It takes a village
Amazing how time has crept by so fast. I have been here for a week over 3 months now.
I spent the last two weeks recovering from sickness (possible malaria!) and spend a lot of time getting household tasks accomplished, like spending about 5 hours at the bank just to pay school fees for my boy. I feel like previous times in Rwanda , it seemed I was here much longer. This time I haven't gone exploring, done any travelling, spent much time "enjoying." My life these days is work, colleague visiting friends, people visiting me, choir practice, visiting the sick and boarding schools, house hold chores, going to the bank, grocery shopping (much more complicated and fun than in New Zealand), Church, admin jobs, writing up Reports, hanging out with kids, and spending time with people important to me.
There is no travelling or visiting different museums/restaurants/nature spots on the weekends. Just a whole lot of commitments. But yet time seems to go so fast. Even though I am not necessarily "having fun"
Somedays (okay maybe like two days these last 3 months) I stay at home and do nothing , like attempt to make a pompom out of leftover wool, or watch one of the movies someone downloaded for me, on my work laptop.
Otherdays I have about 5 appointments. Its good to have a balance , for sure. I am thankful for Rwanda's many many public holidays. We had one yesterday, and I think we have had at least 6 since I have been there. Rwanda doesn't have that June- October no public holiday problem that New Zealanders are plagued with.
On a side note , I just checked and there is no more public holidays until December..... so it seems like we are heading into the public holiday drought now too.
I haven't been homesick at all, but it's been hard-ish. When you are in a situation where you are so visible to the outside community every time you leave your gate, and every small thing you say or do has the potential to seriously offend someone , then you feel like you are constantly on your toes, or walking on glass. I am glad I have a few really good friends here that no matter what I say or do, how culturally insensitive I am, or what stupid situations I get myself into, they truly love me and help me navigate my way through this crazy life.
I am struggling with my own values vs mainstream societal values. For example one of the biggest values my parents taught me (thanks to their outspoken Dutch heritage) is to always say what you think and never be afraid to speak the truth (even if it offends!) This value alone causes me to Struggle. Struggle to build trust and to build relationships etc. At first I blamed the people around me for my struggles but more and more I am realizing that my own sinful nature is what is really causing me to have these struggles. You really do learn a lot about yourself when you are thrown completely out of your comfort zone. You meet yourself. All the ugly and not so good parts come to the forefront and there is seriously no hiding from it. When you live comfortably you don't have to think much, things happen as they always happen and there's little that challenges you. I am grateful for this opportunity to learn more about myself and to grow as a person, also growing in the knowledge of God's incredible Grace and patience for me.
Now lets talk about nice things- seriously Rwandan people are the most loyal , community minded and neighbourly people. When I was sick seriously "the village" showed up. In Rwandan culture when someone is sick everyone goes and visits them at their home.
Its great but also at the same time you just want to stay in bed, sleep and blob out to movies.
But it makes you feel loved and cared for , for sure. And who knows- maybe it even helped me to recover quicker.
The day after I went to hospital - by 10 the following morning I had already received 5 visitors. My neighbours, colleagues, people from my church, and my friends visited me. I got given movies on a flashdrive, drinking water, milk, lots and lots of fruit, bread, amandazi (african doughnuts), people brought cooked meals for me, people made traditional medicine for me, people washed my clothes , kept my house tidy and helped me with my medication, they dropped and picked me up from hospital, gave me warm jerseys to wear, they prayed for me.... I got phone calls, messages and video calls, and people put me on their wattsapp status (its the thing here, when you want to acknowledge someone.)
You know the African proverb "It takes a village to raise a child" ? well in Rwanda "It takes a village to do ..." well just about everything!
The whole neighbourhood had noticed or heard I was sick so when I first ventured out after 4 days of hibernation (to buy more medicine at our local pharmacy) I was greeted with "Warakize ? ' (probably spelt that totally wrong) which means are you well/healthy again?
Now I am well again I can look back and reflect how blessed I am to be among people who are so caring, warm and inviting. Now all I have to do is try my hardest to do the same. This means closing my mouth more, opening my ears and eyes more, thinking before I speak and putting others needs before my own.
