Gisenyi Finalle

Bite (bee-t-a)  or hello from Kigali, Rwanda.

Let me start by saying thanks to everyone who is following this and I hope I don`t disappoint!

We started out our last day in Gisenyi quite early, out of the hotel by 7:30am after a nice breaky, drove to the mayors office and met with his very nice very good english speaking assistant mayor, who was very interested in our ideas and stories about our trip and our country.

The meeting didn`t last too long and before we knew it we were back at the Right to Play Gisenyi office for another meeting with the whole group (from left-right back row then left-rigt front row) Yves (RTP Coach and main headquarter manager), Roz G (extreme world champion skiier), president of CN (Coaches Network), Stephanie Buryk (RTP representative from Toronto), secretary CN, president CGN (Community Group Network), Vice president CGN, financial expert & coach Right to Play Gisenyi, Rwanda, (bottom row) secretary CN, vice president CN, Helen Upperton (bobsled olympic slver medalist), 2 women from the Female participation sector of CN.

All of these people were so wonderful in explaining and outlining everything to us, it was so interesting to hear exactly what groups like the CN and CGN do for these kids, its inspiring to hear about all the effort they are putting in to make life for these families as happy and fun and educational/healthy as possible!

With some extra time before heading off to a rural school, we had a photo session with each of us and the partners with Right to Play, having a good talk trying to explain how to jump a horse, drive a bobsled and do flips on ski's 30 feet in the air, safe to say Rwandese do not understand the art of SNOW or horses very much since they really have neither.

Our day progressed quicker then we figured so on the way to find our wandering reporter friend who was already tagging along and being a pain in our ass, we decided to go look around the beautiful Gisenyi. I found this particular walkway just opposite the Mayors office, on the left was a volleyball court, on the right a soccer field, both public, both in use although my photos of the kids playing turned out fuzzy and disoriented so they were deleted so I hope amazing canopy made by African native trees will suffice.

Not only were the sites amazing and though I would love to post ever single picture I have, I really do not have that much patience or time and I'm sure with the descriptions or even just the photos alone it would be incredibly ridiculous, so for now these are some of the most interesting ones. Helen especially loved the women of Rwanda and how everything they needed to carry was placed in a basket, bucket or bag and then balanced on they're heads, she was so excited in fact that when she struggled to get photos of these women they would come out awful! So I took a few and this is my best result so far I believe. We are determined to try this ourselves but have not met the right ladies to jump out of the RTP 4x4 and take a basket off their head!

As our trip continued we arrived at a few very interesting places in history, one of which was the home of legendary Jane Goodall. For those who are thinking "who the hell is Jane Goodall!?!" you'd know her better by the crazy monkey lady, Jane fell inlove with chimpanzies in the 1960's when she travelled to Africa for research, she founded her research institute in 1977, Jane lived in Gisenyi, Rwanda for most of her life where she wrote many books and articles for famous magazines like National Geographics.

We didn't go in (obviously) but we did manage to stop just outside the gate and get a few photos of the vines that now encase her home where she once lived. (the photos are not loading so use your imagination).

The second turn around I should say was at the border of Rwanda and the Congo, we had taken a few photos and noticed some angry motorbike taxi's when a border police guard came to the window and yelled at us for using our cameras saying we weren't allowed to take photos of the border... but by that time we already had a few each and so we gladly turned around and left...quickly. Just a brief note, the border between Rwanda and the Congo's history revolves around alot of murder and devistating loss of life, but when you think of that what do you imagine? Because this is what it looks like ---->

Those motorbikes are in RWANDA... that house is in CONGO... and this is where a masacre happened... unbelievable? We thought so.

After that fun trip to the crazy monkey ladies house and the Rwandan/Congo border we embarked on a mission up into rural country outside of Gisenyi to visit 2 schools. The first one we went to was built on a mountain in a very rural part of the country where the roads, if you could call them that were beaten and broken and barely roads at all, it was like going 4x4 without the mud everywhere. I wish I had got the entrance to the school (which was surrounded in a rock wall to keep the kids from wandering too much), because it was a hill, just a little one but the truck in 4 wheel drive, pedal to the floor barely made it up, I though it was fun, my friends apparently didn't agree! haha.

Anyways, we had come to this school to meet with the teachers, principal and coaches to get an idea of how a school functions more efficiently with the support of Right to Play.

The first thing we saw when we came in was amazing... 3 large water tanks on each 3 of the classe room buildings, all marked with RTP logos, that brought fresh drinking and washing water to the children of 1059 students, 250 of which lived in an orphanage up the road 1km.

