Easy like sunday morning

 We're back from our day a little earlier because it is Sunday. We got up had breakfast and met some very nice people from Florida that are here from another NGO company called change through music and they're here with nine students from Florida and they'll be performing. We also told them about mine leaps I'm always trying to publicize them when I have the opportunity. Colleen went off to church and I stayed at the center I did a little reading I hung out with the other teachers that were here today I had lunch and when Colleen got back we took a car taxi and went to visit our mutual friend Odile

Odile and her then fiance had stayed at my house they were there for New Year's Eve and spent a few days together but unfortunately a deal although she was attending Yale University and actually graduated and has a master's from Yale returns home to Rwanda and had a horrific accident that severed her spinal cord so she is in a wheelchair now. Her sisters and brother and mother were there and were very nice and very hospitable to us and she looks great and she still works for the prime minister's office here in kilgali she says she has a rich social life she goes to the gym but I asked her about her legs and she says she has no feeling in them which made me very sad. It was a lovely visit and we returned back early we're going to have a little snacky kind of dinner and tomorrow we're back to our regular schedule of teaching I'm going to put in some photos and catch up tomorrow I'm also putting in photos of my lunch which was usual which was rice with cabbage and beans is actually taste very good I also added pictures of Bashir and Rebecca because they are leaving tonight to return back to the States today they also had a very interesting meeting with several students that have graduated from college and having a discussion about life afterwards about jobs search going for masters degrees and things like that because many of these kids once they graduate they really don't know what's next so as you can see mine leaves keeps in touch with their graduates their alumni and that's why so many alumni actually work here at the center

same gentleman I photographed  2 years ago

lunch

Alumni meeting about life after graduation

t

Baby sitting and girls lunch out

 Today was a fun day it started out with getting to the center a little late because today was the community service day which is the last Saturday of the month and that's when everyone comes out to beautify the area the streets it's mandatory there are no traffic no very few motorcycles between the hours of 9:00 and 12:00. I find it amusing that as we're walking to the center some people we know come out and call on name it just feels so homey that here I am in Rwanda and people know me and Colleen. So we spent some time at the center and then we went and met Rebecca for lunch so it was just the three girls we had a lot of good conversation and then we went to Rebecca and bashir's rented home which is very nice actually and we was spent the afternoon with Sophia in the beginning she was a little hesitant and then eventually she really warmed up to us we had a lot of fun with her reminded me of my own granddaughter Sydney same age they're only a month apart and what fun it would be if the two of them got together. So tomorrow Colleen and I are going to visit odile she stayed in my house with her then fiance Patrick who runs the gazeemba orphanage she had a very terrible accident that put her in a wheelchair we don't know what her condition is right now she did graduate from Yale and we don't know what the situation is going to be but we are going to spend time with her tomorrow all right so enjoy the pictures for today I didn't see my monkeys this morning maybe they'll be out tomorrow

even Sophia pitching in on community  day

Shabbat shalom

 It's 9:30 p.m. and getting ready for bed and hoping to get a good night's sleep. So there's a lot for me to write about today and the first thing I wanted to talk about were the monkeys because they were back this morning and I put a picture of them that I took on to Google to tell me about these monkeys and this is what I learned they're called Eastern vervet monkeys and they are from this area and they can be very friendly from what I read but it says not to leave snacks out don't leave your window open when they're around because they are looking for snacks so they're very friendly to humans but can be a little Brazen so that's what they are and that's what kind of monkeys they are so I wanted to share that another thing I wanted to mention was the changes that I see since the last time I was in Rwanda and what I noticed again were that everybody has cell phones now and that at the center there are more children on their cell phones and when we wanted to take a break and do a game like Zip they had no idea what I was talking about meanwhile only a few years ago it was the children that taught me that game among others that they play in Rwanda I found that a little sad so this morning we had a free morning because it's Friday and they do different things on Friday I had one class with my online students which I was very happy to see them and we will laughing a lot because I was doing L and R pronunciation and they left it themselves as well and it was really a lot of fun. I hope that they come out of the next 3 weeks being able to say Larry and say Laura and say rock and roll I also remember when I was here or maybe my first or second trip that mostly all the kids girls and boys had very very short crop hair that's not the case anymore a lot of hair extensions and men with more hair on their head than I've seen before so that was something that I thought was different also the fact that the mine leave Center has so many teachers now there's never enough chairs for everyone to sit in the staff room which is a wonderful thing that they have so many so between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00 we have well I taught class and then four to five we did a discussion and it was very Lively mostly talking about women's roles in Rwanda and then we opened it up to let them ask us questions to ask Colleen and I questions which was very interesting and again a wonderful to be able to have these discussions that are a little difficult you know we talked about racial inequality in the US and how neighborhoods are mostly segregated and how what they consider what they think is that all Americans are rich and the fact that what I have probably would make me Rich here but according to our Santa's in the US I am definitely middle class

