Londontown, New Year, Projects!
Hi all!
Happy new year!
London was a lot of fun (despite being extremely cold!). Among my daily lounging and enjoyment of a comfortable bed, a microwave, a HOT/real shower, and a laundry machine, we visited the Saatchi contemporary art gallery, ate a lot of food, drank endless cups of tea (and wine and champagne), shopped (aka window shopped while converting everything to Rwandan Francs in my head and freaking out about the prices of everything), and celebrated my big sisters 26th birthday! It was an eventful 10 days to say the least and I'm truly #blessed I got to spend the holiday with my sisters. I'm hoping to make it to America in May for my younger sisters college graduation and to see my parents!
I arrived back in Kigali on NYE and I spent the evening with some Rwandan friends and then joined my cohort at a club to ring in the new year. It turned out that our hostel was having a NYE after party that started at 3am and ended at noon on New Year's Day..... When we woke up the next morning and looked out the window at 8am there were hundreds of people still partying. Let's just say Kigali knows how to do New Years right!
On Saturday morning I took a 630 am bus back to Butare so I could make it to chaperone my health center kids club field trip at the national museum. My supervisor asked me to make the health center kids club a regular program, so starting in February, I'll be meeting with the kids one Saturday a month with a different topic for every month! After 3 hours in the museum, a picnic of bread and fanta, an intense game of soccer (well, football), and a bumpy car ride to my village, I was finally back home.
When I went into work on Monday morning everyone wanted to know how America was and if I bought them any gifts. Ummm England actually and sorry no gifts! (My roommates were told to keep the chocolate stash on the down low...).
Since being back at site most of my time has been spent working on my two main projects for this year- a hygiene education project and a library project. 9 other volunteers and I are planning a hygiene project where we will have weekly health lessons in a certain area in our respective sectors. AKA writing a grant and presenting the program to various groups in my community has replaced dancing to Beyonce songs as my after nap activity for this month.
As you probably already know from my spamming of social media, I have started a library project with the multimedia community center in my village. I'm raising $2000 and working with different organizations here in Rwanda to get book donations. Tomorrow (jan 26th) is also the start of the bucks county book drive with drop off locations at New Hope- Solebury middle and high schools! All you Pennsylvania people who read this (let's hope there's at least 1) spread the word! I'm also hoping to get a Dropbox right in Doylestown as well-stay tuned! So far I've raised $525! Every bit helps :) www.gofundme.com/gikonkolibrary
After 3 weeks at site without leaving ( the longest stretch I've been there for awhile, sorry peace corps integration fairies) yesterday I met up with my fellow southern province volunteers in Butare city which included a meeting followed by an eventful game of twist game (twister knock off), Chinese food, ice cream, real coffee!!! and the ultimate test of patience when all the ATMs were broken post payday/post everyone being broke from the holidays. (I've learned my lesson- don't spend all your living allowance on pizza in Kigali...)
I got back to site this afternoon with a lifetime supply of American food (thanks to a package from my awesome parents) and the motivation to have a productive few days at site before heading to Kigali on thursday for the Malaria committee training. So much for going to Kigali less this year... Bibaho!
Until next time,
Vanessa
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