Perc Tests & Pictures

So today I had a fabulous day.  In the morning, Darren (the other civil) and I went to see a local pit latrine digger.  He is amazing!  He was in the middle of digging a pit that was currently 9 metres deep and less than a metre wide.  He shimmied down on footholds he created and dug out with a pick and put it in a pail for a man at the top to haul up.  The total depth will be 15 metres and this will take him 4 days to dig in total.  I don't have my pictures downloaded off my camera yet, but will post some later.

I performed percolation tests today and it was great!  It was so much fun.  We also got to hang out with a Rwandan engineering civil engineering student who taught us a lot about local practices.  His story was so encouraging.  His father died before he was born, he is the last of 6 children and his mother has never worked.  He is the first in his family to get educated and it is his dream to continue his education past his diploma and onto his civil engineering degree and maybe beyond.

Since the whole village knows we are here I got a lot of opportunity to interact with locals today and in days past.  Sometimes in Kinyarwanda and sometimes in French.  I managed to find a few more locals to speak French with.  Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't.  I had a good greeting conversation in French today.  At the Omuganda (community cleaning) one guy told me my French was very good and I didn't understand what he said so another girl translated and told me in English that he thought my French was very good.  Too funny.  I am becoming more comfortable with greetings and basic questions in Kinyarwanda.  It will be a mental shift to switch to Luganda once I'm back in Uganda.  So I don't really think my limited French is improving that much, but I do think my Kinyarwanda is.

Just for the record I love it here!

I'm limited for time again, but here are a few pictures.

 The team water filter.  It is actually a mini membrane!  Filters out all the bad stuff and uses available materials.

 At the genocide memorial

 One of the kids from church.

 "Trimming the hedges" or rather hacking away at thick bush with hoes and machetes for community cleaning day.  We were clearly the talk of the town, and none of us were very good at the task.

More Reflections

So I did get another chance to post again.  Today was a more relaxed day which was nice.  We went to a rockin church service this morning and then just get to chill out this afternoon.

I wanted to share a few more reflections on the genocide memorial that I forgot to yesterday.  They had a children's room in the memorial with a picture of the child and a profile on each one.  They were all killed in the genocide.  There was one little boy whose last words were "Mommy where can I run to" another little boys last words were "UNAMIR [the UN] will come for us".  This is heavy stuff.  1 million people were killed.  And how do I deal with coming from a country who turned a blind eye to what was going on.  These aren't just a bunch of dead Africans.  They are someone's son, daughter, wife or father. 

I have felt nothing but warm acceptance while here, but we were warned that some Rwandan's might be indifferent towards Westerners because the West let them down during the genocide. I haven't found this to be the case, but I can't blame them if they felt that way.

On a lighter note, I started working with the other civil engineer yesterday.  He is from Western Australia, and I really enjoy working with him.  The site presents some interesting challenges and I'm looking forward to how we are going to tackle them.  So if I come home saying "I reckon" you know why.  There have been moments when one of us has said something and the other is like "What???"  I now know that the bonnet is not a hat, but the front of the car.

There is a resident rooster that rises at 5 AM every day.  Him and I are not friends.  I told him that he better start sleeping with one eye open.

I love it here and I feel so lucky to be here.  The fact that I am one of only a few people to experience something like this is not lost on me.  Coming back to Africa felt like coming home.  I'm so happy to be here and I'm going to try and savour every moment.

Jaimee

Hello from Rwanda

So I made it to Uganda and then to Rwanda.  After my long flights, I got a few hours sleep and then we left at 4:45 AM in a van to drive to Kigali, Rwanda.  I was so excited that I wasn't able to sleep in the van so I was really ready for bed that night.

I'm really enjoying my team and getting to know the people here at the ministry.  It is completely Rwandan run and they are really trying to provide Rwandan's with skills to help themselves rather than being dependent on others. 

Yesterday we got to hear about the work that they do, and then in the afternoon take a tour of Kigali.  We visited a genocide memorial which was incredibly tough emotionally.  It is a lot to work through.  Even though the genocide was 18 years ago every Rwandan has been affected and some of those effects are being passed on to future generations.  The encouraging thing is to see that the story is not yet over.  The people at Gate of Hope are doing so much to help the people in their recovery process.  After the memorial we went to the  Hotel de Mille Collines which is the hotel from the movie Hotel Rwanda.  It is not the hotel where the movie was filmed but the hotel where the actual events took place.  We saw the pool where the refugees drank out of.  The memorial and the hotel made everything I had read about the genocide really come to life.