In the last two months we have had constant visitors staying the night. Often I shared my bed with my sister Claire, or another girl who stayed with us. One night (last week Thursday) we had 6 people staying with us, and we only have two beds and a mattress (and a bed is just far too complicated to assemble).. One of the girls who has been staying with us on and off for the last two months, left on Friday to start a new life with her fiancee in Zambia. This was so exciting for all of us but also left a huge hole in our little family. The boy that I sponsor (actually now that I am not working-you all sponsor) for boarding school came to stay with us for a week, and it was refreshing to be around a 16 year old boy and all their crazy outfit and life choices. He went to boarding school this week Monday. Yesterday was our first day visitor free and for lunch/dinner we ate yoghurt and biscuits. It was so nice not to worry about providing 3 square meals a day for our visitors (who either couldn't cook/didn't like to cook/ or were to new in our home that it would be rude not to cook for them.) I don't think we will cook for the next week.. unless its an omelette or a salade.
But just as our home always has a lot of visitors and we always seem to be having at least one other person join us for meals, we are also welcomed into many homes.On average for every meal we eat, we share a meal somewhere else. We are invited out to dinner , we are invited to peoples homes, our adoptive parents Mama and Papa Nunu (our landlords) give us lunch or dinner , my colleagues buy me lunch, we go to a party etc.
It's really true "what goes around comes around" We share our food with others, and others share with us. We share our homes with others, when we go to Gisenyi we get many offers of people opening their homes for us. We do favours for people and people do favours for us.
Claire, who I live with and who everyone refers to as "Keza's daughter" , I don't want to talk about too much, because I am aware of her privacy and nobody wants people blasting their information on the internet. However what I can say is that Claire is 4 years younger than me (however wiser than me in so many ways) but I am while living with her I am taking the opportunityto give her a lot of advice/life lessons (as she is doing for me!) Claire said the thing that she has learnt living with me is that "it is better to give than to receive"
She is referring to our monthly hospital visits. Every month,with whatever remains from our monthly food/household budget, we go and visit a public hospital and bring things like soap , sugar, food etc to sick people who are the most needy/not visited at the hospital. At the hospital you have to provide all your own food and soap etc so if no one is visiting you to provide anything , or you don't have capacity then you literally do not get the nourishment that your body needs to heal...
These monthly hospital visits Claire enjoys immensely. She has such a heart for the sick and suffering.
However these same visits have gotten me into some trouble..... because of some advocacy I did (but lets not go there , that chapter is closed and I no longer put my human rights social worker cap on at the hospital, I just close my eyes and ignore.) We are looking forward to going again later this week and distributing among the needy.
Claire has been an angel, helping me navigate this crazy world of cross cultural work. I have made about a million mistakes but she is showing me what I am doing wrong and how I can change it, in the most non judgemental way. She has also helped me to revamp my wardrobe- because girls here seriously know how to dress up and I have always (and still ) need a lot of help in the wardrobe/looks department.
My work keeps me busy. Every day is different. My favourite days are Saturdays when I spend time with the kids. Slowly the kids are knowing me and feeling comfortable with me. Most of them know where I live (thanks to being a stone's throw away from the Gikondo office) , and although they know where I live, they respect professional boundaries and don't visit me unannounced. I hope though that if they are in serious distress (out of office hours) they know where to find me. Its been great hanging out with the older kids who are home from boarding school. It's so nice talking freely without translation , or kinyarwanda small talk, and hearing about their hopes and dreams for the future. Another thing which I have enjoyed, as health has always been a passion of mine is dealing with the various health problems amongst our children. It's amazing what a little money and a little advocacy can do to improve a child's quality of life.
Another thing that is keeping me busy is being part of the choir "power praise" at my church. Its a huge commitment with twice weekly practices, and a long day at church on Sunday , but I am enjoying learning Kinyarwanda songs, making more friends , and putting myself out of my comfort zone. I have always enjoyed singing and I feel like I am really developing in singing.
Another exciting thing is that I found another great project to invest some of the money in from the fundraiser I had in May. There is an amazing savings group in one of our sectors where 30 of our caregivers have been carefully saving some money every week . The financial year ends tomorrow and they will be receiving their money that they have saved. I have decided to donate 10,000rwf (about $17) to each woman (anonymously) in the savings group which comes with a message of encouraging them to save further and to continue in their efforts to make their lives better. Hopefully the rumour of this cash bonus in the village will encourage the other 70 caregivers in the sector to join the savings groups in the next financial year. Also this sector is particularly poor and although some of the women (and few men) have been carefully saving this year , some have only managed to save 40,000 rwf ... so you can imagine that 10,000 is a massive boost to their savings. To give you an example of what 10,000 can buy you - You can probably feed a family for two weeks off 10,000. And some people pay rent of 10,000 (or near this amount) for a month. So I am so happy to support these families and encourage them in their efforts for the year.
