate and understanding. That they would have the capacity to empathise with you and get work done. ONE WOULD BE WRONG.
Furthermore, it would be interesting to actually see where the £7000 we are constantly told is paid for each volunteer to take part is this placement actually goes. We are never really given a break down of where this money goes but i guess this might just be one of those times where its a dont ask dont tell situation. If anyone knows please leave a comment down below.
Now, i know this post is full of all the negatives and i really am  not a negative person if you know me but i have been angry and frustrated these past few weeks and i didn't want to keep holding on to this anger. I wanted to share with you my true experience of my placement and this includes the good, the bad and the ugly. I have now decided to turn over a new leaf though and give myself a fresh start.There is nothing i can do about those who are meant to co-ordinate with us but there is something i can do about my own attitude. God would not have given me these challenges if he didn't have some plan for me and some way for me to overcome them. Through all the challenges i have faced in my life this placement in rwanda has been among the harder ones but like all the others that i have over come, with God on myside and with my own stubbornness and perseverance i will come through to the other side.

Thank you for letting me have a mini break down and rant but i hope that from now till the end of my placement you will keep me and my group and the people whose lives we touch everyday in your prayers and thoughts and that the posts will start being the cheerful ones that we all love.

Love y'all Issie
xox

Byimana

For the third week of our placement we spent the field days in Byimana. Its was lovely and i think one of the best communities that we have been to so far. Since we kept returning there we got to know the people and really felt a part of the community there. One our first meeting we meet with some women of a self help group that A.E.E. works with. We taught them all we knew of handling food and washing their hands as well before and after cooking, eating and everything else you can think off. The women we all willing to learn and my favourite even told me after that although she was told about washing her hands she never realised the risk she was putting herself and her families under by not always doing so. 

For our teaching, we would present to the women then separate off into smaller groups to talk about whether or not they were already doing these things at home and the impact they had if they wee

One major negative though about the day at was the fact that at one point i thought and believed that we were educating the ladies about the wrong/misunderstood . Some of the team told them that they should keep meet in water uncooked to kept the meat tfresh since . I have never heard of it but still i guess we are a team have 

Me and Irish Hubs presenting about illnesses.

Lydia

I know this is a quick post today but the internet is needed somewhere else and i am tired since i have spent the day digging but also emotically spent at the moment since i am struggling with living here as two teams at the moment but also struggling with my patience and appreciation for team members so if you can please remember me in your prays and thought.

I WILL TALK TO Y'ALL SOON

Issie xix

Return to Urukundo

Urukundo was not just fun and games though.And even though playing with the children and teaching them english and other things was very enjoyable it felt rewarding to help Mama Arlene build some new offices for the dental clinic she was planning as well as the path leading up to it.

One thing i will say about physical work in Rwanda and most of africa at that is that you can only work for a certain amount of hours each day before it becomes too hot to walk let alone carry bricks. This was such a culture shock for us uk volunteers as we are used to long days at work. But now that we are in our fifth week we are getting more used the the way of life around us.

As per.. Emmanuel our group leader is never without his phone.

Over the course of two days we finally managed to lay a manageable path under the direction on Benjamin. All that was left to do was pour some cement on to the stones to make it easier for  both the children and local villagers to make their way to the new dental clinic.

The Old dental Clinic was held in hut that you see below but the project out grew it.

Once we had finished laying down the path we returned for another day of manual labour but this time it was painting and repainting the walls of the new dental Clinic. The joy that even this simple task bring to anyone associated with Urukundo is wondrous to witness.

So seeing as how one of my team members actually works on a dairy farm and how my team leader kept on bragging about milking a cow, i decided to make it my team mission to make the cows at Urukundo so we could see who was the best milker. Though, i have never milked a cow before i have to say i was the best since the cows just seemed to get along well with me. Now this might also be due to the fact the cows recognised that i am vegetarian and would never kill them to eat them.lol.

Face that says i know i am a better milker.

Our team with Mama Arlene.

I am so tired now since i had to get up early to go to a nearby village to make soap today and i also help my normal Yoga class for some of the Rwandans. I will try to blog a bit more this week since we dot seem to be having as many power cutes this week. Though, having said that we are only tuesday.

I will talk to y'all soon

Issie xox