So Sunday morning we went back to the airport to check and see if our luggage made it... and it did! It had all come in at 3 am that night and was waiting for us in the morning. We found all our bags that were scattered around the lost baggage room and were just about out the door when a customs agent came running over, pointed at one specific bag and said that he needed to see inside of it. What he saw, but we didn’t was a little red sticker on the side marking it from someone who had gone through the bag already. Inside the bag were about 50 some odd pairs of shoes. Since the last time I’ve been here Rwanda has changed their laws, so now charities and donations are no longer exempt from taxes. They tried to tell us that we could not take the bags without having an invoice shipped from Canada with the exact value of all the shoes. We talked them first, in to letting us take all the other bags, then we had to explain to them that there were no value to us because they were all donated, so we couldn’t provide an invoice. After quite a bit more negotiating we just told them, ok, we only care that these will go to Rwandans, so if we can’t take them, just please make sure that you guys do something of good use with them. What I think it pretty much came down to was that we were ready to just leave them all in the middle of the airport and them, knowing that we would not pay the taxes on them, eventually just told us to take them and go. So, we got all of our luggage.
After the whole baggage issues were resolved we all went to church later that morning. Not going to get in to too many details, but it was a LONG service... almost 4 hours... but a good one overall. After church we went to our Rwandan leader’s house for a birthday party for their one year old son. I got to see some friends from my last times here, meet some of Serge’s family and we all had a chance to just hang out and relax as a team before going to see the FIFA finals with the street kids.
I really could care less about football (soccer to us north American folks), so I took off on my own to go see my friend David at Bourbon Coffee Shop uptown. It was great to see him again! We got to catch up after not seeing each other for 2 years and it was really cool to hear what life has been like for him since the last time we’ve met.
After seeing David I headed back down the hill and caught the last five minutes and the overtime of the football match. That part I don’t care about, but one of the best moments of this trip so far was that sitting there watching the game when I got there was my Manu!! Manu has been my favourite street kid* (not actually a street kid... snuck in to our program the first day and ever since then I’ve been sneaking him back in..hehe) since I first met him 4 years ago. Now he is 8, has become very shy, but still I could tell he was very excited to see me. After the game was done I had Serge come over and interpret for me. I found out that although he does have a mom that he lives with, his family is too poor to pay his school fees, which end up being about $50 American a year. He should be in his 3rd year of school now, but has never been. This kid is SO smart! I asked him if he wanted to go to school. He said yes, but there is no way that he can, so I told him that before I leave again I will come, meet his mom with Serge and we will get him in school, and I’ll make sure that it’s all paid for. He didn’t say anything. After Serge asked him what he thought of that he just said that he didn’t know the words, even in his own language, to thank me. I’m sooo happy that I can finally do this for him! I’ve wanted to for a few years now, but my trip last year fell through and 2 years ago we still weren’t sure exactly what his situation was.
Ok... this is taking way too long and I’m starting to fade here... sooo tired.
Today: -woke up, sorted through all the donations we brought and decided what will go to who... street kids, refugee camp, HIV support group, etc.
This morning before lunch we went to the Kigali Memorial Center. It’s a site here in the city that has been set up as a memorial to the victims of the genocide. The memorial is done very well by the same people who created the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. They added hand held audio tours last month which has added a lot to the experience. There’s lots of new info in the audio tour now, on top of tones of written information already there. I didn’t spend too much time going through the memorial because I’ve been through it 3 times now, but I did want to hear the audio tour, so I went through it quick... I still did not go through the section dedicated to the children who died in the genocide though. Once was enough and I know that I can not handle that part of the exhibits again.
After lunch we drove an hour out of Kigali in to the Eastern Provence to the district of Kayonza where ITeams has a fairly large piece of property where they will be building a conference center, guest house, store, school and will be running vocational training programs and animal husbandry programs for the community. Our main project that we will be working on all this week is building a mud brick home for a widow who lives in a banana leaf hut with 8 grandchildren that she looks after because of her daughters dying of AIDS.
We got to walk the land, meet the woman that we will be building for and enjoy some time with the local kids who will be our audience while we work for the next week. We will be leaving for Kayonza again in the morning and staying out there for the week, so this may be the last update until I’m back in Kigali on Saturday.
And with that done, I’m off to bed. ‘Nite all!
Hope you're having a great time! Hi to everyone for me :) I'm glad you're doing a blog so I can live vicariously through you. Love ya!
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