Benchmark two -IST, Lake Kivu and visions of Congo...

The past two weeks or so have been spent at trainings, trainings, trainings! It began with a trip to Kigali to do training about “summer” camps. I guess to preface, Rwanda is on a different schedule than schools in the states, and they just started their long school break. So the end of November we will be holding “summer” camps for the kids with an emphasis on girls empowerment, life skills and health related education.

I already feel like Rwanda is about the size of my University campus, as while I was in Kigali I ran into several people from other places, not even affiliated with Peace Corps. It’s definitely a small country, and therefore, I often feel like there’s very much an eye on me most of the time. So the training for Camps GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and BE (Boys excelling) was awesome. After three months of being at site, I finally felt like I started to wrap my head around what I can do here in Rwanda as far as projects and such goes. It was also the first time that I left sight in five weeks, so I was getting a little stir crazy!

Anyways, that training ended Sunday, followed by a trip to Kibuye on Lake Kivu. After three months of service, all of the volunteers have an in-service training. So my entire training class of 18 people have come together for this. A big group of us had met at the PC office before heading to this next training, so we stopped for some really amazing Indian food in Kigali before the long trek out here. Unfortunately this had us arriving after dark which allowed for a very interesting last 30-minutes of the trip. As the sky darkened, the driver continued to drive light-less. Every now and then he would flick the head lights just long enough to see the wall in front of us before whipping around yet another curve. All of the Rwandans on the bus were laughing and talking loudly, and occasionally a couple men on the bus would scream out cheers as they listened to whatever soccer match was on.

It was quite entertaining. The next morning I woke to see an incredible view of Lake Kivu, which runs the border of Congo and Rwanda, complete with several islands and at times we were even able to see a flat-topped volcano in the Congo with smoke coming out of it and everything. It’s pretty spectacular! So the week commenced with trainings on health related topics, income-generating activities, and several other things, and I feel so ready to go back to my site and start developing some of my project ideas. I’ve been relatively intimidated about doing that thus far as my Kinyarwanda isn’t amazing just yet, and it’s daunting to go out in the community on my own. But, I do feel empowered and excited, and even better, ready.

Friday afternoon, our group took wooden motor boats out to Amahoro (Peace) Island. It was so much fun and so incredibly beautiful. The island is really small and has a trail around it. Hammocks rest by the shore and the views were awesome! The boat ride back was amazing as well as we returned as the sun was setting. It was so nice to be around water again. I love the forest and my site, but I very much have a special place in my heart for water, lakes, rivers, ocean, and everything else. Being here really reminds me of living on Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park. I might have to do some more national park work when I make it back to the states, I just love living in those places so much! Tuzareba (We’ll see)!

Anyways, Friday evening our co-workers arrived. We each had one person from our sites come, and go through a Behavior Change Communication workshop with us. I was very glad to find out that I didn’t forget my Kinyarwanda this past week of only speaking English. So, my titulaire, or the manager of my health center came to the training and I’m really impressed with everyone’s participation as well as the variety of people who have come together. We’ve done some group work, in which we’ve discussed topics like family planning, nutrition, and designing messages. It’s been very interesting having these conversations, US Americans with Rwandans, and seeing where our ideas converge and where they differ, as well as creating strategies for mediating those divides when I return to site.

These have been immensely valuable trainings and we finished Monday. I followed this with a trip to Kamonyi to spend a couple days with my host family and finally back to site on friday. They have a new volunteer living with them now and she’s awesome. It was so nice being around her with our family as well as all of the other new trainees. It’s nice to be around fresh faces and feel like I have something to offer, be it support, or just someone new to talk to. I also re-met a trainee from the University of Oregon who used to volunteer for APS. Small world right? Anyways, Rwanda is starting to feel like home and I’m developing friendships with Rwandans as well as other volunteers. It’s nice to walk down the street and run into people you know that are up for impromptu breakfast dates or invite you to come visit their lake-side sanctuaries! And, every day my Kinyarwanda continues to get better!

One of the trainees will be coming to share my site with me in December. He will be working at the university that I’ve been teaching English at, and his job will be to do just that! I met him on his site visit right before I left to Kigali, and he seems like an awesome person, very optimistic or at least positive, so right up my alley, so to speak. It will be interesting to see how this affects site and how we will impact each other in relation to the community. But, I was away from site for two weeks total, although it went a lot quicker than the five weeks I spent without leaving my site. Haha. Now I’m back and after a day of sleeping and resting, as well as enjoying the living room furniture that finally arrived, I’m ready to get back to work! Although I miss home, my parents birthdays coming up, thanksgiving, Christmas, Gracie turning three months old, friends, everything. I feel very empowered and more ready to be a Peace Corps volunteer than I was going into this experience! We sha’ll see… Much love and until next we meet…

This last picture is a view of Virunga Volcanoes from my front porch after the rains cleared the cloud cover. All of the others are from my adventures on Lake Kivu!