Sunday was going to be a hike down to Lake Burera, but it
turned out that I wasn’t the only one going to bail, and it turned into the
perfect low key day of work and music. I entered surveys and grabbed tea at
Hotel Muhabura before heading home for a stir-fry dinner with the girls. As I
was sitting on our front porch working with Sarah, working, we started hearing
some rougher voices over by our gate, and slightly confused as to what was
going on, I realized that we were actually getting around to firing a drunkard
guard. It was about time, but also a relatively awkward time because all of us
interns were home cooking etc. So Sarah and I migrated inside with the others
cooking, the guards drunkenness only reinforced what we were doing, so while we
were all a bit concerned, our fabulous facilitators got the keys and helped
escort the old guard out. I was certainly glad there was a new one on standby
though for the rest of that evening!
On Monday Sarah and Emily headed down to Kigali for their
last week, and I did a bundle of survey entry before going to Volcano restaurant
with Aileen. It was a pretty crowded afternoon, and we ended up in what felt
like someone’s drawing room rather than the restaurant itself. We sat on some
comfy couches, and ate as much as we could off our plates while drinking the
cheapest and most sugary tea in town! It’s pretty much like drinking a liquefied
sugar packet with some fresh ginger and milk added in as an afterthought.
Delicious as it is, we can never finish our plates at this place. They are
always heaped full, but it always results in a little guilt over the fact that
we leave so much on the plate afterwards. Luckily, there weren’t many people
around to see how much we left. Though we did have to go walk past the cook
staff on our way out. The rest of the day revolved on a few other errands, but
culminated in a goodbye dinner with the facilitators and Aileen at Green Garden
(our favorite buffet!). We “cracked bottles” as Ernest would say, and ate up. After
a failed attempt at the laughing game, Aileen and I taught the facilitators 2
truths and a lie, and we learned a bit about different people in the course of
playing. Funny to do an icebreaker on one of your last nights with someone, but it
definitely made it more of a challenge to come up with truths and lies that the
others wouldn’t be able to guess immediately! After people had finished their Fantas
and Turbo Kings, we headed home. There were a couple of early morning visits on
Tuesday and it was a pretty chilly evening, so calling it an early evening was
a good move.
One of those early morning meetings was with Nyarwondo, and
while Isugi could definitely have done her last few surveys without me, I
tagged along nonetheless. The visit was a success, because we got all of our
surveys finished up (which were more or less promptly entered onto the
computer). I also got a few more pictures from the community, that I think made
our communications interns happy they didn’t need an extra trek down the road
to Cyanika. It was very nice to be able to just join in, because having been
there a few times usually means they remember your face well! This meeting had
also been to talk about grant size, and so the looks on people faces were
really incredibly uplifting. I, of course, have a photo of some of the ladies
after the announcement, and they were certainly glowing. There are always
people with reservations or skepticism, but I was glad to see so many smiles
and people participating in the voting that took place during the meeting.
Afterwards, we said our good-byes walked through a miniature
soccer match which even had a “ref” with a whistle! Then, Isugi and I had some
waiting time for a matatu, but the only two that passed us were completely bursting
full! Finally, a car was coming up and Isugi thought perhaps hitchhiking would
be a smart move if there were not going to be any buses in the near future.
While we didn’t think it worked at first, the car did pull over and offer us a
lift! It was certainly generous of them to stop, but even more so, they refused
any payment as we hopped out 20 minutes and 5 American hip-hop songs later. It
was incredibly surprising to me that the two in the car were so young! Most
people with cars in Musanze wouldn’t have been in their late twenties, but
these two had actually come all the way from Kigali to drop-off a friend at the
border. Beyond that there were precious few snippets of conversation that
passed between any of us during the short ride. 
Once safely back in Musanze, I headed back to Hotel Muhabura
(Hotel M) to meet up with Aileen for lunch. Turned out she’d almost finished
when I finally got there, but we also ran into Ross (my friend from Gisenyi)!
He had been meeting with another of the milk distributors in the area for his
market research, but it was perfect for introducing Aileen and him in a less
stressful situation than a large group get-together. We sat and chatted for a
bit about everything from American politics to what I had been up to in Mbale.
I had books to give him back, so we also planned to meet up in Kigali this
coming weekend. It was also nice to be able to use the wireless at Hotel M, and
save my last Tigo credit voucher for my last two days in Musanze.
Afterwards, Ross headed toward the bus park, and Aileen and
I went for a walk through a little craft village next door to Hotel M before
heading back to the house. I found a particularly cure giraffe painting that I
could not resist, but I did manage to steer myself clear of buying any more
baskets (which I will be having a hard enough time getting home as is). We went
and met Petra for dinner afterwards at a pretty tasty pizza place in Musanze
(Petra will be missing them in Thailand!) and were joined by a friend of hers
working with Amahoro tours (the group who helped me to get gorilla trekking tickets).
He is interning/ volunteering with them for two months, but only has one more
left. It still is nice to be able to connect fellow expats over here, because
so many of us are about to leave, that the new arrivals need a little help in
the networking with who might actually be here a little more long-term. Dinner
was lovely, and I was a bit bummed to be seeing Petra for the last time. She wasn’t
planning to be around Thursday for yoga, because one of the little girls she’d
been teaching was taking an entry test for the Wisdom private school nearby. She
hadn’t received the job see had been looking for exactly back in Thailand, but
the school she had been at didn’t want to lose her, so they raised her pay enough
that it was worth her taking on the job for another year.
Wednesday was my last full day in Musanze, and while it was
a full day, it mostly involved an attempt at packing in the morning and a visit
to Nyabageni (for the third time). This time we went in a FM (free massage) vehicle
or to say it slightly differently, a car on the crummy road rather than a moto.
It truly amazes me the driving and beatings that cars go through in Rwanda (and
most of the developing world), but the stick shift driving is a serious talent
that I hope to never need to develop! We managed to stall only once on the
drive up to the village, and only due to a serious rock to scrape on past. This
community is in some of the worst shape in all of those we work with in
Musanze, and partly it is an issue of malnutrition, but it is also a due to a
lack of a safe water source. Our grant helped, but the rains made their potato
harvest not fair quite so well this season. They are struggling for sure, but
when Sasha’s brother and his girlfriend pulled out jump ropes (the really long
kind) you could just see the energy flood the people surrounding us, the kids
jumped up to play (and some actually knew how to jump rope already) and the
parents watched on from a standing position rather than their seated meeting positions. 
Even the poorest of people smile, and so to see them that happy reminds me how
we can make the daily lives that they live better one day at a time. We can’t entirely
change their circumstances, but we can do something, and so to ignore that possibility
of harmless sharing of happy moments is to ignore them. Spark can’t do
everything, but it does succeed in telling people that are worth something,
that people care about them a world away, and that there is hope for them if
they can tough through the bad fortunes of their bad harvests or difficult
years. We also can encourage what they are doing right. When they work together
and see only partial success we talk about how you learn from your failures and
can still change your futures. The only time you have once chance at something
is never, and to show and empower their own actions is not something easy to
do, but perhaps it helps to prevent the dependency that further grants might
result in.
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