A Time for Work and a Time for... Play!

Kevin and I have shared a lot about what we are doing work-wise, but I'm not sure we've shared a lot about how much we've been enjoying the Rwandan culture. In particular, because things are so much less expensive here, we can go on some pretty fantastic dates. Just as an example, let me share about our weekend:

Friday Night: Thanks to one of Kevin's coworkers, we learned about Marine Movie Night. (I kid you not, it is exactly what it sounds like.) We spent an evening at the US Embassy, watching the moving 'Safehouse' and eating fast food and popcorn. In all the night was less than $20 bucks, but everyone there spoke English and we met some really fascinating people. In a place like that, everyone is in Rwanda for a purpose, and for most of them, they have a really neat story. We met two other law students. One is working on a project for the Supreme Court that Kevin tangentially worked on as well. We met a photographer who teaches at a local university. I cannot express how nice it was to talk American and watch a movie together. Great evening!

Saturday Night: We're on an email list called Kigali Life. It shares all kinds of fun activities. Well last week it told us about the perfect Saturday night date. We went to a restaurant called Heaven. They had live painting by some local Rwandan artists, and a modern art exhibit by a local gallery. The food was truly the best I've eaten in Rwanda. We sat outside, under a thatched roof, and watched some painters for 2 hours while we ate. It was delightful!

Sunday Afternoon: After going to church and having lunch with some new and hilarious friends, we went to a national soccer game - Rwanda v. Benin. It was a qualifier for the World Cup and the Africa Cup. The environment was fantastic! There were people painted all crazy colors and there was even one Benin fan nearby inciting trouble. Rwanda played so much better than anyone anticipated, but they squandered a good opportunity in the last minute. Even still the game ended with a tie (1-1). Trust me when I say that Benin had no right scoring a goal in that game! It was a blast and you really can't beat it when the tickets were less than $5... for both of us.

Monday Evening: Tonight, we're planning on going out to our favorite place - Sol e Luna. It's a pizza place about a 5 minute walk from our apartment. You sit outside and have a beautiful view of the city. Not only that, but on Monday nights, they have trivia night, which is very popular with ex-pats and is done exclusively in English. Last time we went, no one told us to join a team, so it was Kevin and I versus teams of 8 people. We fixed that this time. We're bringing some friends, so it should be a great time. It'll cost $20 and it'll be totally worth it!

We'll settle in the rest of the week, but this weekend we were invited to go to the Kwita Izina, a very special ceremony where they publicly name all the baby gorillas that were born in the past year.  Expect pictures and a great blog post. From what I hear, it's a bucket list type event.

We have just 10 days left in Rwanda, and while I can hardly believe it's almost over, we have truly gotten the most out of every single day. What a blessing to travel with my best friend! Thank you for your support and your prayers. Our relationship has grown in ways we didn't expect. God is revealing who we are individually and as a couple and is providing a lot of guidance for the future.

Fear and Trembling

So… I woke up yesterday morning and found myself unexplainably locked in my bedroom. I had the key, but it would not open the door. Kevin left about an hour before for an early morning at court. I called Kevin to find out if he had locked it from the outside, but there isn’t a key on the outside, so that was impossible. I banged, I knocked. Nothing.

At this point, all manner of unsightly things were running through my head – maybe someone is in our apartment stealing all our stuff and locked me in so I couldn’t stop them. Maybe the housekeeper turned on us. Maybe… maybe… maybe. It was terrifying.

Forty-five minutes later, the housekeeper comes in and hears me knocking from the bedroom. She speaks no English, so I’m not sure how we communicated. I would shake the door trying to get out. At one point, she put her hand under the door to get the key. When she finally tried it three or four times herself, she finally understood that it wasn’t my fault that I was stuck.

In fact, the door was broken. Bona fide broken. There as a screw stuck where the lock would generally go. In all my shaking, I almost broke it. You can see the notch I took out of the door jam.

So I hear the housekeeper shout some phrase in Kinyarwanda and a maintenance guy comes and tries to get me out. Another phrase, and another employee. At this point, Kevin finally got home from court. He asked if they could get me out the side door (which was locked, but I didn’t have the key in the bedroom) and I was finally released.