Tomorrow is Community Day of Service where everybody pitches in and does something whether it's cleaning the streets or planting trees everybody does this they'll be very little traffic in the streets and this is in the morning until 12:00 after which Colleen and I are supposed to babysit for Sophia last year and Rebecca's little girl so I'm looking forward to that. I also did a class this morning withYves which was fun I felt great stretching and later on he showed me some techniques and keeping my balance because balance is difficult but he showed me a couple of things that I was not doing correctly and I thought it was very helpful I think I burned a lot of calories and not sure I haven't checked yet today what my step count was between that and the dancing and actually I'm going to look right now so today I got my 10,000 steps. So I am going to bed and I will post some pictures and hope you're enjoying reading my blog I'm also wanting to include include a poem that Julius wrote basically for me but it's for everyone when I was talking about the fear of falling and it's also obviously a metaphor for life but it's a very interesting poem so I thought I would add it

yes me trying to work out bbbb before dance

Julius Hawai

Fiston

students 

one of my on line students

sisters 

my on line students

morning visitors

 

July 23 l and R

 For the past 2 days I have worked on pronunciation with all the students. The older ones obviously do a little bit better plus I'm in a room with a computer and a projector which helps a lot in the afternoon I teach the younger kids who also worked on pronunciation it was funny and sweet watching them struggle with saying the L letter and the r letter and we did some tongue twisters as well tomorrow is Friday and it's a different kind of day with the older kids practice every week to present a debate in the afternoon so I'm pretty much free in the morning tomorrow I still walk up and down the hill but it's less steps than I had hoped it really only comes to about 5,000 steps 00 a day although my heart rate goes up to 120 125. Colleen and I woke up to the little store on the green corner to buy what they call biscuits but they're like tea crackers cookies that I bring back and we put it in the staff room Rebecca invites Colleen and I to attend all staff activities and meetings she keeps saying we are part of the family which she certainly makes us feel that way so I don't have much more to add I haven't seen the monkeys for a couple days and everything is fine I love these people I love these kids and I will post a few pictures from the past two days

School has begun

 A few observations I wanted to know one is that there are so many electric vehicles here more than I've ever seen in my own area in New Jersey. They are cheaper to run obviously than gas and it's sunny here very often so I see electric cars electric buses electric motorcycles and much more than I had anticipated. I've also noticed when we have our lunch that the kill the students eat first and then the staff will eat after the students have been fed the food is the same as it's been before cabbage beans potatoes and it's actually quite good. Absolutely shocked at the Mounds of food that people put on their plates and they eat it all but I also know that many of the students and the staff that this is the only meal of the day. So today was the first day of class for Colleen and for me

Classes started at 9:00 and I had a class at 10:00 of lovely students who are all in their twenties and did very well with today's lesson on pronunciation. We broke for lunch and had some time off until 2:00 I had a 2-hour class with the younger kids who are very sweet but a little rambunctious but very sweet and participatory they all wanted to participate especially when I was giving out little Tootsie Rolls when they got a correct answer. Colleen brought 5 Pounds of Tootsie Rolls and we hardly have any left Period Went through all the dum-dum lollipops Period And now I am Giving out stickers We came back to the Hotel pretty early about 6 30 It's the first time we had to walk back to the hotel totally uphill. My heart rate went up to about 1:25 but I felt okay. So I took a shower and now I'm ready to get ready for bed and maybe watch something on my tablet I'm going to include some photos that I took today

that was for one student!