If I can ask one thing from you all (besides sending me mail- hint hint "Kim Aperloo Best Family Rwanda P.O Box 5779 Kigali, Rwanda" and your prayers of course) would be to prayerfully consider sponsoring a child from Best Family Rwanda. We currently have about 10 kids in our programmes that are unsponsored (however they still get the same benefits as sponsored kids) which is causing a huge drain on our very small "Non flashy NGO" budget. Sponsorship costs $35 US (about $50 NZD) per month and provides for a child their school fees, uniform, school materials, transport to school, health insurance, food for the family on a regular basis, extra nutrition for children who have HIV or other illnesses, extra health expenses such as specialist appointments covered, toothpaste, a Saturday programme with food and milk for the children every Saturday as well as provides assistance for the wider families and community such as providing access to their own clean water, giving small buisness loans to caregivers and so much more. If you are interested in sponsoring a child where the child actually benefits directly from the sponsorship (and not just a token sponsorship such as in world vision), with an organization which only employs Rwandan people, with absolutely no admin costs (outside of local staff salaries), where every staff member knows every child, and where there is love, transparency and commitment to the holistic development of every child - then look no further Best Family Rwanda is for you. And the best thing is that I know every child personally, so you can trust that the money you send will benefit the child directly.
If you want more information about Best Family , please go on the website www.bestfamilyrwanda.org and look under the section for sponsorship. There you will see the children available for sponsorship. As there are some issues with the website and getting people from New Zealand/ other countries other than America set up for sponsorship - once you have selected the child you would like to sponsor please email our Sponsorship Director Blake on blake@bestfamilyrwanda.org and let him you know which child you would like to sponsor, and he will assist you to get payment set up.
Remember that saying ?? "It takes A Village" will you be part of our village?
Ture Kumwe (we are together)
Keza
I spent the last two weeks recovering from sickness (possible malaria!) and spend a lot of time getting household tasks accomplished, like spending about 5 hours at the bank just to pay school fees for my boy. I feel like previous times in Rwanda , it seemed I was here much longer. This time I haven't gone exploring, done any travelling, spent much time "enjoying." My life these days is work, colleague visiting friends, people visiting me, choir practice, visiting the sick and boarding schools, house hold chores, going to the bank, grocery shopping (much more complicated and fun than in New Zealand), Church, admin jobs, writing up Reports, hanging out with kids, and spending time with people important to me.
There is no travelling or visiting different museums/restaurants/nature spots on the weekends. Just a whole lot of commitments. But yet time seems to go so fast. Even though I am not necessarily "having fun"
Somedays (okay maybe like two days these last 3 months) I stay at home and do nothing , like attempt to make a pompom out of leftover wool, or watch one of the movies someone downloaded for me, on my work laptop.
Otherdays I have about 5 appointments. Its good to have a balance , for sure. I am thankful for Rwanda's many many public holidays. We had one yesterday, and I think we have had at least 6 since I have been there. Rwanda doesn't have that June- October no public holiday problem that New Zealanders are plagued with.
On a side note , I just checked and there is no more public holidays until December..... so it seems like we are heading into the public holiday drought now too.
I haven't been homesick at all, but it's been hard-ish. When you are in a situation where you are so visible to the outside community every time you leave your gate, and every small thing you say or do has the potential to seriously offend someone , then you feel like you are constantly on your toes, or walking on glass. I am glad I have a few really good friends here that no matter what I say or do, how culturally insensitive I am, or what stupid situations I get myself into, they truly love me and help me navigate my way through this crazy life.
