Thanks for all the welcomes and open arms and generosity!!  I was quite anxious about it, to be honest, but was quickly shown the foolishness of that.  And though I will be sad to say farewell to my second home next June, I look all the more forward to coming back to home home.

The flight and journey back went smooth and safely and I gave a sigh of content and happiness upon stepping off the plane in Rwanda.  I really do love this country.  After taking care of some business in Kigali, I took the long bus ride home to my small town in southwest Rwanda.  

And heading to work a few days after, I got a wonderful surprise!  The sewing club at the center where I work with the street children had been so pleased at the gardens we made that they also decided to build their own.  And so I was welcomed back to twice as many small gardens!  We’ve already been harvesting the green beans and cabbage, and the carrots and beats and onions will be soon to follow.  The children and workers have truly taken initiative and ownership of the project and have even slotted a time for gardening in their daily schedule.  I could not have asked for more.

This week we plan on making personalized objects ( the good ol’ fashioned way out of a mixture of dirt and water and then sun drying) to put in their gardens to encourage the children to view their individual garden as even more their own.  

I hope everyone’s holiday season is going well!  Merry Christmas! 

It was a LONG day, starting with marking the area and tilling the ground early morning to finally putting together a shade house for the seeds after midday.  Suffice to say, we all slept well that night.  Ha ha.  (link to pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/MakingTheNursery02?authkey=Gv1sRgCM_HmcO2_O_ndg, https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/MakingTheNursery?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ-Pt7aDrK_KbQ)

Another volunteer was working with the children that week doing drama and the kids performed a lovely play Friday (pics to come).  The gist of the play was this:  A king was annoyed because a flock of birds were singing/crying the same words over and over again but he could not understand what they were saying.  First he sent old men to decipher the words, but they forgot by the time they got back to the king.  Then he sent younger men, but they stopped for a drink and were too drunk to remember the words.  Finally, the king’s wife arrives and suggests he send children.  So, off four children went, and each memorized one of the lines from the birds and came back and told the king.  The king was so happy that he awarded each of the children a cow.  The children LOVED performing and all put on there best clothes for the performance.   In a culture that rarely visibly values children and praises them for accomplishment, it was an honor to see how proud the children were in there work. 

This past week, our region hosted a GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Camp down in the south.  It was our first camp, so we started small – 30 girls, 5 days.  We had opening and closing ceremonies our first and final day and many lessons in between (including Love & Sex, Peer Pressure, Self-Esteem, HIV/AIDS, etc).   Girls from three different schools in two districts participated and it was a BLAST!  Empowering the girls was such a blessing and it was so neat to see the difference in the girls from the first opening ceremony, where they were half-heartedly singing camp songs and only sitting with their friends, to the closing ceremony, in which the volume of their singing and shouting threatened to be a public event.  The bonding and growth that took place was incredible.  I hope the girls internalized what was taught and continue to nurture the relationships they formed!  Plus, it was food for my soul, because few things in this world are more fulfilling to me than camp. (link to pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/CampGlow?authkey=Gv1sRgCKazypnG4vvZdQ)

There is a local center for street kids in the town I currently am stationed in.  A modestly sized group (about 17) live in the center and about 15 more come in during the days to learn and eat and play.  The center is owned by a UK based organization and I’m so thankful they were open and supportive to my idea.

We’re initiating a five-month project to teach the children sustainable food security and nutrition practices.  Through a combination of theory and practice, we hope to promote permanent behavior change by equipping the children with a thorough set of knowledge and skills so that they continue to practice what they learn throughout their lives and also teach others.

We just completed our compost pile this week – here’s the link to some pics https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/MakingCompostPile?authkey=Gv1sRgCO_F8_ff_en1OA

We make our nursery next week and then we have a little more than a month to prepare and learn before the rains come, which will be God’s sign that it’s time to plant! haha.  Once we start harvesting, we’ll teach about healthy food preparation and nutrition and prepare some meals together.

And of course, there will be drawing, poetry, mud sculpting, drama, journals, and other fun teaching methods along the way!

Looking forward to this.  I will make sure to continue posting pics.

Hope all is well with everyone.  I’ll be taking a month home leave in October (which I assume most of you know about from my mother already).  Would love to see everyone and anyone I can.

God Bless!

