Looking Ahead

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A lot has happened here in Rwanda since my last post. If you've seen any of my Facebook activity, you may have some idea of why I can truly say that April has been the most challenging month for me and many of my fellow PCVs, since the beginning of service. A friend and fellow health 6 volunteer, David, passed away last month while on vacation. He left behind an innovative project to bring water bleach dispensers to his community to improve water sanitation.  Fortunately, PC Rwanda will be continuing his project through his memorial fund, which you can donate to here, any support is truly appreciated.

This past month I also had a few friends and fellow volunteers end their service early for different reasons, so my cohort became a lot smaller in a matter of weeks.

Despite all that happened, I was lucky enough to have my Dad in town for part of this difficult period. He had a business trip to Nairobi which is just an hour flight from Kigali, so he was able to visit for 3 days in between his work schedule, during Easter weekend. Because it was only for a few days he was only able to see Kigali, but we still made the best of it. Here are a few photos from his visit:


At Peace Corps Rwanda HQ in Kigali



Visiting the Genocide Memorial Museum. April is the month of commemoration, and this year marks 21 years since The Genocide. 


Enjoying brunch at Heaven Restaurant

After spending two very long weeks in Kigali, I finally made it back home. I had just moved into a new home in my village the day I had left before those weeks away, so it was nice to get back and finally settle in to my new home. I had previously been living on my health center compound with roommates, and after many months I decided living in the community with more of my own space like the majority of PCVs in Rwanda would really improve my living situation (and sanity) which it has! I had been having problems with privacy and theft from the compound workers, and was quickly becoming fed up with that living situation (as my fellow PCVs heard me complain about wayyyy too much).


Home sweet home!

To keep busy in the midst of a stressful month and as part of the Stomp Out Malaria initiative, for World Malaria Day on April 25th 2 friends in my region and I planned a regional malaria walk as an activity for the month long PC Rwanda malaria contest. 3 of us in Gisagara District have sites that are equidistant, about an hour walk from one site to the next, so from Thursday to Saturday 7 other volunteers and I taught malaria related lessons, games and activities in those 3 villages, at 3 schools, and 1 health center reaching around 1,000 students! The last site was my village, so we taught my health center kids club and other students in the community on Saturday morning before heading to our regional meeting in Butare, where we got updates from all the committees about events coming up. 



  Stop 1: Teaching students in Mamba sector about the lifecycle of a mosquito 


Stop 2: Students in Musha sector taking a Malaria survey



Stop 3: Students at my site in Gikonko sector learning about net care and repair 


I arrived back at site this afternoon, ready to take on month 11 of my service! (but first to take a 2 hour nap). On Tuesday, my weekly community finance classes start at the community center with the rice cooperative. My library counterpart will be facilitating the lessons and I'll be responsible for M&E. On Wednesday I plan to visit the secondary school to begin the process for students to apply to come to this years BE (Boys Excelling) and GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) camps that take place during the August term break.

On Friday I'll be traveling north for a weekend trip to explore Musanze with some PCVs before our all volunteer conference the following week. I'll be back for only a week, before heading back to Kigali again to finally have the training for the WASH hygiene project, which was originally supposed to be in March but because of unexpected events and the delay in receiving grant money among other things, it kept on having to be pushed back. This training is followed by yet another one, which is to help train the new health group that comes in June!

I'm glad that there is so much going on these next few months, but I do wish I wasn't away from my village so often. However between trainings, projects and a much needed weekend getaway, I guess this is the life of a PCV.

Until next time,
Vanessa



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