I am struggling with my own values vs mainstream societal values. For example one of the biggest values my parents taught me (thanks to their outspoken Dutch heritage) is to always say what you think and never be afraid to speak the truth (even if it offends!) This value alone causes me to Struggle. Struggle to build trust and to build relationships etc. At first I blamed the people around me for my struggles but more and more I am realizing that my own sinful nature is what is really causing me to have these struggles. You really do learn a lot about yourself when you are thrown completely out of your comfort zone. You meet yourself. All the ugly and not so good parts come to the forefront and there is seriously no hiding from it. When you live comfortably you don't have to think much, things happen as they always happen and there's little that challenges you. I am grateful for this opportunity to learn more about myself and to grow as a person, also growing in the knowledge of God's incredible Grace and patience for me.
Now lets talk about nice things- seriously Rwandan people are the most loyal , community minded and neighbourly people. When I was sick seriously "the village" showed up. In Rwandan culture when someone is sick everyone goes and visits them at their home.
Its great but also at the same time you just want to stay in bed, sleep and blob out to movies.
But it makes you feel loved and cared for , for sure. And who knows- maybe it even helped me to recover quicker.
The day after I went to hospital - by 10 the following morning I had already received 5 visitors. My neighbours, colleagues, people from my church, and my friends visited me. I got given movies on a flashdrive, drinking water, milk, lots and lots of fruit, bread, amandazi (african doughnuts), people brought cooked meals for me, people made traditional medicine for me, people washed my clothes , kept my house tidy and helped me with my medication, they dropped and picked me up from hospital, gave me warm jerseys to wear, they prayed for me.... I got phone calls, messages and video calls, and people put me on their wattsapp status (its the thing here, when you want to acknowledge someone.)
You know the African proverb "It takes a village to raise a child" ? well in Rwanda "It takes a village to do ..." well just about everything!
The whole neighbourhood had noticed or heard I was sick so when I first ventured out after 4 days of hibernation (to buy more medicine at our local pharmacy) I was greeted with "Warakize ? ' (probably spelt that totally wrong) which means are you well/healthy again?
Now I am well again I can look back and reflect how blessed I am to be among people who are so caring, warm and inviting. Now all I have to do is try my hardest to do the same. This means closing my mouth more, opening my ears and eyes more, thinking before I speak and putting others needs before my own.
In the last two months we have had constant visitors staying the night. Often I shared my bed with my sister Claire, or another girl who stayed with us. One night (last week Thursday) we had 6 people staying with us, and we only have two beds and a mattress (and a bed is just far too complicated to assemble).. One of the girls who has been staying with us on and off for the last two months, left on Friday to start a new life with her fiancee in Zambia. This was so exciting for all of us but also left a huge hole in our little family. The boy that I sponsor (actually now that I am not working-you all sponsor) for boarding school came to stay with us for a week, and it was refreshing to be around a 16 year old boy and all their crazy outfit and life choices. He went to boarding school this week Monday. Yesterday was our first day visitor free and for lunch/dinner we ate yoghurt and biscuits. It was so nice not to worry about providing 3 square meals a day for our visitors (who either couldn't cook/didn't like to cook/ or were to new in our home that it would be rude not to cook for them.) I don't think we will cook for the next week.. unless its an omelette or a salade.
But just as our home always has a lot of visitors and we always seem to be having at least one other person join us for meals, we are also welcomed into many homes.On average for every meal we eat, we share a meal somewhere else. We are invited out to dinner , we are invited to peoples homes, our adoptive parents Mama and Papa Nunu (our landlords) give us lunch or dinner , my colleagues buy me lunch, we go to a party etc.
It's really true "what goes around comes around" We share our food with others, and others share with us. We share our homes with others, when we go to Gisenyi we get many offers of people opening their homes for us. We do favours for people and people do favours for us.
Claire, who I live with and who everyone refers to as "Keza's daughter" , I don't want to talk about too much, because I am aware of her privacy and nobody wants people blasting their information on the internet. However what I can say is that Claire is 4 years younger than me (however wiser than me in so many ways) but I am while living with her I am taking the opportunityto give her a lot of advice/life lessons (as she is doing for me!) Claire said the thing that she has learnt living with me is that "it is better to give than to receive"
She is referring to our monthly hospital visits. Every month,with whatever remains from our monthly food/household budget, we go and visit a public hospital and bring things like soap , sugar, food etc to sick people who are the most needy/not visited at the hospital. At the hospital you have to provide all your own food and soap etc so if no one is visiting you to provide anything , or you don't have capacity then you literally do not get the nourishment that your body needs to heal...
These monthly hospital visits Claire enjoys immensely. She has such a heart for the sick and suffering.
