From Vannara: Rubona open market

Electricity and running water weren't available for most of the day on Tuesday but we didn't worry about that. After an early morning hike, we held office hours at the school to service teachers' laptops then walked down to the Rubona open market. In this picture, the guys bought fried biscuits from a local vendor. Later we bought and feasted on a freshly slayed goat.

From Vannara: Around the village

Brian, Melissa, and I woke up super early Tuesday morning for a hike around the perimeter of the village.

From Vannara: More than a home and school

The village is like a small city. On weekdays while kids are in class with their teachers, admins are busy at work in their office, food is being prepared in the dining hall for the 2pm rush and cows, chickens, and even coffee are being farmed.

New structures are also going up as construction workers clear out debris and a landscape team weeds out and cuts grass.

Outside school hours, kids can take up dancing, record a song, attend a Sunday church service and even practice karate.

From Vannara: Day 2

On day two we were on a mission to get more done because the rest of our equipment arrived with brian and melissa the night before. We met up at 8am and broke off into teams to work on interdependent tasks. The long range walkie talkies helped us to coordinate this. We had a team (John and Jinsop) at the tech center/water tower and two at the school (one on the ground - Mike and Al - and another on the roof - Chucky, Alimou, and me).

The sky is clear in this picture but for some reason when I'm on the roof by myself the clouds start moving in.

From Al - Addressing the Technology Club

Team Liquidnet had a great time talking with the members of the Technology Club all about the inner workings of the Internet (its a series of tubes used to deliver pictures of cats), how to use Wikipedia for research, using Google Translate and of course the evils of viruses and malware.

From Al - The Dining Hall

From Al - My roomie, Vannara in our suite

From Vannara: Departure

Our trip to Rwanda started at JFK airport where our check-in was relatively painless. All of our bags were overweight, including mine, but somehow I was the only one who didn't have to fork over the $150 fee for it. The overweight light was blinking when I put my suitcase on the scale and the Royal Dutch KLM attendant glazed her eyes over it as I got more nervous about the inevitable fee I'd have to pay – it's the same feeling one gets when going 66 in a 65mph zone with a cop tailing you. But fortunately, no fee!

 

One of the KLM workers was really interested in our reason for going to Rwanda.

 

"Isn't there a war going on" he asked.

"Not exactly", I said. "We're going to help out at the Agohozo Shalom Youth Village."

"What's it about?"

I started on the whole "once upon a time 5 years ago" story, and the guy was amazed.

 

"What are you, some Christian Organization?" he asked.

"No, we're a financial services company".

"Oh, I wouldn't have guessed" he responded.

"Exactly! It's different here!" I said with a grin.

 

He asked for my card, but I just referred him to our "Race4Rwanda" website. Maybe he'll see that I'm also doing the NYC Triathlon to raise money for the kids and decide to sponsor me J

From Vannara: Day One

I woke up to chirping birds and Al Berg (who shared a room with me). John Redfearn and Chucky were in another guest room nearby. After a delicious breakfast which ended with fresh pineapples we got a tour of the huge ASYV compound. It sits on top of a mountain and overlooks two lakes and villages that are completely surrounded by vegetation. The school has maybe a dozen or two residence halls, a dining center, a high school, a farm to raise chicken and grow coffee.

From Vannara: Lunch with the kids

At 2pm, we had lunch at the ASYV Dining Hall with the kids. I sat next to my new best friend Augustine whose parents were killed in the genocide in the 90s. He educated me on how America has many opportunities because the kids there get to go to school for free whereas Rwandans generally don't have that luxury. It made me think of how American kids are so blessed in that regard. Augustine and I also had one thing in common which is we're both fans of Tupac Shakur. He even "spit" a few verses for me, I'm not sure if there's an album "dropping" anytime soon, but his flow was nice. In fact, a lot of the kids here are musically gifted.

From Vannara: "Safest trip ever!"

All of us on this trip are either EMT or CPR certified so I thought "this is going to be the safest trip ever". That was until I saw the swarm of mosquitoes around the village and elusive spiders running across the floor and walls. And climbing on top of an unstable roof while a thunderstorm was closing in didn't help either. Even with nervous moments like this, our first day turned out really well!