I don’t know why I got so shaken up about it. It was alarming and I was still half sleeping and my husband was 30 minutes away and I didn’t have any friends I felt totally comfortable to call over to help. That’s all part of it.

Anyway, I cancelled my afternoon appointment and I am working from home. My insides are tense. I’ll go out tonight for the BDC, but until then, I think a little relaxing is in order.

Everyone I’ve told is like “Yeah that happened to me once!” I don’t know if this is just an Africa thing, or if it happens everywhere and people don’t talk about it. Strange….

Regardless, if the first time I've been afraid is stuck in my own bedroom, I think we're in a nice place.

When Work Feels Worthwhile

You work so hard for so long and sometimes you just don't know what God is doing on the other end. This week was NOT like that.

For the past week, Paul McConnell has been visiting Rwanda from Australia. He is the president of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce in Australia. He is an incredible business success, but according to his testimony, he has failed as many times as he has succeeded, just on a smaller scale.

He has truly encouraged the entrepreneurs in the cohort.

Thursday he finished facilitating the night with a little bit of time left and opened up the floor for comments and suggestions, after all, this was his first time facilitating solo. The Rwandan people are very polite and will hardly ever tell you if you’re not doing something well.  Regardless, after some customary niceties, Jacques raised his hand.

I’ll do my best to recount exactly what he said because it was so powerful.

“Thank you for changing our mind about Christians. Everyone says that if you do business, you are on the road to hell, but you are a Christian and you do business. You can walk the road to heaven too. You have told us that it’s about how we do business. Thank you.”

That’s when you can look at your work and say “Thank God for days like today.”

Why I Love My Husband (especially today)!

Hello World!

Today is Kevin and I's one year anniversary and felt like it needed to be commemorated with a blog post. Since we're 3,000 miles away from normal life, I struggled with the right anniversary present (plus cards here are super inflated. It's like $10 for a card!) so I decided to create the...

Top Ten Reasons I Love My Husband

10. You always love my cooking... even when we only have 2 stove-top burners.

9. We share a twisted brain when it comes to all the tv and movies we like (Let's see... in our first year married, we rewatched Firefly, watched the entirety of Frasier, Psych, and How I Met Your Mother, Sherlock, Castle, and Game of Thrones, not to mention movies labeled by Neflix as "Adventurous comedies for ages 11-12" and "Legal Thriller")

8. You celebrate in my success. That would be why you spent 5 hours with me brainstorming date ideas for the business yesterday.

7. I relish to celebrate in your success. That's why I squeal every time you tell me about your grades, or class rank, or how impressed everyone else is with you.

6. You've set good priorities. I never once felt neglected, forgotten, or unimportant as a 1L wife. That's not a miracle, it was a choice that you made and I love you for it!

5. You have big dreams and I like being a part of them.

4. You impress me. Not just with law school, with everything.

3. You grow me. You stretch me. I'm a better person for having known you and a much better person for having become more like you.

2. You're my best friend and always will be.

1. You point me to Jesus... every day.

Divine Connections

What a beautiful week this has been! I’ve met with several graduates of the Business Development Center and had the opportunity to hear their stories. 

One entrepreneur is Grace. After graduating from the BDC, she started an online magazine (www.identity250.com) and starting writing feature stories about entrepreneurs in Rwanda. Her goal: to show people the faces of Rwanda. According to Grace, when people learn about Rwanda, they learn about the genocide and maybe learn about President Paul Kagame, but there are many other successful Rwandans. Her desire is to share their stories as an encouragement and testimony to younger Rwandans.

As she was talking, I thought of Patrice, the entrepreneur I wrote about previously. Patrice has high school students who want to become entrepreneurs. Some have even started businesses already! I shared with Grace about Patrice, and she was very excited about writing some stories about his students which can be used in her magazine as well as for promotional materials for Patrice. 

I introduced them via email and they’ve already begun working together.

Later in our conversation, Grace expressed a concern she had about her time commitments. She is having trouble finding time to write all the content she’d like for her magazine, since she also works a full time job. She’s looking for an intern. 

 

I immediately thought of Desire. I met Desire at the reception we had to say thank you to all the partners and friends that helped the Regent class with their projects in Rwanda. One student, Andrea, worked with Serge, another BDC graduate, who has a business and ministry for street kids in Rwanda. He provides them role models, community, guidance, and teaches them to be men. Desire just graduated from high school this year and is saving to go to university in the fall to study journalism. Desire came as Andrea’s guest to the reception. We paid him a small stipend to write a story about the reception. It was very good! 

