Week 7 - The Gift of a Green Pumpkin

We were all feeling a bit sad this week as we had to say goodbye to our facilitator, Jean-Marie, who had to attend a 2-week training course in Uganda. Though on the upside, we have had the opportunity to meet our temporary facilitator - Rose. Or, as she is sometimes nicknamed, 'the new Jean-Marie'! This could perhaps be taken offensively, however Rose has a great sense of humour and has taken it well.

Some of the highlights from this week include meeting a lady called Sofia, who was so excited about getting her energy-efficient stove built that she was dancing and smiling from ear to ear. It's amazing how something that requires only a few hour's work on our part can make such a positive difference to someone's life.

We also had the chance to see how cassava is processed into flour and some of us even got to help in the process (to the amusement of many). One day, before we left Nyagisozi, some people from the village gave us a huge, green pumpkin that they had grown which was really kind. The Azizi staff cooked it for us the next day and it was 'byiza cyane' (very good)!

Wednesday morning was a bit different from usual - normally we go to Nyagisozi either making stoves or kitchen gardens, however this morning we did some office work for RDIS. Some of the things we needed to do included:
- translating a case study from Kinyarwanda to English
- proof-reading a report that was soon due to be sent away
- proof-reading a longer document
It was interesting to have a bit of a change in the work we were doing and we all felt by the end of it that we had really helped the staff at RDIS. Getting to read through some of the paperwork also gave us some more insight into the work of RDIS beyond what we were doing with them. After a few hours of reading and thinking we were a bit tired, however RDIS kindly fuelled us with plenty of bananas. *phew*!

On Friday, our day off, we had the opportunity to visit a nearby orphanage called Urukundo (meaning 'love'). It was really nice to meet the children there, who were all so cheerful and lively. They had fun practising their photography with our cameras! Many of them had extremely good English - in fact, one boy refused to speak any Kinyarwanda with us! Later in the day some of us went to watch a football match between two local school teams from Muhanga which was interesting. Joel made us all laugh as he cheered extremely enthusiastically when one team scored, despite the fact that we were seated in the opposing team's fan section...

Teaching at the English Club, though still challenging, has been more and more successful now that we all know our students better and have learnt about which teaching methods work best. It is really inspiring to see just how motivated our students are to learn English and to see them improving.

Visiting Urukundo

Joel and Allen helping sieve the cassava flour

Sofia and her new stove