We stepped into our meeting already feeling awesome to have the logo on our shirts as it was on those 3 purified water tanks, we walked into a room of 6 coaches, 9 teachers, the principal, the 4 of us, Massamba our guide, Yves a RTP Gisenyi member and our translator, a few other RTP reps and some parents and children that are presidents of some groups at the school.

The meeting was quick, starting with introductions and then a brief explaination of what each section of the school does. When it came to question time and Helen, Roz and Steph got they're questions through I stood up and asked; "In Canada, we see music as being very important to learning and having fun which as you know is what Right to Play is about, I was wondering if your school has any clubs or programs that use music to inspire or help build creativity or let creativity out of the children here?" I got a responce that the children do it themselves! There is no class or program the kids organize and sing and dance and clap and are awesome! We even got a deminstration from a student who was pretty good for a 14 yr old R&B/Rap artist ;)

We didn't have time to stay and play with te 700 + students with our busy schedule but we had time to get mobbed on our way to-waiting-from the bathroom which was ... unpleasant to say the extreme least about it, a real African experience as Roz put it after the fact.

So we jumped in the truck and headed farther into rural Rwanda to another school where we were going to have an activity session with some of the students.

Its funny some things you see in Africa and think... wow... that is truly beautiful or amazing. One thing that stuck out to me was 2 boys, not much older then 12 riding they're bikes.... which sounds normal enough, but these bikes were special.

The 2 boys stopped to see us pass like many of the younger children did and when we realized what they were on we were all very impressed and extremely amazed at the creativity and impressive work of these kids imaginations!

Moving on since I just realized how much I am gabbing, the towns we passed through some full, some empty, all had the looming intimidation factor since everyone here in Africa stares at us... It is slightly funny because the children, mostly younger (2-5 yrs) were yelling at us words we obviously didn't understand "MASUNGU MASUNGU!" "MASUNGU GUCHUPA!~!" (ma-zoon-ga & ga-cho-pa), masunga meaning white people and guchupa meaning something along the lines of audience, we are now know as the Masunga ladies in Gisenyi!

We had alot of children follow us through they're villages and to the next school, by the time the kids had come out to see us andstarted activities the crowd was overwhelmingly large! With a student body of 1200 + kids, plus the kids from the villages and they're families including mothers and some grandparents, it was a huge spectical to have 4 white women in they're sites we were told. We played games for a while then concluded the evenings fun with a friendly basketball game, unfortunatley the team of Steph, Roz, Helen, Yves and myself was... quite bad! we went down 2-0 and at that point I opted out for camera duty since I could barely lift my arm after running around bouncing it all over the place.

We tied it but for kids who had only been playing for 7 months... ever... in they're whole lives, they were pretty freaking good!!! This site was a Right to Play contribution to the school, including water tanks and new refurbished buildings they created this large concrete slab for the kids to play on and they put basketball nets on it aswell so the girls and boys teams could play!

After the game we got in a circle for Roz and Helen to make a speech about sports motivation in life, and within 15 minutes our little circle had turned into a mass of children who had pushed through to hear or see or be near the "masungas" we knew it was time to go when Helen reached out and grabbed me to hold herself up from faling on the children who were now so many in mass that we were being bombarded and pushed over, it was unsafe and some kids were getting squished so we quickly made way, hand in hand to the truck and the mass of kids followed as you can see there were quite high numbers around the court, imagine that around you!!

Unfortunatley my videos aren't uploading from my IPhone correctly and the photos of us inside the mass of kids are on Steph's camera which I have yet to get off her, so it will be here eventually I'm sure.

We got in the truck and made our way home in silence, waving to a few people every now and then and smiling at a few yells of "MASUNGA!!" along the way. We were/are very drained it is alot of stuff to cram in everyday here and alot of travel (the ride home was 3 + hours), and alot of kids that not only take your energy out of you with the activities and fending for you footing in the mass', but the overwhelming sites of beauty that Gisenyi has to offer but mostly the perfectly content poverty that these people live in with no running water no hydro, they just sleep, eat and farm, thats all.

*interesting fact: to this day the Tutsie and Hutu still excist, mainly Hutu who are farmers on the land (90% of population are Hutu) and the Tutsie farm meat. But still live alongside one another.*

The late return prompted a wonderful "brouchette" dinner in fish, pork and beef aswell as a few extras (brouchette is a Rwandan specialty and DELICIOUS! just really skewers with meat on them but seasoned and amazing).

As I was looking out the window in the vehicle I had to catch my breath... The lights were like stars thrown over the mountain sides, so beautiful.

Note to readers: write on your bucket list - "See the stary hills of Kigali, Rwanda, Africa!"

Murakoze (thank you) everybody!

Until tomorrow, have a great night!

Cheers from beautiful Kigali!

~a.grange~