1st Day at Gisimba

At 6:30 AM yesterday morning, I headed to the Serena hotel on foot.  It's about a 25 minute walk that winds through a huge number of small businesses, mostly in shacks.  At this hour, the streets are not super busy, but several hours later the sidewalks will be filled with people, the streets will become a chaotic mess of cars and motorcycles barely following any rules, and the shops will be bustling with people bargaining, bartering, and earning their living.

Upon arrival at the Serena, I headed straight for the fitness centre where I put in a 30 minute workout, then headed for the pool/hot tub area looking to cool off and relax.  It turns out there is no hot tub, and the massive outdoor pool was absolutely frigid, so I decided to head for the steam room instead.  A tradition preached often by my uncle and seconded by one of my roommates, I've discovered the steam room to be an excellent post-workout experience.  This particular steam room was particularly awesome, as they filled the room with delightful scents - the kind you'd expect to smell in a high end spa.

I followed my workout/steam with a delicious gourmet breakfast buffet, complete with one of the oddest selection of juices I've seen in my life:  avocado juice,  tree tomato juice, cucumber juice (?).  It definitely feels odd to be describing these luxuries in a blog about Rwanda, a country that has so little.  At the same time, it makes me appreciate these luxuries that in some contexts (think high end Vegas hotel complex) I would absolutely take for granted.  The hotel is also a great boom for the Kigali economy, and creates many jobs.

At 8:15, Emmy picked me up from the hotel lobby, and we headed to the local market to  pick up some supplies to bring to the orphanage.  I had brought with me from home two soccer balls, a basketball, two tennis rackets, three tennis balls, four chess sets, and two pairs of shoes.  But what we needed now were basic school supplies: notebooks, pens, pencils, and - a reminder to my elementary school days - pencil sharpeners.  I was a notorious pencil tip breaker in my youth, so I formed a close relationship over the years with those colourful little devices.

Emmy did the bartering at the market, because he explained that if I went alone or tried to do all the negotiating in English, I'd get a worse rate.  I tried to tell him that I didn't mind paying a little more to support the market merchants -- they are much poorer and charge way less for comparable products than the people in the proper storefront shacks -- but Emmy insisted on bartering, and we ended up spending about 16,000 RWF ($25) on 60 notebooks, 50 pens, 30 pencils, and 24 pencil sharpeners,

We then headed around the corner and arrived at the orphanage.  It was the first day back from holiday break, so things were extremely hectic and disorganized.  Everyone stays at the orphanage during the holidays, but some of the kids go to nearby boarding schools, or other secondary schools.  Some kids had just completed their schooling, and still others were starting at new schools for the first time.  As such, I only had a few minutes to meet with Ildephonse, the head of the orphanage, to learn what role I would play in my 3 weeks of being there.  He gives me a brief tour of the orphanage, and then hands me off to a couple of the older kids who can show me more of what to expect.

I spend the most of the day getting to know the kids, who range in age from 2 to 22.  Many of the young ones are quite shy, but others smile when they see me and run up to give me a big hug or shake my hand.  Shaking hands and greeting one other is extremely common in Rwanda, even among people who have never met.  There is a real sense of community that is pervasive throughout the city.  This is even further magnified at the orphanage, where, as Ildephonse explained, everyone is part of a big family.

As the day goes on, it really dawns on me just how happy all the children are.  It sounds cliche, but these children who have absolutely nothing, who have never known their parents, who are underfed and live in cramped quarters, are absolutely beaming with happiness and joy for life.  In fact, since I've arrived in Rwanda I haven't encountered a single act of mean spiritedness, and the bar brawl was the only violence I've seen.  It occurs to me that this joy and love for one another helps keep the children happy and content - much in the way many of us rely on our close friends and family, but on a larger scale, and in many cases, a less superficial scale.

Around 1PM, the orphanage breaks for lunch.  I head down the street to a small cafe, with a fellow volunteer, Richard from Minnesota.  Richard is between careers (about to start a technical school to become a technician who operates MRIs and other medical machinery) and has been unemployed for a little over a year.  He decided that he wasn't being productive enough on a day to day basis, so he linked up with a volunteer organization and got a placement in Rwanda.  There were two Australian girls in the same organization as him, but one of them got sick from the food the previous day and the other was taking care of her.  He told me to avoid the samosas, which I did.  I also realized I needed to be more conscious of constantly washing and/or sanitizing my hands.  Getting sick in Africa is something I definitely want to avoid.

After lunch, all the kids gathered in the cafeteria room, where there were several special guest speakers, representing an organization called RIGHT TO PLAY.  The organization, headquartered in Toronto of all places, tries to help disadvantaged youth by using sports and games to shape their lives positively.  One of the representatives delivered a powerful speech in French (somehow my days in grade 6 french with Mme. Danford came back to me and I understood most of it), which was translated in equally emphatic fashion into the local language of Kinyarwanda by Ildephonse.

After the speech, I taught chess to the older kids.  I wasn't sure whether they'd be completely uninterested in learning chess, or have moderate interest, but I certainly didn't expect the widespread joy for playing the game that the kids seemed to display once they fully got a grasp on the way the pieces moved.  Pascal, one of the older kids who I'd been talking with quite a bit, as his English was very good, played 3 games against me and got markedly better with each game.  Most of the kids were content to just watch, occasionally offering opinions on moves in Kinyarwandan.

After an hour or so of playing chess, many of the kids wanted to go outside and play soccer (or football as the rest of the world, including Rwanda, calls it.  I started by playing a big game of monkey in the middle with a bunch of the young kids, where we all pass the soccer ball around in a big circle, and one guy runs around in the middle, trying to deflect the ball or take control of it.  After this I did some running races with these kids - first a normal one, then backwards, then one-legged.  Around this time, the bigger, older kids decided they wanted to have a more competitive soccer match.

I watched the first few minutes of the math - which was actually a very high level of skill, especially for a bunch of kids that had no organizational structure or coach - then headed to the office to talk to Ildephonse, as I was running late for dinner with my mother and a couple of colleagues.  I thanked Ildephonse for the opportunity, and told him how impressed I was with the happiness of the children in spite of their circumstances.  We talked for a few more minutes, and then I started on my way home to the apartment.

Towards the end of the walk, an intense rainfall began and I hopped inside a taxi and headed straight to where we were meeting for dinner.  Just as with my experiences in Cuba and Australia, when the rain starts here it takes almost no time to escalate into an absolute downpour.  We are actually in a dry season right now (Rwanda has two dry and two wet seasons, and the temperature is nearly the same throughout the year), but I've experienced several brief bouts of rain, and without an umbrella, they are quite intense.  After a brief meal and a large beer, I was ready to fall asleep.  This 9PM-5AM sleep schedule I'm on is not one that I'm used to, but it actually feels quite good.