I AM COMING HOME!

I know I am the worst blogger but here is to my last night as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

So here I am, my last night in Rwanda and looking back at my 2 years Peace Corps adventure.

My experience is unique in so many ways. In my two-year service I have served in Kenya and Rwanda. After a year in Kenya, we were all evacuated and I took a direct transfer to Rwanda. I have served in two communities (2 sites) in Kenya and worked with an NGO in large-scale projects in Rwanda. I learned 3 languages (Swahilli, Luo and Kinyarwanda. In Kenya, I worked with the Luo tribe, where Obama’s father is from. I had the true Peace Corps village experience in Kenya and working with an NGO in Rwanda was little less PCV style but still wonderful.   

I heard the statement “PEACE CORPS IS THE TOUGHEST JOB YOU WILL EVER LOVE” before joining the Peace Corps. I didn’t really think much of it. From experience, I can tell you being Peace Corps Volunteer truly is the toughest job you will ever love. I say toughest for the following reasons;

·      Leaving your home and loved ones behind 

·      Coming to a country you know nothing about or know no one

·      Coming with other Americans and depending on them (strangers) for support

·      Having that very awkward first meal with your host family

·      Going through intensive 3 months training (for me twice due to evacuation)

·      Integrating in a community with barley any language

·      Educating over and over why you are there and that you don't come with money

·      Then finally, having an impact in your community

I say job you will ever love for the following reasons:

• ·     Its amazing how welcoming and open all my communities have been
• ·       Calling a strange place your home after two weeks
• ·      After about one year in your new home, you can’t imagine your life without it
• ·      Friendships start forming pretty fast
• ·      Your life changes in front of your eyes within weeks
• ·      Strangers are no longer strangers
• ·       Your communities becomes very protective of you, like you have been there your whole life
• ·      You are no longer a muzungu (foreigner), people know you by name
• ·      You start to grow and changed dramatically but you don’t know it till much later
• 
  

My Peace Corps experience has been an eye opening and life changing experience. I have definitely gained more than I gave. I have changed positively as a person. The people I served truly taught me life lessons. I have made lifetime friends. Friends who I feel like I have known forever and plan to stay in touch with. Saying bye to my friends, has been one of the toughest moment of my life. But I am not sad because its over but because it happened. Thanks to Peace Corps, I have found my purpose in lifeJ

To Peace Corps Kenya and Rwanda, THANK YOU! To the People I served, THANK YOU for taking me in as one of your own and giving me the opportunity to serve you! To my local friends, THANK YOU for showing me true friendship! To my Peace Corps family, THANK YOU for helping get through all the challenges!  

U.S. AMBASSADOR'S VISIT

I was very excited to host the U.S. Ambassador at my site last Wednesday Feb. 25^th.  After she gave an amazing presentation about black history month at a local university, I took her out to the filed to show her what I really do.

Colleagues and me told her about our ongoing “Tubeho Neza” “live well” campaigned. Some fun facts about our campaign, we distributed water filters and cook stoves to 100,000 households between September – December 2014. Now, we are going back to every household and doing follow up education. How amazing is that? You almost never see, NGO follow up and reeducate the way we do.  

I took the Ambassador to three households and showed her our technologies and their effectiveness in the field. She had time to talk to household members and truly hear from them the impact these technologies have on their lives.

I love what I do!

Group Photo

Household Presentation

Finding Households

Household edu. presentation

Truly the "LAND OF A THOUSAND HILLS"

Rwanda is known for its rolling hills and is called "THE LAND OF A THOUSAND HILLS." This is so true! I have never seen these many hills in my life! It adds so much beauty to the country. The one thing that amazes me the most is that, all farmers farm on the hills manually! Now we are in the rainy season, this country is 100% green, you never see little dry land. ALL GREEN. Reminds me of my EVER GREEN STATE: WASHINGTON!

RUBAVU DISTRICT

LAKE KIVU WEST VIEW

KID HAS A DINNER

KARONGI DISTRICT

LAKE KIVU IN KIBUYE TOWN

VIEW OF MY TOWN

LAKE KIVU NORTH VIEW

MY FAVORITE SCENERY 

BEAUTIFUL HILLS

Our water filters and cookstove distribution days!

Glimpse of our distribution days, which are my fav. I will upload a video soon. Distribution days are usually very up beat with dancing and singing. It starts out with talks from leaders and then into a skit that illustrates the importance of our technologies and then into a dancing/singing. Then, days following distribution, each household is visited by a community health worker (CHW) and educated on correct usage of technologies.  

Skit

7:00am ready to distribute 

Time to assemble water filters

 Celebrations - cow dance

Photos of my site!

I think Gisenyi is very different compare to other parts of Rwanda. Because its near the DRC, the culture and language is diverse. Also, because its on the boarder, its more of a business town. Almost everyone is always selling something. Lastly, it has a different vibe thank many other towns thats cool to live in. 

Gisenyi Town

My new home

 Town

Kivu Beach

Happy to be on water again!

Lake Kivu

Peace Corps life has been little busy….

I know I have not blog in a while. So let me catch you all up….

Finally, I have a placement!!! After a month of Pre-Service Training and another month of waiting around for placement, I have the perfect placement.

My site is in a town called Gisenyi. Gisenyi is right near the Democratic Republic of Congo in northern Rwanda. I am literally 20 minutes walk from the DRC boarder. GISENYI IS ACTUALLY RIGHT ON LAKE KIVU. My first year in Peace Corps I was on an island and now in a lake town, life can't get any better.

Apart from loving my site and furnished home, my placement is with an organization called DelAgua. DelAgua has a very well put together website check it out, delagua.org!!! We have a campaign going on right now in which we distribute water filters and cookstoves to the poorest villages in Western Rwanda. Distributions are followed by households education. I am the campaign coordinator for two districts. The goal is to reach about 3 million households. I will post videos from our distribution days, which I think are so cool.

I really like this placement, because its very different than my first placement in Kenya. My first year was the very traditional Peace Corps placement and I loved every minute of it. My second year in Rwanda, is different because I am working with an organization that works in villages but from a supervisor position. I got the best of both worlds.

I have so many pictures but I can't figure out how to load photos from my iPhone to my mac. As soon as I figure that out, I will post photos!

Peace!

Mid-Service Conference (MSC)

So, Rwanda is treating me well so far. Finished my language training with the training group and swore in last week. I can say my KinyaRwanda is at a reasonable level now lol

I was evacuated from Kenya before we had our Mid-Service Conference (MSC). So, I joined a health group in their MSC this week and it was amazing. I will also be closing my service with this group next summer. MSC is when we get together with our original group and reflect on our one year mark. Also have discussions about how we will continue to serve for the reminder of our service.

This week, for MSC, we stayed in a nice hotel and ate 5 times a day lol Food is a big deal when you are serving in remote villages. One thing I miss the most about home is the variety and availability of food. The hotel had a summing pool, so that was fun.

In addition, I was elected as Volunteer Advisory Committe (VAC) for the health group that I will be doing my Close Of Service (COS) with. I am honored to be representing this group in admin meetings about volunteer concerns.

I am still waiting for my placement, I don't have a site yet. I will be doing grass root soccer this week, stay tuned for details about that.