As I told Grace about Desire, she was very excited about the possibility of sending him on interviews and mentoring him in journalism and writing. 

God is so good. I realized this past year that one of my favorite things in the whole world is connecting people who should know each other. Perhaps is my extreme extrovert showing, but networking, especially networking for others, is invigorating!

What a privilege that I can do that 3,000 miles from home!

I wanted to share Desire’s story about our reception. It’s called “Muzungu’s Party”. Yesterday, I shared that muzungu means white person. In the story below, you’ll see that the relationships we made in Rwanda go far beyond race, occupation, or culture. They are divine connections!

Muzungu’s Party

By Desire BIZIMANA

It was Friday, May 18, 2012 at 8 PM when Muzungu’s team, coming from the USA, was celebrating in a party after spending two weeks in Rwanda. Everyone were smiling there, taking pictures for each other, sharing food. Everything here at Solace is good. Muzungu and Rwandese is sharing joy and opinions here.

After praying, the party began. Everyone was able to talk to everyone, telling the names to each other, after everyone takes drink and food which was delicious.

Everyone watched documentary talking about Rwandan culture, like dancing, and visiting where the king stayed, and seeing some animals in the park.

After the documentary, every muzungu explained the project they did.

Eric and Trevor were talking about their project and using minerals.

Andrea was the wonderful woman in that muzungu’s team. She shows her project working together with Serge, who is in charge of street boys. She met Desire and helped him see how he can be a good journalist by telling him to write a story. That was good for Desire because she pushed him to get his vision.

Julia also shows her project about gender based violence and she works with Serge in the program of street kids.

Laura shows her project about Bible Studies.

Dori shows her project about working in MTN. She did a training of leadership in MTN.

Latrilla, Zandra, Bernadette, Joanna, Trevor, and Eric were able to talk to a community of pastors, economists, etc. in order to get development with the Solace Project.

Qwynne and Karen show their project about the seminar at university.

Brittany shows in leadership training. She thanks every project done by each team.

Eric and Emmanuel was tour guides of the muzungu’s team. They thank so much muzungus for their relationship. Emmanuel said “that they are amazing people and special team.” Eric said “even it is so hard to share with the people from different culture, but we worked with team very well.”

Dr. Mulford, the professor at the university, he thank Bernard for his effort when the team was need him. He was a driver. When they needed him, was coming fast.

Jean Marie is the man who cooked food for muzungus. They thanked him because he cooked the best food to them and worked fast.

Really, the party was good, even they are some were going to leave and others stay, but everyone said that the meeting of two weeks was very good to them. All projects they have opened is a project of vision which can prosper the world in all situations such as: life, economy, development, health, sports. We are thanking so much muzungu’s team to choose to come in Africa, especially in Rwanda. 

That was good meeting. We would like to wish you to come back again. And God may protect you in your journey and in your life of everyday. 

God bless you.

Umuhoza

When you go abroad, you get called many things - adventurous, lucky, even crazy. But when you get abroad, you never know what you'll be called.

In Rwanda, we hear 'muzungu' a lot! Basically it means white person, but the alternative definition is thief. As we drove up country when the class was here, we heard it every time we passed a village - "Muzungu! Muzungu!" It was usually accompanied by children waving or asking for something. You get used to hearing it because it's at least one word in Kinyarwanda that you understand.

You never really get used to it when you don't hear your name anymore, though. They can't really say Brittany. The sounds just aren't in their native language. It makes it very difficult for them to use my name, so other than my husband and our lead facilitator at the BDC this week, I haven't heard my name much.

For several weeks, I've been on a crusade for someone to give me a Rwandan name. No one has taken the challenge until two nights ago. I was at the Business Development Center spending time with our entrepreneurs and mentioned my crusade to one of them. He thought for  minute, ripped a paper out of his notebook, and started writing - "Umuhoza".

I asked what it meant and when he began to describe it, I couldn't believe it. Umuhoza, in English, means someone who give hope, someone who gives moral and emotional strength, a counselor, and even better, a consoler. he said that he thought of it after watching me interact with the other students.

