The last two weeks have been spent at the guesthouse in
Gahini with the group from Saskatchewan. We haven’t been at the camp. The group
who started the camp four years ago had the intention of making the camp
self-run, without the need for westerners to come and help them. The role of
the team being here now is just to support if needed, but other than that, to
stay away from the camp and let the Rwandan’s do everything. Although it would
have been a lot of fun to spend some more time down at the camp we were able to
find other things to do. Last week we went each day to a town about 5km down
the road from where we are staying. We played games with the kids and Rilla and
I dug deep into our ‘camp song’ reserve for anything and everything with simple
words or lots of actions so the kids could dance along! We sang Hallelu each day…the song where you
divide the kids into three groups. The first group sings ‘Hallelu’, the second
sings ‘jah’, and the third ‘praise ye the Lord’. When it is their turn to sing
their part they stand up, and then sit back down. I always led the ‘jah’ group
because its most fun and you can get them to be super loud and excited. The
first day when we did it, the hallelu’s would start and the kids in my group
would be jumping up and down all at the wrong time. So there were a bunch of
jah, jah, jah’s before one big JAH! I though it was hilarious. They improved.
This town was definitely more impoverished than the town we
were in last week. The farther you get from Gahini the poorer the people seem
to become. The kids were very dirty. They wore the same clothes each day. One
girl was wearing a dress that didn’t actually do up in the back. Another boy
had a huge hole in his pants, and they were also a bit too big so they fell
down. This was a problem while playing the cat and mouse game. You make a big
circle and have everyone holding hands. The cat goes outside the circle and
tries to catch the mouse who starts inside the circle. The people in the circle
try to help the mouse so as this boy, who was the cat, tried to fight through
people’s arms to catch the mouse he also had to fight to keep his pants up. It
was pretty funny. It is also pretty crazy to see what great caretakers some of
these young kids are of their even younger siblings. I’m pretty sure Mom didn’t
trust me enough to let me take Kim around with a blanket on my back when I was
just 4 years old…rightfully so.
We also spent a few mornings at the Gahini Hospital which I
really enjoyed. There is quite a large courtyard in the middle of the hospital
so we put a blanket down and sang some songs and invited people to come and
join us. We had a bit of a program, and then brought out paper, crayons and
monkey’s in a barrel. This was only my second time ever playing monkey’s in a
barrel, maybe I was deprived as a child but let me tell you it is difficult!
Two of the kids got every monkey on their first try. I think my record is 7.
Rilla and I had the game with us and ended up playing monkey’s in a barrel with
our waitress at the place we went to for lunch. We didn’t speak the same
language at all, but we all enjoyed the game. There was one girl the first
couple days that we went to the hospital that joined us who was epileptic. She
had recently fallen into a fire and received severe burns over her entire body.
The doctor at the hospital said that when she came in she was saying God is
Good, Praise Jesus. She regularly goes around the hospital and prays for other
people who are bed ridden. I really enjoyed watching her dance to our music.
She had both of her hands in a cast but would dance like she didn’t have a care
in the world.
The last couple days of our time in Gahini I spent with
Rilla at the rehabilitation centre. I was really excited when I found that
there was a rehabilitation centre, and I was even more excited when I found
that they had both a physiotherapy and an occupational therapy facility. We
spent our time in the occupational therapy room. I have decided that I want to
apply to do my masters in occupational therapy so this was a really amazing
opportunity for me to see what OT is like in a rural, less developed setting.
Annet was the OT assistant who works there full time. She does a lot of
exercises with the kids. She told us that they only get an OT come in every few
months to assess the children, and sometimes it can be up to two years before
they visit again. They also fit and make their own special chairs and stands
for support. The last day we were there, there was a group who had come from a
couple hours away to have four girls fitted. The one girl was sitting in the
chair when we walked in, she had a pillow as well supporting her neck which is
weak. She is probably about 8 years old and was born with no arms. This girl
was all smiles when we walked in. The aid who was there with her said that she
hardly ever stops smiling! It was really precious to see! We also got to know a
couple of the kids that were there each day. There are a lot of kids with club
feet in the area, so they have their feet casted to correct this. One kid had
one foot in a cast, and the other foot was just a ball of skin and bone that
had not formed correctly. On the first day I saw him jet out of the room on all
fours, fast as a spider! I was worried as I saw him trying to stand and
wondered where his mother was and why she wasn’t helping him. I didn’t think he
could walk with his legs as they were. Turns out I was way wrong! He ran all
over the place and was even kicking away at the soccer ball! There was another
little boy who had both legs casted. We had balloons the first day and this
kid, Njsenge, worked up such a sweat crawling after this balloon that he batted
around the room. These kids have some of the best smiles I have seen. We could
not communicate through language, I couldn’t even understand them when they
told me their names, but we had a really good time working on puzzles,
coloring, playing with balloons and with blocks. It was a great experience!
We had a party for the staff of the camp on Wednesday
evening which was really a lot of fun! It was no dance party like home where it
takes at least a few songs before anyone even gets out on the dance floor. No.
As soon as the music was on everyone was on their feet dancing. It was so much
fun! We also saw a moth that was the size of a small bird. Legit. I’m not
kidding!
We are now finished working at Gahini. We spent some of our
time making a movie with all the other volunteers and some of the staff that
worked at Seeds of Peace. We showed the movie to some of our friends who worked
there on the last night. They were so excited to see themselves on video like
that! They wanted to watch it a couple times, and then see the individual clips
of themselves! It was fun to watch their expressions! They were really sad when
we told them we were leaving and not coming back. A couple of the girls even
cried. It broke my heart to leave them. They are such sweethearts! I won’t
forget my time there soon. But I am also looking forward to what is ahead!
We were able to have lunch at Eddie and Bonita’s on Saturday
morning. They made us delicious taco’s. Eddie is Rwandan, and Bonita is from
Saskatchewan. They are working out here as missionaries. They have amazing
stories to tell about their experiences, especially Eddie who grew up as a
refugee. His family fled from Rwanda when he was one year old under a bunch of
vegetables in the back of a truck to Uganda. He then fled across the border to
Kenya when violence broke out in Uganda as a teenager. This was the second time they had all fourteen
of us over to their house for a meal and I am so appreciative of that time and
their wiliness to share what they know about the history here. Rwanda is an
incredibly interesting country. It is amazing to think about what it has so
recently gone through, and where it is today! It is by far the nicest city we
have been to in Eastern Africa!
There are so many more stories I could tell but I worry
about boring you to death so that you never come back to read my blog again.
Leave comments! Be safe! Love life!