my younger kids and yes I look fat ugh

older students 

Alice

julius

Indian dinner and university visit

 Today was another full day and tomorrow will be your first day of teaching I start at 9:00 a.m. and I've got a 2-hour class and then I've got another class after that and I think a third one we finish about 5:00 tomorrow. So today we went to the center and took a ride to a college called Kepler after the scientist and one of Colleen's former students was there to take us on a tour she's a freshman beautiful campus and not as big as you that you would see in the US she's very happy there and we were happy for her once we left there we went back to the center and all the guests choreographers were there and everyone was dancing and it looked like a big party we had lunch and then we did our planning for tomorrow although I'm not a planner when it comes to this I did as much as I wanted to do. Then one of our former Travelers Kristen who was on our first trip with Carl is in Rwanda and she's on a different Mission working with Afghani girl refugees because once the Taliban took over the girls were not allowed to have an education silver Wanda has allowed these refugees to come to Rwanda and they will be educated here so Krista is there to tutor kids. So we met her at an Indian restaurant in kilgali it was in a very fancy area with expensive homes and upscale hotels and we asked fist on to come with us because yesterday was his birthday so we had a very nice dinner the four of us and then we came back to the hotel and I got a email alert telling me that someone had used my credit card back home so now I don't have one I had to close it and it makes me so angry that people just do these things to others so it's just so annoying anyway so tomorrow I'm teaching I'll put in some pictures from today and going to bed by the way Carl's book was in the College Library so I took a picture of it and send it to him

Seeing old friends and dancing like noone is around

 We got a little bit of a break this morning and did not have to be at the center until 10:00 a.m. we got there and Colleen went to church because it was Sunday and I was at the center and a dancer from 2 years ago that I met from the United States her name is Caitlin was visiting and also choreographing and they were doing some dancing with the kids and I was invited in and was able to do a 1 hour warm up which was really a lot but it was good for my back it was good for me I'm still able to do it so good for me! I did some talking to the guest dancers and trainers who would never been to Rwanda before and then we waited until about 4:00 we were busy but the day went and got a ride in a car with Fiston whose birthday was today all of 29 and Colleen and I and we went to visit Johnson. He met us there with his little girl in his arms and we walked to his house where I got to spend time with his son Gary and with his lovely wife Noella. She prepared a meal of Fufu and meat which was something Fiston n was very happy to have Johnson has such a beautiful family and it's just lovely to see someone who went through such trauma to continue life. Having survived the genocide and witnessed it first hand seeing his mother and Aunt murdered before his eyes and then escaping to the orphanage and being saved by none other than Carl Wilkins. It's amazing how our lives have intersected especially knowing that Rebecca got her start in Rwanda also with Carl. That's how I met Colleen when Colleen and I were on call strip and that's how I met Johnson who was at the time the translator for Carl. Johnson informed us that he has been writing a book about his experiences and hopes to cover pre-genicide during the genocide and after the genocide. It's still very much in the Forefront of his life Colleen asked him does he plan on telling his children and he said maybe but right now he feels they are too young but they will eventually come to know about it.

So I gave out my gifts which was a slinky and a barrel of monkeys some Tootsie Rolls and some body lotion for his wife the barrel of monkeys and the slinky were big hits. We talked a lot we caught up on what's going on in his life what's going on in my life and he and fist on have now become friends which I really was happy about we're coming back to the hotel and having a rather restful evening because we're back pretty early and hoping to watch the World Cup with maybe other people at the hotel that don't want to watch it they have a TV in the restaurant so we may go down there so I'm going to post pictures of our day and I hope you enjoy them

Ishme

Caitlin ,Baptiste

Parent community meeting

dance classes

Fiston enjoying fufu

Johnson family