After the trip ...

After leaving Rwanda, we had a great vacation in Tanzania for a few days.  We chose not to include it in the blog because we did not want to overshadow our experiences in Rwanda and our incredible time spent with Emmanuel and Leonce and the kids.  Barton and I both noticed the difference between the plight of the Rwandans versus the relative comfort in the lives of Tanzanians.  For those looking for a vacation, Tanzania is beautiful and relaxing, but if you desire a life-changing experience, Rwanda will open your eyes and put the ease of our American lives in perspective.

Our trip has helped heighten awareness of the needs of Rwandan orphans and how Small Voices has helped to provide each one of you with the opportunity to make a difference in their lives.  We have received many more donations since we embarked on our trip, and we have now raised nearly $23,000 in all.

Please check out out January 2009 update on the Small Voices Foundation website at:

http://www.small-voices.org/recent_news.html.

Also, please checkout all of our pictures (please bear with us as there are many pics) from the Rebero Orphan Center and from the Mwanankabandi Orphan Center.

http://picasaweb.google.com/bringreene

And as always, please keep Small Voices in mind for your charitable donations.  We are only $7,000 away from our original goal!!

http://www.small-voices.org/donate_now.html

An African Shopping Experience...

So, yesterday (Wed. or New Year’s Eve) I got to really experience the inefficiency that goes along with working in an African country- first hand.  I had promised Leonce and Emmanuel a “shopping spree” with Small Voices money to buy items we determined were essential and needed immediately.  The guys came to pick us up at 9:30 with a hired taxi for the day to help us complete all our errands.  Next, they decided we need to have an early (10 am!) lunch to have a meeting where we planned and made a list of exactly what items the center needs right away.  Since buying basics like food etc… are relatively easy, we wanted to hit a few larger ticket items while I was there, so that I could oversee the purchase and assume responsibility for the receipts etc…  Lunch took about 2.5 hours and mostly consisted of the guys wanting to know all kinds of personal things about us, our families, our friends etc…I pulled out my laptop and showed them photos of my family and also old trips and anything I had loaded on my computer.  (Mom- you would be pleased to know they thought you seemed “young and strong”).  It is very much a part of their culture to identify the life and history of a person and where they come from, and I found it very endearing that they now include us in their family.  At one point I showed them a picture of Spencer (my dog) and said “Here is my baby!,” to which they both gasped and clucked and pointed to Barton and said “Until you make her babies!”….:-)

 

After the long lunch- the only business that was accomplished was our -not long-shopping list 1. Get the orphan center internet 2. Speakers for the laptop we brought, so they may use it for educational videos, 3. Office cabinet.  I have to admit, my constantly rushed and multitasking personality was climbing the walls at the time wasting that goes along with their culture- but this is Africa!  Finally- we set out to acquire internet for the center.  Barton and I had purchased a beautiful HP laptop at Best Buy so that the guys can easily handle their accounting for Small Voices, teach the children computer literacy and finally bring them into the modern age.  Having private internet in Rwanda is an enormous luxury, since the start-up cost is exorbitant and the maintenance can be steep, as well.  During lunch I emphasized that having internet could change their lives and help us to communicate much better with them, also saving them precious hours during the day waiting at dingy internet cafes.  The guys agreed that they could really begin making huge advances with regular internet access.

 

First, to the Rwandatel or internet purchasing location where we spent an hour communicating our desire to purchase internet, next, we set off to the bank where one actually goes to pay for high-ticket items like internet, then to a 2^nd bank across town with a line shorter than 80 people deep.  Next, wait 45 minutes at 2^nd bank to make transaction.  Take taxi back to Rwandatel with the proof of purchase, and acquire the internet card- Time spent 4 hours. 

 

Our next course of business was to acquire the computer speakers.  Nothing like Best Buy here, folks.  We went into the shopping district, which is tiny, dingy rooms- mostly run by Indians, who sell decade old appliances at outrageous costs.  After opening several boxes with speakers we might have bought 10-15 years ago, we discovered at each location that they either didn’t work at all or were sub-par for the prices being asked.  Emmanuel and Leonce shrewdly haggled with each shop owner.  After visiting about 5-6 locations, we ended up buying speakers from the first place we visited.  The shop owner was Indian, and Leonce explained that the Indians often raise their prices when they see a “white person”, and they also often sell appliances that are refurbished and try to pass them off as new.  We tried the speakers and all seemed to work well, so we will keep our fingers crossed! Time spent- 2.5 hours.

 

All in all we spent 7 hours in the overwhelming heat and smells of Kigali, riding all over town in a very tiny car to acquire these 2 items.  Admittedly, I was hot, tired and frustrated with the process, not to mention horribly car sick when it was over….But the beauty of the entire day was Emmanuel and Leonce’s  excitement at the prospect of having their very own internet and computer so that they can begin to really conduct business!  It was a good lesson for me, as I am often frustrated at why progress and communication regarding SVF can be so slow when I am waiting to get a response from Kigali.  Life is very difficult here….

 

I had one last course of business at the end of the day.  We then all taxied over to a new orphanage I was hoping to interview as a potential recipient of SVF funds.  I have been emailing with the head of this orphanage, named Alphonse, for a few months and hoped to meet them and decide if our funds could be extended to this center as well- SVF expands!

