Starting a New Fad

A few days after arriving in Gacundezi I began stuffing a towel under the door to my room (also the door to the outside). There is a 2 inch gap beneath the door, and I decided I would go a head and plug that up. Well, Paul found this rather amusing and was laughing that I plugged my door, I was okay with that. Fast forward 2 1/2 weeks or so. Last night there was a lot of noise and commotion coming from the people living in the room next to mine. I awake this morning and come to find out that a “big” snake came in under their door last night. The commotion was them killing and then burning the snake. I also found out the snake was venomous. Needless to say that my neighbors have embraced my towel stuffing strategy.

Run

A couple of the people I met in Kigali are going to run in a 1/2 marathon coming up in two weeks in Kigali. I told them I did the P.F. Chang’s marathon in Phoenix back in 2007 and they asked if I wanted to run with them. I haven’t run since the marathon, so it’s been over 2 years, but I told them I’d run a bit in Gacundezi and if I felt alright I’d join them. So, yesterday I went out for the first time. After about a mile I cut through a street lined with houses and then exited by the main road. As I made my way through kids poking their heads outside saw me and decided to run along side. It was amazing. Within five minutes I had an entire pack of kids running with me. There were some as young as 8, the oldest were probably 14. They were staying right with me, in sandals. And it wasn’t like I was just slowly jogging. I at the end we had run 3 miles in about 24 minutes, a decent pace. But the best part was after we got to the half way point and turned back. At that time there were about 6 kids that had made it that far. But after we turned around and headed back all of the kids that had fallen off pace were waiting. As we approached they began to jog in place with huge smiles across there faces, then as soon as we were along side them they would join back into the pack. It was hilarious. So much for not being noticed as I ran, we took up the entire street. The adults didn’t know how to react. Most just laughed and waved. It was the unexpected best part of the day.

The Project

Plans with the Highlands Project continue to move along well. I met with the head of Finance and Administration at the district office to further review possibilities, and also met with more dairy experts at the milk collection facilities. I was given some information for dairy farmers and am polishing up on my milk distribution knowledge. I also recorded a video at the school that I will send to Tyler, and as far as I know will be playing at Highlands one of the upcoming Sundays.

I also went out and toured the Health Clinic. The buildings were much nicer than I expected. They were built last year by the NGO Oxfam. While the buildings where in good shape and had some basic equipment there were still some very obvious needs. Two that stand out is the clinic has no power and only water collected from the roof during heavy rains. So, they actually have some equipment that can’t even be used yet, do to the lack of power. And, though it is nice for the area, it is also very modest compared to what we have. See below a picture of the birthing room for an example.

Where the mother(s) give birth at the clinic

Old Testament

I have been reading through the old testament while also working my way through the new. I am now almost done with Leviticus. It has been really interesting. Some of what I read in the OT seems to enhance the NT so much, bringing forth a further depth. Then again, there are points in the OT that God’s character just seems different than that which we see in the NT. Since I believe God does not change and is outside of time, and since I believe and trust God’s goodness, that leaves me in a position of needing to reconcile truth with my lack of understanding. I’m trying to do that now (though it is difficult with a distinct lack of resources). But all in all it has been very good for me being able to wrestle with scripture like this.

This is the road that I ran along and began to accumulate children!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 7:17 am and is filed under God Thoughts, Photography, Rwanda, Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.