This morning we were told it was community cleaning day and we would be "trimming hedges" It ended up being chopping down carrigana like trees with machetes.  All the muzungu's (white people) made quite a conversation and I don't think we were very good at hacking down the bush.  Rwanda is very clean and developed compared to other places in Africa I have seen.  The people here take a lot of pride in where the live and keeping trash off the streets which is somewhat of an anomoly in this part of the world.

At the cleaning day, I attempted to speak French with some of the people.  Very few of them actually speak French.  The language here is Kinyarwanda which everyone speaks.  They used to teach French as a second language in school, however the uneducated would only speak Kinyarwanda.  Now because of political problems they have switched to teaching English as a second language in the schools.  I am slowly learning a few phrases in Kinyarwanda, but it seems to be slow.  Sometimes I know I'm not supposed to speak French or English and my mind is in overload and I almost start saying something in Creole or Luganda, neither of which I speak much of.

We are having to borrow our hosts computer to get on the internet so I don't have that much opportunity to do so.  I will try and post again if I can, but getting on the internet is difficult.  As I am not on my own computer I'll have to wait to post pictures.

Until next time,

Jaimee

The bridge awaits.

In less than 48 hours I'll be on my way across the pond to a land that I love.  Excitement and anticipation are at the forefront as I finish up the last of my tasks and tuck the remaining few items into my already full suitcases.  I'm excited about so many things, and about experiencing African culture once again.  I'll get to see the children pictured above again at Eagles Wings Children's Village, who will no doubt be taller and more grown up than a year ago.

So here's what I'll be doing.

February 22- I'll be landing in Entebbe, Uganda
February 23- Driving 14 hours in a mattatu (van) from Kampala to Kigali, Rwanda. (It's less than 600 Km, but will still take a long time!)
February 23-March 4- I'll be in Kigali, Rwanda with Engineering Ministries International.  Check out the project description here
March 5-8-  I'm going on a safari in Uganda!
March 9-21- I'll be back at Eagles Wings Children's Village in South Central Uganda for a visit.

I'll try and post as often as I can.  I'm not sure what kind (if any) internet connection I'll have for each segment of my trip.

I was trying to decide which part of my trip I'm looking forward to the most, and decided that wasn't a decision I could make.  I am looking forward to each part equally and for different reasons.  I'm looking forward to meeting the team I'll be working alongside in Rwanda, and meeting the ministry we'll be serving.  I'm looking forward to seeing some of the eMi staff I met last year.  I really can't wait to see all the kids I love at Eagles Wings Children's Village too.  I can't wait to play ball and blow bubbles and all the other things I might get to do with them.  I'm even just looking forward to some of the simpler things like having a rolex (scrambled eggs wrapped in a chapatti) and walking down the street.

I know there will be challenges and  times when I don't understand the cultural nuances or times when I feel misunderstood, but all that is part of what I love.

So keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I prepare to step onto the precarious bridge between cultures. The one that has one foot in one culture and one in another.  I look forward to posting from the field.

Back Home Again

I need to start off by apologizing for not posting more.  Apparently I have a few fans, because I have been getting asked about the lack of posts.  Internet was very slow and unreliable where I was staying in Haiti, so I did not have additional opportunities to log on and blog.  Plus, being a short project week I was busy either with project work or playing with kids:)

So now that I'm back again, I'll just share a few of my reflections. . . Going back to Haiti was great.  Before I left I wasn't sure what my reaction to being there would be.  Of all the places I have travelled, Haiti was not the first place I envisioned making a return visit to.  But I knew I was meant to be there, and I am so glad I went.  I think I was worried that the language barrier would prevent me from connecting with locals in the same way I did in India and Uganda.  And it did to some extent, however, I realized that holding a child's hand is a powerful thing.  Sometimes they just want to be held, and they really don't care what language you speak.  Walking into the playground and having 15 kids hanging off me is like nothing else.  I love it.  And because the locals didn't speak English, I had the opportunity to learn a few phrases of Creole and also play some fancy Charades at times.

This trip also made me realize how much I love what I do.  I had a blast designing composting toilets in Uganda, and I had just as much fun sizing water tanks and septic systems in Haiti.  It is just so much fun!  I really do love water:)

So now coming home is the hard part.  Emotionally, in many ways it would be easier simply just to live in the developing world.  Instead I return home, to tell the story and to advocate for causes I believe in with all that I am.  I was only in Haiti for 1 week.  You might not think coming back would take a lot of adjustment.  But it does.  Today at work, one of my co-workers asked me how the adjustment back was going.  It meant so much that he asked and realized that coming back does take major adjustment.  It is a process and now having done it 3 times before I might know a little bit better what to expect, but also need to remember to be patient with myself and realize that it will take time to process this experience.