However these same visits have gotten me into some trouble..... because of some advocacy I did (but lets not go there , that chapter is closed and I no longer put my human rights social worker cap on at the hospital, I just close my eyes and ignore.) We are looking forward to going again later this week and distributing among the needy.
Claire has been an angel, helping me navigate this crazy world of cross cultural work. I have made about a million mistakes but she is showing me what I am doing wrong and how I can change it, in the most non judgemental way. She has also helped me to revamp my wardrobe- because girls here seriously know how to dress up and I have always (and still ) need a lot of help in the wardrobe/looks department.
My work keeps me busy. Every day is different. My favourite days are Saturdays when I spend time with the kids. Slowly the kids are knowing me and feeling comfortable with me. Most of them know where I live (thanks to being a stone's throw away from the Gikondo office) , and although they know where I live, they respect professional boundaries and don't visit me unannounced. I hope though that if they are in serious distress (out of office hours) they know where to find me. Its been great hanging out with the older kids who are home from boarding school. It's so nice talking freely without translation , or kinyarwanda small talk, and hearing about their hopes and dreams for the future. Another thing which I have enjoyed, as health has always been a passion of mine is dealing with the various health problems amongst our children. It's amazing what a little money and a little advocacy can do to improve a child's quality of life.
Another thing that is keeping me busy is being part of the choir "power praise" at my church. Its a huge commitment with twice weekly practices, and a long day at church on Sunday , but I am enjoying learning Kinyarwanda songs, making more friends , and putting myself out of my comfort zone. I have always enjoyed singing and I feel like I am really developing in singing.
Another exciting thing is that I found another great project to invest some of the money in from the fundraiser I had in May. There is an amazing savings group in one of our sectors where 30 of our caregivers have been carefully saving some money every week . The financial year ends tomorrow and they will be receiving their money that they have saved. I have decided to donate 10,000rwf (about $17) to each woman (anonymously) in the savings group which comes with a message of encouraging them to save further and to continue in their efforts to make their lives better. Hopefully the rumour of this cash bonus in the village will encourage the other 70 caregivers in the sector to join the savings groups in the next financial year. Also this sector is particularly poor and although some of the women (and few men) have been carefully saving this year , some have only managed to save 40,000 rwf ... so you can imagine that 10,000 is a massive boost to their savings. To give you an example of what 10,000 can buy you - You can probably feed a family for two weeks off 10,000. And some people pay rent of 10,000 (or near this amount) for a month. So I am so happy to support these families and encourage them in their efforts for the year.
If I can ask one thing from you all (besides sending me mail- hint hint "Kim Aperloo Best Family Rwanda P.O Box 5779 Kigali, Rwanda" and your prayers of course) would be to prayerfully consider sponsoring a child from Best Family Rwanda. We currently have about 10 kids in our programmes that are unsponsored (however they still get the same benefits as sponsored kids) which is causing a huge drain on our very small "Non flashy NGO" budget. Sponsorship costs $35 US (about $50 NZD) per month and provides for a child their school fees, uniform, school materials, transport to school, health insurance, food for the family on a regular basis, extra nutrition for children who have HIV or other illnesses, extra health expenses such as specialist appointments covered, toothpaste, a Saturday programme with food and milk for the children every Saturday as well as provides assistance for the wider families and community such as providing access to their own clean water, giving small buisness loans to caregivers and so much more. If you are interested in sponsoring a child where the child actually benefits directly from the sponsorship (and not just a token sponsorship such as in world vision), with an organization which only employs Rwandan people, with absolutely no admin costs (outside of local staff salaries), where every staff member knows every child, and where there is love, transparency and commitment to the holistic development of every child - then look no further Best Family Rwanda is for you. And the best thing is that I know every child personally, so you can trust that the money you send will benefit the child directly.
If you want more information about Best Family , please go on the website www.bestfamilyrwanda.org and look under the section for sponsorship. There you will see the children available for sponsorship. As there are some issues with the website and getting people from New Zealand/ other countries other than America set up for sponsorship - once you have selected the child you would like to sponsor please email our Sponsorship Director Blake on blake@bestfamilyrwanda.org and let him you know which child you would like to sponsor, and he will assist you to get payment set up.
Remember that saying ?? "It takes A Village" will you be part of our village?
Ture Kumwe (we are together)
Keza
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