Friday January 9th A productive day. Smiles and giggles in the morning. Time with the kids at school. Time with Chantal helping organize. Then we went on an adventure to the site where we would like to build the 4th and 5th homes. Frankly we could build 4-5 homes on the property if the money comes. The drive is about 20 minutes from the first 3 homes. Up a bumpy dirt road. I asked to get out of the suv and walk around on the primary street and slight offshoots. Chantal always laughs and says “be careful Miss Donna”. I am never out of her site. But a moozoongoo (white person) in this part of the neighborhood is a rarity so like a pied piper the kids appear. From the bush, from behind trees, from the ditches from the rough home structures. The stare. They assess me ( I can only imagine what they say.) Then I stick my hand out to say “moolahoo, ah moo koo roo”. Which is….hello how are you? They laugh at the moozoongoo speaking Kinyarwanda. But they appreciate the effort. I reach out to shake their hands and do so with 1 hand bent across the other elbow. A sign reserved for people of respect. They are taken back that I would show them this respect and they laugh a bit more. I ask their names (Wee twan dee?) Then I try to repeat it. The emphasis on TRY to repeat. I generally destroy it. But again, this moozoongoo is the entertainment for the week so I go with it. My camera comes out and they either run away or jump in front of it to have their picture taken. I show each and everyone their photo in my digital display and that makes the entire crowd laugh. There were about 30 kids around me today for this round of fun. Everywhere I walked they followed. Of course when it came time to film Chantal for our fund raising video they simply did not want to keep quiet or out of the film. Oh well, I guess I started the nonsense and it was hard to stop. Chantal eventually got them to settle down a bit in order to record her. We then checked out a small house on the property. An ox surprisingly stuck it’s head out and the kids laughed at my surprise. They entertained me with their version of a gameboy or video game. An old tire and a stick. You run with the stick through the center of the tire trying to keep it upright. Great fun. As we left they sang a nice song for me and danced in the street. Could life be any sweeter than this? When you see these kids on video on TV you see sad faces. Dirty homes and nothing that they really own. But when I see them I see happy kids, families together and a real community. Sure, I would love to give them so much, but sometimes I think they are the ones who have it right and we’re the ones with it backwards. We returned just as school was getting out and the chaos followed. Kids running, playing, “missy donna, missy donna,” kids falling and crying, others picking them up. Energy to light an nation. The young workers wanted to spend some more time with English lessons. I have about a dozen pages with English Kinyarwanda translations. It was of great help. Alas there is no dictionary translation so we build it as we are able. 2 hours later it was time to walk to the 2nd/3rd homes. We danced and say our way home. They people on the street thought we were quite silly and stopped to watch our parade of kids and the moozoongoo walk down the dirt road laughing the entire way. We were singing praise songs and having great fun. At home the older kids played with the nerf football that Max and Henry picked up. The yonger kids just basically want to climb on me. We started a tickle fest which last about an hour. In the end they were all lined up on the their backs and I would swoop in an tickle the growing row of bellies lines up for a tickle. The mommies and aunties sat around the corner doing laundry and laughing at missy donna. Next week came inside and did our usual evening process. I download photos of the day and the older kids help me sort them into the various names. I am getting better at who is who, but still have a few that confuse me. Speaking of confusion. When Chantal sent me the list of kids she had the name Dsami written twice. Both 9 month old boys. Erika and I looked at it an wondered could their really be 2 boys with the same name and the same age? We laughed saying maybe they are twins, but in the end assumed it was a typo as the names were back to back on the list. Yesterday I realized that indeed there are 2 Dsami’s. And yes they are twins. The sad part is one of the boys is fighting some serious challenges. When he arrived in the home one side of his head was very swollen and both eyes were crossed. Chantal says this is from malnutrition. It could simply break your heart. The joyful part is his head now looks quite normal size to me and only 1 eye is crossed. Hopefully with God’s healing grace, the love at New Hope Homes and the quality food will continue to provide progress. Speaking of amazing. Last night I went to Chantal and Mbanda’s home to spend some time together before Mbanda headed to Sudan this morning. As we we chatting about the video that we were trying to shoot Mbanda said, “well what about the 20 homes we built for Child as Head of Household last year?” What homes? was my reply. These 2 never cease to amaze me. A friend of theirs from the states donated $80,000 to build 20 homes for Child as Head of Household. All of the homes are next to each other in about 4 or 5 rows. They are simple 3 room homes but can you imagine being 16 years old and now being able to care for your younger brothers or sisters in this way? $4000 to build a home and change a life. The cost of concrete has gone up dramatically so this year it would be about $5000 or slightly more. The local church is overseeing the kids and helping select the proper kids to receive such a life changing gift. The homes will be transfer ultimately to the baby in the family so it will stay in the family as long a possible. We hope to see the homes on Monday on our way to drop of the 4 kids who are going to boarding school. That assumes we get gas. As the moment there is a very limited supply of gas in the country. I am not sure why but if you drive by the stations there is either no one there or a long 2-3 hour wait. Chantal knows one of the gas station owners who told her to come by at 11 pm tonight and they will fill her up. So goes life in Rwanda. Tonight after we assigned the right photos to the right names we played the esl games that I brought. Spelling, matching colors etc. The kids get so excited when I bring them out from my room. The yell and shout with joy. They they organize into 3 groups to play. Of course the little kids just wonder around an pick of pieces making everyone crazy. The big kids are very very gentle with them and coax them into proper behavior. Later the kids continue working to teach me a Kinyarwanda song that I have been trying to learn for 3 years. Slow learner but getting there. The perpetual motion in the house and everyone one wanting to be on my arm, leg or lap is joy filled and exhausting. The good kind of exhausting.