This for the same girl who scored the lowest possible on the compassion scale her freshman year in college. I think that God has has answered my prayers about growing in compassion and grace. Maybe marriage has helped. Maybe maturity has helped.

All I know is that I have a new name, and the more time I spend here the more I have a new perspective, a new appreciation for home, and a new character.

Umuhoza... I think I like it.

And Justice for All

My how time has flown by here in Rwanda! I feel as if I have barely blinked and now I’m nearing the halfway point in my internship. But at the same time, it is remarkable how engrained Brittany and I have become in this place in such a short time. We absolutely love it here and we are both thrilled with the work that God has given us to do.

Since my updates have been terribly lacking thus far, I feel as if it is most appropriate for me to provide an over-arching post on what work has been like for me at IJM. I cannot thank everyone who has supported me to get here enough, so suffice it to say that I am incredibly and forever grateful for this amazing opportunity!

My job with IJM has turned out to be almost entirely special project based. Of course I am only here for about seven weeks, so it is difficult to get too much into the everyday workings of the organization. And yet, I have been amazed at how much I have done already!

The first several days were filled with on-the-fly training and education on how to fit in with the team and what it is like to work/live in Rwanda. I wish I had this sort of cultural sensitivity training every time I visited a new country… it was so good to hear all about Rwanda from two folks that have lived here all their lives! I was warmly welcomed, and had really no trouble at all finding my way to fit in. My office is a reasonably small room that I share with two other team members. It was awfully nice of them to fit me in though, because one of them even had to give up half his desk for me, and I mean that quite literally. As in, they sawed his desk in half and gave it to me. Both of these Rwandan guys are great though and it’s a pleasure to work near them on a daily basis. 

The most notable things that I have accomplished thus far are internal research and memos. This means that I’ve been given several random legal issues that have been problematic for our office recently and told to find a solution. These are things that I’m well prepared for as an American law student, and I’ve been consistently amazed at how the legal research process is basically the same no matter what you are doing. Whether it’s a 4th amendment issue for class or an East African Community tariff law question for an international NGO, the whole idea is basically the same. You know absolutely nothing about the subject at the beginning, and by the end you have produced a memo that actually sounds like you know what you are talking about. I love that!

I have also started to get more involved with the real substantive work that IJM does here. Our mandate is Child Sexual Abuse cases, and so a big part of my time has been spent becoming familiar with Rwandan law on that subject, as well as a lot of our case history. One of the most difficult things that I have ever had to do is reading through the scores of stories that we have in our files. It is impossible to describe how painfully sad and discouraging so many of those stories are. And at the same time, they are a vibrant reminder of why we are here, and the good that can be done by organizations like IJM.

To wrap that all up in one moment, we got a conviction today! A perp was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a relatively large payment of over $1,000 to be made to the family. This was the trial that I had sat in on several weeks ago, and so it was an awesome experience to celebrate the win with the rest of the staff. It was also a little bit of a surprise that it came out so well, so there was a lot of excitement to go around.

There is no doubt that this is where God has for me to be this summer. I am learning a lot both academically and otherwise. Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and prayers!

The "Man with Unlimited Ideas"

I started a new project yesterday. I am trying to interview and photograph all of our graduates from the Business Development Center, at least the ones who have started businesses (which is a lot of them!). My first meeting was yesterday and it was WONDERFUL.

Meet Patrice HABINSHUTI. He's the one on the right. Patrice participated in the BDC during his third year of university. Two winning competitions and two graduations later, he has a flourishing business – Eden Flowers and Business Support. 

His biggest initiative is the Africa Innovation Prize – High School Initiative. Basically, he is starting entrepreneurship clubs in high schools all over Rwanda. Right now he has Memorandums of Understanding with 12 schools. 

Ready for the crazy part?

In those 12 schools, there are 4,000 student members!!! 

Just one of those students owns a brickmaking business and employs more than 100 people every day.

By the end of the year, Patrice is planning on being in 50 high schools and expanding his programs to offer a lecture series, relax time, and a chance for the student entrepreneurs to share about their own businesses. 

I was so inspired by Patrice and his initiative. He told me that when he was in the BDC, Dr. Mulford called him the “man with unlimited ideas.” He described himself as being “too entrepreneurial” at times. 

I think I related. :-)