Field Trips!

We took our first field trip today to a Rwandan dairy farm! A lot of our kids are "city" kids, so this was a real treat for them to be out in the country, with the red dirt, fresh manure, and odd smells. They had a blast. God gave us beautiful weather, and good memories. We got to see the baby cows, the rebellious teenage cows who run away, and the kids even got to milk a momma cow! We saw the tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouses, and saw the pineapples, oranges and macadamia nuts growing. Did you know that when you plant the macadamia, you have a crop for life?! We saw where the cows "shower", and even got to cut the elephant grass that they eat every day. It looks easier than it was! The only unfortunate thing of the day was when Joshua accidentally fell knee deep in a pile of manure when he turned his head to look at the dogs. :-(But we got him washed off!

Joshua "scaring" away the chickens.

Megan in the greenhouse

Alex, trying his hand at grass cutting.

Lilly milking her first cow.

Orla playing with the teenage cow.

On our way back to KICS, we passed by Gahaya Gifted Hands, also referred to as Gahaya Links. This project started as a humble effort to teach 20 young genocide widows how to weave underneath a tree in the tiny village of Gitarama. With God's blessing, this project has now grown into a large enterprise, that employs over 4,000 weavers across Rwanda, most of them rural women who were widowed by the genocide, teenage orphaned girls, or women whose husbands are in prison charged with genocide-related cases. This project also helps women who are HIV/AIDS positive, by providing them an income, and also a sense of purpose in life. The founders are Joy and Janet, sisters who grew up in a Ugandan refugee camp because their parents had to flee Rwanda in the previous salughter of Tutsis in the 1950's. The sisters managed to beat the odds, and gain a scholarship to attend school, and that was their ticket out of the camp. After coming back to a deserted Rwanda post-genocide (1994), both sisters knew they wanted to remain in their homeland of Rwanda and be a part of helping to rebuild it. And they have. There are many testimonies of weavers who credit this weaving project for saving them. There's Ephigenia, who lost 65 members of her entire family during the genocide, and with them, her hope of life. Gahaya Links came to her village and encouraged her to join their co-op, but it was very difficult for her to interact with the killers of her family, as the remaining Tutsis still had to live in the same villages with the Hutus. After a while, Ephigenia became a master weaver, and her village elected her to be the president of their weaving cooperative. At first, people didn't believe that someone who lost 65 members of her family could successfully lead other Hutus in this co-op. But after spending time weaving with the killers of her family, Ephigenia became the first Rwandan to publicly open her heart to the killer of her family, and forgive him in open Gacaca court. Now, many other women have the courage to step out and forgive, after Ephigenia's example. Through their determination and efforts, Joy and Janet, have secured international partnerships with FairWinds Trading, Starbucks, and even Macy's. Their most famous basket, the agaseke "peace" basket weaves three lines of ethnicity together, one for the Tutsi, Hutu and Twa people of Rwanda. This peace basket is a bestseller of Macy's. Joy and Janet have also been awarded for their dedication to empowering the women of Rwanda by Oprah and the Clintons. We are blessed to be able to visit their center today, as Vanessa, Janet's daughter, is in our class. We were able to see some of the women at work and we even learned how to weave a basket using the grass and the sisal. We saw how they dye the sisal into beautiful, bright colors, and also the warehouse where they keep all the baskets and package them for shipping to the states. It was a fascinating experience today, learning about Gahaya Links' humble beginning, and their bright future ahead. To read more about Joy and Janet's enterprise, go to http://www.gahayalinks.com/ I'll post some pictures tomorrow. The formatting is messing up tonight and my battery is almost dead. Goodnight!