I'll leave you with a few of my favourite pictures.  Thank you for your interest in what I do.  This, right here is the heart of who I am.  I love getting to learn and love people from other countries.  They teach me in ways that no one else can.

                 

It's good to be back

So I made it to Haiti.  I’m so happy to be back here, even though the heat is far more intense than I was expecting or am used to.  As we were descending onto the runway in Port Au Prince, I looked out the windows and saw endless shanty towns.  It was this that reminded me why I love this.  All of it.  Being thrust into a reality so different from my everyday life.  Driving from the airport to the site where we are staying and seeing Haiti through the window of our van was a stark reminder that I am out of my element.  And that is a good thing. I love interacting with the locals and seeing more of this country.  As we were touring the landsite today, I waved at a little girl who came up and grabbed my hand.  Here they speak mostly Creole and much less French than in Port Au Prince.  That pretty much limits my interactions to hello and goodbye.  Language didn’t matter to this little girl.  She just wanted to hold my hand.  She grabbed her friend and motioned for me to take her picture, and then took great delight in looking at them on the display at my camera.  As much as I am here to design water and wastewater systems, these are the moments that stay with me, the reason that I do this.  As we toured an orphanage this afternoon, one of the little boys motioned for me to take his picture, and then took great delight in running away every time I would try to do so, laughing without abandon at the apparent hilarity of the moment.

Another thing, that surprised me so far this visit, was the things I now notice that I have travelled to other countries.  For instance, the first time I came here, I thought the traffic was crazy.  After being in India, the traffic seemed rather calm and orderly for a country outside North America.  I also thought the streets were quiet.  Compared to the blaring horns and blasting music present on the streets in Uganda, I was surprised and the relative quietness on the average street.  Although still present, the horns and the music were much less overwhelming. Damage from the earthquake is evident, however, I thought it would be much more so.  They have done an amazing amount of work to start cleaning and restoring this country.  While there is still so much more to do, most of the rubble is gone and rebuilding has started.  I’m looking forward to other cultural observations over the next week.  I look forward to getting to work, and I look forward to playing with more kids.

Haiti here I come!

So in a week and a bit, I'll be on my way to Haiti.  This comes as a surprise to even me.  This trip was not something I planned, but I definitely know that I was meant to be a part of this team.  I am surprised because I thought I would be going back to India or Africa long before I was back in Haiti.  I loved Haiti while I was there, however, I didn't miss it on a daily basis like I do India and Uganda.  I loved it, but it didn't capture me and take me in the same way other countries did.  I'm not sure how to even put this into words, but that's just the way it was.  And I'm not sure why.  Maybe it was because there was more of a language barrier, or because it was my first true cross cultural experience and I was overwhelmed and amazed by all the sights and smells.



I know that the Haiti I visit this time will be a very different Haiti than the one that I left 2.5 years ago.  You see, last time I was there in 2009, the earthquake had not yet occurred.  I still witnessed a lot of pain and poverty, but the country hadn't been devastated by its largest natural disaster at that point.  Because of this, I'm not sure how it will feel to go back.  Will I be overwhelmed?  Time will only tell.



I'm going to be helping at two ministries called Haiti Arise and Heart to Heart.  I'll be helping with the design of a water and wastewater system for a technical school at Haiti Arise as well as a church that was damaged by the earthquake at Heart to Heart.  I don't know a lot of details yet, but will fill you all in once I find out.

Just today, I found out that the surveyor I worked with in Uganda is coming as part of the team.  I am so very excited!  Patrick is like another father figure to me, and we worked through some very difficult conditions together.  It will be great to be a part of a team alongside him again.

And so I leave you with this.  Although I will only be gone for a week, I am very excited about returning to the first country that flipped my worldview upside down and sideways. I'm excited to learn from the Haitian people and from my teammates.   I know I will come home a little bit different, and I know that will be a good thing.

"To the homeless, the poor, the beggar, the victim of AIDS and Alzheimer's, the old and the humble, the prisoners in their prison and the wanderers in their dreams, it is our sacred duty to stretch out our hand and say, 'In spite of what separates us, what we have in common is our humanity'."
-Elie Wiesel