     Much different than you

And when you say “Santa Clause’”

     We blink and ask “Who?”

Though our trees are not pine.

     And snow never falls

And we don’t have decorations

     To put on our walls

Though we are so different,

     We are also the same

For we both honor a baby

     And worship His name

He was born in the flesh,

     In order to die on a tree

To forgive us our sins,

     And set us all free

That we who believe,

     Though now far, will be one

And in perfect unity,

     Will one day worship the Son

https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/LeroySAndAshleySVisit?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCL2915in0s_zCg&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/WorldMap?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIGj8oaN8O3GuAE&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/July4?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKPtt5mC3OGtmgE&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/ImbabaziOrphanage?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCMfiyIWbzNneSg&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/AlisonSVisit?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKi0hv3IxoDU9wE&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/Umushanana?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPfb0PTb94K5qgE&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/AuntLauraSVisit?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPOTooD5hOLQPw&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/Francois?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJPiqICyu4uhDw&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/Nyanza?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKzRj-2jk5HW7AE&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/ajbisesi/EnglishClass02?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPaQ0_nEgf3rUw&feat=directlink

Here, I have many names.  My fellow volunteers and most staff call me AJ.  A handful of Rwandans call me Bisesi (its more recognizable to them then Alexandra).  A couple of my Rwandan co-workers call me Alexandra (though here, Alexandra is the boy version of the name).  Mahoro is my most commonly called name.  It was given to me by my host mom in Nyanza; it means Peace.  It suits me well.

But my favorite name I am in called, solely by the wonderful Catholic Priest in our compound,  is “Our good daughter of Obama.”

Even though I am half a world away, I still feel at home because people are so similar at times.  The nuns tacked down legos somewhere and so now the Francois and the neighbor baby have play dates where they sit on a blanket outside and play with legos.   And the other night I was eating an orange and was spitting out the seeds and one of the nuns turned to me and said “you don’t want a tree to grow inside of you.”  I burst out laughing.

Current Weather:  RAIN!  RAIN!  RAIN!  I love rain storms during the day though because life stops and, if Im lucky and stuck in my room at the time, I can sing really loud (which I miss a lot more than I would ever think…in fact a couple weeks ago, the rain storm lasted so long that I semi lost my voice the next day, which led to some funny explanations of why).  Rain also means fruits and veggies!!!  So my body is very happy right now.

Times up.  Enjoy your day.

We spent Christmas morning in the rain forest with good friends and were able to put craft supplies to good use in creating awesome decorations for their house.  The next two in half hours were spent hiking up the mountain to catch our bus (not the ideal Christmas event, especially since our bellies were full of sugar and little else…but we had quite a few laughs along the way).  The later part of the day we spent with another good friend who lives in a house the size of a large walk-in closet and who had Christmas lights and, more importantly, a container full of delicious no-bake cookies!

I know Al posted pics, so enjoy!  Hope everyone elses holiday was just as eventful!

Though I will miss being in the states for Thanksgiving, a bunch of us are getting together to cook our own “thanksgiving feast” at a volunteers house who has a real stove! It will be a balst and besides a few food differences, we basically have all the foods here to make it just like home.

Thanks again for all the cards and support, I promosie there will be many more pics posted by CHristmas!

I am covered in the clothes department, since my monthly fee covers having my laundry done and ironed. My feet, on the otherhand…I usually keep the tops scrubbed and clean but the bottoms are a different story, which leads to this short story:

Yesterday, another volunteer and I were teaching some women at the Nutrition Center how to create a permaculture garden. I kicked off my shoes at some point because it was easier to hoe barefoot. Afterwards, we came to wash off in the outside spicket. We cleaned our hands and shoes and faces and feet and as we were walking to my room, the head umukozi (house worker) looked at me feet and started jabbering away in Kinyarwanda. I couldn’t catch all the words but I knew she was telling me I didn’t clean my feet enough. She refused to accept my excuse that it was hard to keep a muzungu’s (white persons) feet clean. She picked up the scrubbing brush, dipped in the soapy water they were using to wash clothes, and gave me a look accompanied with an undisobeyable “Come here.” Laughing all the while, I walked over and subjected myself to a true Rwandan foot scrubbing session. I felt like I was a disobedient five-year old who didn’t wash behind his ears during bath time. Haha.

But let me tell you, my feet have never looked so clean.