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!