Land of a thousand smiles

Rwanda, the land of a thousand hills and many more smiling faces.

At the beginning of this trip I looked around myself and my life at home and tried to compare it with how I would survive in Rwanda with next to nothing. This is what many of the street kids we have met have – nothing. Some of these children are living on the street at the age of 4 years old.  This is my story to tell…..

On Monday afternoon we visited one of the after school clubs that are run by the PSI organisation in Rwanda. The club is surrounded by some shacks and out of which came around 10 toddlers.  They were a little bemused to see so many Muzunga's at first but soon came out of their shell when we produced a few tennis balls and invited them to play.  Two kids immediately hit home to me, maybe they were brothers, not sure, however  their smile from ear to ear was apparent alongside their grubby faces, no shoes, and pyjamas one was wearing with a split down the backside.  We played with this group and incorporated some ABC messages in our singing of the Hokey Cokey and general ball games.  The elder of the two did not drop a ball a day and his throw was immense, I guess he was around 5 or 6 years old. These two lads stayed with us the whole time and had fun ……not sure the last time they did that.  We left that night with the promise of coming back the next day.

On our return on Tuesday, we were welcomed by the local band doing some gangsta rap video, complete with Beastie Boy stylee clothes and bling.  We then proceeded over to the basketball court, which was pretty vacant however out of the corner came our boys, still in the same clothing as yesterday and still with yesterday's grime and dirt on their bodies. It made me feel very humble that we could provide so little for these children yet they could appreciate us just by throwing a cricket ball around.  By the end of the day at least they were proud to be wearing a CWB wristband but it pains me to think that even that will be taken by an older kid or adult and these children will go back to a life with nothing on the streets.

Paula