We have been busy getting the new students into a routine… mornings, they are up at 6 for fitness, followed by quite time and breakfast, and then at 9, school is officially in session. Frances is doing a great job with them, and I have been spending mornings in the classroom with them as well. Not that I am, or claim to be, a teacher, but hey, I did raise two kids and am not completely unaccustomed to college papers and writing! Their written English is their biggest challenge, although they are working VERY hard to improve every day. Some are clearly ahead of others, but ALL of them are encouraging of each other. They have bonded quicker and better than we ever could have imagined.
With morning classes over, we have lunch and then afternoons are spent in “Hard Work University.” They work alongside our different staff teams… kitchen, housekeeping and gardening. Russell or I one also takes them for a couple of hours each day and spends time with them. He concentrates on the construction aspect of things… I spend time with them in the kitchen… and I also teach Philippe, our Rwandan chef as well. We have been concentrating on baking, but after our break, will expand into other delicacies!
Last weekend was quite the show here at the MOC. We knew we were going to have a half a dozen folks with one of the PAC (President’s Advisory Council) members for lunch here at the MOC (on Sunday). We spent Saturday baking my, if I must say so myself, best homemade chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream icing in Rwanda, and Saturday and Sunday prepping for lunch. Well, at around 10AM on Sunday morning, RR gets a text that the Prime Minister will be dropping in for a little look-see around 4PM… ok.. well… can we say pure bedlam?? I had previously met the Prime Minister last fall in Little Rock when he was the Minister of Education, and just a few weeks after that meeting, he became the Prime Minister. SO… lunch is going along swimmingly, as LOTS of military and secret service (or whatever they call them here in Rwanda) start showing up to do checks and bladda, bladda, bladda… when the entourage finally shows up, it includes not just the Prime Minister, but the Governor of the Northern Provence, the Mayor, and ALL their individual peeps, PLUS news crews, radio reporters, newspaper reporters… bladda, bladda, bladda… the scene is best described as HELL! Poor Russell was trying to give them the tour, but it was like herding cats – some were interviewing students, some were wandering around talking amongst themselves… the Governor was flirting like crazy with all us girls – me included. It was seriously surreal…
BUT, they did ask a lot of good questions, and we felt very good about the visit. But man oh man, were we worn SLAP OUT!
On Monday morning, we found that the radio reporting was fairly inaccurate, but the newspaper and TV reporting were, for the most part, accurate. We are no longer flying under the radar here at the MOC… we are now “on the map.”
Subsequently, it’s pretty amazing how just a couple of days later, what has taken us WELL OVER a year and more time and energy than we can count to get our INGO status, was granted to us – FINALLY! RR also sat down with the head of the Rwanda Workforce Development and the Minister of Education, and we got the green light to continue on our path of educating these wonderful kids!! WHEW!! Can I hear a GREAT BIG AMEN!!
I have included some photos of circus day… for your visual entertainment.
Kim and Aaron Jacobi, from Little Rock, arrived here at the MOC last night for three months. They will be teaching and helping with all kinds of things and we are grateful to have them here! They are going to fit in nicely!!
This coming Friday, TCBITW and I are FINALLY taking a MUCH NEEDED break. We will be heading to France and England. We have to be in England to watch the JBU paper that I mentioned in a previous post, presented to the Associated Schools of Construction’s 48th World Congress, and we have to be in Paris for a few days for RR to attend a construction equipment trade show that is in a different world city every year. This year just happens to be Paris - don’t you just HATE that??? Actually we will be in Paris for longer than that, and traveling around France for 4-5 days as well… we are looking forward to relaxing and reconnecting. We have taken to speaking in one (or at best, two) word sentences to each other, and have had exactly FOUR nights out alone since we got back to Rwanda in January. Needless to say – we need some time away! And we are SUPER excited to have our dear friends, Doug and Kelli Greenwood, flying over for our last week in Paris (they have never been) and I like NOTHING more than showing folks around my favorite city in the entire world!! RR will be arriving back in Rwanda on April 28th, while I head to LR to spend a couple of weeks with family and friends. Josh will be flying down from Jackson Hole, so I will not only be with my mom, and mother-in-law, but both my kids (and Baby T) on Mother’s Day – it simply does not get better than that.
I will start the profile of our students on my next post....instead of doing them one at a time, I will do them all at once, so you can see how special they are!!
Till next time – Au revoir – gotta get a little French on :-)
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| A real Rwandan BBQ!! - Best Chickin in Rwanda!! |
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| Scott Ford, a member of the PAC, graciously giving our staff and students a talk on Entrepreneurship! |
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| Students meeting the Prime Minister! |
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| Russell giving the Prime Minister and Govenor the tour! |
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| Patience being interviewed by TV and Newspaper! |
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| More of the tour! |
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| Frances, Russell & I explaining the English School |
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| Welcoming the Prime Minister! |