 

Upon arrival at the second orphanage, I was shocked.  This center sleeps 5 orphans every night in a tiny, dirty room with 2 small beds.  There is nothing more to the orphanage than a dirt common area.  45 children are fed from this orphanage, and food is cooked over a pile of charcoals in the corner of the room.  I discovered Alphonse was also a genocide survivor and takes care of these 45 children, and is only 20 years young.  He looked like a child himself.  I was devastated by the poverty that these children are experiencing.  I am also that much more appreciative at the progress that Emmanuel and Leonce have made to care for their children at Rebero, along with their hygiene and education.  The second orphanage has no infrastructure, so little ability to move forward and living with utter poverty.  Sadly, due to this lack of education and poverty, it may be difficult for SVF funds to be sent to them, as they do not have enough education to properly manage the funds.

 

BUT- there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the children at the second orphanage.  Upon arrival at the second orphanage, Emmanuel and Leonce discovered that one of the children there was a part of the survival story of Leonce during the genocide.  In other words, Leonce was captured by the Hutu militia during the Genocide and made to tend to the cows of the Hutu soldiers.  The militia told Leonce that when the cows were all gone, and he was no longer needed, then he would be killed.  Luckily for him, the Tutsi rebels took over the city before the cows were eaten and he survived.  The other little boy who tended the cows with him was at second orphanage.  I am working to devise a plan where Leonce purchases food for the second orphanage so that they may get the much needed help they deserve.  More on that later…

Mountain Gorilla rookie

Unlike Brin, I had not had the luxury of seeing the gorillas before my trip to Rwanda (After all, I had only been to Mexico).  So, I was quite excited, but a little apprehensive about trekking through the forests of Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda (yes, the volcanoes are active) to see the famed mountain gorillas.  We started out the day on Tuesday by heading to the base headquarters up near the volcanoes.  There, we were broken up into groups, with each group assigned to track a different gorilla family.  Our group consisted of family of four from upstate New York, a French couple from the island of Reunion (of whom the husband ran the Heineken brewery), and Brin and me, and we were assigned to track the Titus family.  Our guide was a Rwandan named Felix, and he had been working on the mountain for 21 years, so that gave me a little more comfort about our trek. We also had 2 armed guards from the Rwandan Army each carrying an AK-47 to protect us in case the gorillas charged.  No, actually they will not shoot any of the gorillas if they charge humans, but they will shoot poachers who are hunting the gorillas (and maybe a solider or two from the DR Congo, if necessary).

 

Once our group was assembled, we drove further up into the volcanoes to the beginning of the trail that we were to hike.  The trail was not your standard American hiking trail through the trees, but was actually a series of maze-like paths carved between the farms that are tended by the local peasant farmers.  We hiked up the trail for about an hour and a half, or so, before getting to the jungle.  Along the trail, we passed hundreds of people who live and farm up in the mountains and will likely live there their entire lives.  The people appeared to grow crops (potatoes, bananas, peas, etc.) for their personal consumption, but they also sell crops in the markets that are hours away on foot.

 

As we arrived to the jungle, we were directed by our guide to stay 7 meters away from the gorillas once we came upon the family.  Not for safety, but because the gorillas can catch our diseases.  Upon entering the jungle, we hiked for about 10 minutes when we came upon the gorilla tracker who had been tracking the family and directing our guide via walkie-talkie where to hike.  The tracker could uncannily “speak” gorilla and was able to lead us the final 50 meters or so to the gorilla family.

 

At this point, I was getting quite nervous about approaching the gorillas.  Our first encounter with one of them was hearing it walking towards us through the thick jungle plants.  I saw the plants moving, but I could not yet see the gorilla.  After it emerged, though, it was pretty obvious that it meant no harm to us.  We followed the gorilla for about another 20 meters, and it led us to the Silverback (the leader of the family), which was quite an imposing beast.  He could have taken down our entire group in no time flat.  We sat and watched the Silverback and the other gorilla for about 5 or 10 minutes, and then the gorillas headed up the volcano a short ways.  We followed them up the volcano, and we were suddenly approached by another gorilla that was coming to join the family, which was going to take its morning rest in about 30 minutes.   We snapped countless pictures of the family (I think we took about 300 pics of the gorillas), and some of the gorillas even appeared to pose for us.  It was amazing.  A few minutes later, a few more of the family came and joined their relatives, and there ended up being six gorillas in all.  They were very calm and seemed to kind of enjoy being on stage for us.  Brin said that the photo ops were better this year than when she did the trek last year.

 

After an hour with the gorillas, which is all we are allowed to spend with them because of the risk of communicating diseases to them, we headed back out of the jungle and started our hike back down the mountain.  I was in amazement that I had just been 5 feet away from mountain gorillas (our guide was a little lax on the 7 meter rule).  It was truly unbelievable.

Side Note from Brin: Barton is right, my pictures are a thousand times better this year, and there are literally almost 400 of them.  I think most people were disappointed in pics last year, but I can assure you these capture it.  We also used our same travel guide from last year, George.  He and I have maintained contact over the last year and he has invited us to his wedding! (actually this is the 2^nd wedding we have been invited to on this trip in Rwanda).  Wedding in Rwanda anyone?  We also drove to the twin lakes in the mountains, which I was not able to do last year.  Here, some village children found us on a trail.  I gave them Kashi bars and pens, which looked so strange and out of place as they clutched them in their tiny dirty hands.  They were so excited about these small gifts that they performed a song and dance for us on the spot….The pics tell it all.  We will post them soon.