The teams day started out as any other day today, consisting of breakfast and in Eddie’s van by 8:30 ready for the first school of the day. In this school we coached both primary and secondary, however myself and Dan in the morning decided to entertain the younger primary pupils who were just on break.
This was quite challenging as they didn’t speak much English, and only knowing little Kinyarwanda we pulled in help the of a secondary school pupil to translate to the crowd of 64 little ones. Here we played a lot of catching games and sung many songs, including classics like head and shoulders and other songs I had learnt in Camp.
We then had a secondary group which we were able to talk about our HIV message of A.B.C.T and go into detail on how they can protect themselves. Another question we asked them was what boys and girls could do together, to this it took a while to gain an answer but after sitting down and explaining that everyone was equal and from the help of Lee the pupils then wrote out a long list including, sports, cooking, cleaning and much more.
Midday then led us to picking up our bags before heading to the Rwandan Orphans Project (ROP) for a short 20 minute visit. Here we saw the work of amazing people who gave children an education, a place to be joyful, and responsibility. A safe heaven.
Everyone was amazed that even with us visiting, when the school bell rang every child ran back to class after saying goodbye as they didn’t want to be late to class. Usually in other schools all the children stay around us. Before leaving, knowing how great the project was, we handed out some footballs and netballs for the children to play with.
The best part of this was seeing the glee on their faces as they put down their deflated balls for the new ones and inviting us over to the pitch for very fast paced games (which our boys struggled to keep up with). After another set of goodbyes we then set of to Kigali, in our bus filled with throwback songs, and many, many samosas.
After arriving at the hotel, we then all paid a visit to the well-known Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. This was very tough for everyone to learn about, as we never knew too much detail about what really happened. The toughest part for me to learn about was how children were treated as well as the women and families. Walking round we witnessed many graphic pictures from the genocide, I found it hard to look at these as I became very overwhelmed imagining how those people or their families must have felt through the time of the genocide. It’s hard to put into words just what I saw there today, but I know I will never forget it, and I will always think about what happened here and the strength of the country now.
Sam
