Rwanda 2014 Day 6: Our Last Day in Nyabihu

Catch up on Part 1 of Rwanda trip here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here

MONDAY | September 15th

Our last day in Nyabihu was, by far, my favorite day in Rwanda. We had finished interviewing the children and were done with all the home visits we were gonna do.  It gave us the day to just spend with the kids without a bunch of work to do and every single moment was so special.

We arrived to school around 10:00am and went into the nursery (pre-k) class to have a time of fellowship with the kids, singing some of their favorite songs.

After a couple songs, they had all the children go outside for more fellowship and games…or just whatever! We had no idea what we were doing or what was going on half the time, but hey, when you got a bunch of kids and a cow, anything can happen!

New family photo with all 101 of our sweet babies :)

They sang Jesus Loves Me something like twenty thousand times and we “taught” them “Deep and Wide”. It was super fun, but the language barrier was downright painful! You can see the confused looks on all their faces, but they were good sports about it.

It just cracks me up with all the personality {and sometimes attitude} Henriette and Too-Small-For-His-Britches have in every photo!

And then Jarrod had the bright idea of teaching them “Apache” (Jump On It).

Lord help.

They pretended to have nap time, I guess?

And then did some…um…exercises? Who really knows what Gaudence had them doing!?

Cory never passes up a chance to include the Dusty Kids in whatever is going on so they don’t feel like second class because they don’t go to the school. He really has a big heart for the poorest kids!

Although I feel confident that he could have picked a less awkward pose for this picture. Looks like some kind of big ol’ white land turtle.

Then we had story time, where the kids got up and were taking turns apparently telling stories–we had no clue what was being said but it sure sounded interesting!

Only problem was, as long as there’s muzungus around it’s hard for the kids to stay focused on anything except what the muzungus are doing. By this time, Cory had gone in to help Benjamin get the supplies ready and organize things for the parents to come later, so we were really just keeping the kids occupied away from the school until they were ready.

Poor Henriette was so sleepy by then…must have been way past her nap time. You can see the ol’ fuzzy sludge head working on her.

She finally gave in and climbed up in my lap and was pretty much asleep.

Yep, made my day.

One at a time, the kids started coming over to us instead of listening to the story being told. Once a few started trickling, the floodgates opened and we were bombarded with children that had been bristling with excitement to come jump all over us.

I’m pretty sure one little boy was still telling his story.

Cory said later that he was trying to get a photo of this little girl’s snaggly teeth, but she was eating a piece of bread at the time. I guess she got tired of him telling her to “seka” and he said she slid the bread in between her teeth mid-grin like a mail slot! He just called her No-Teefs the rest of the trip.

After almost two hours with the children, we went inside the school to set up some of the school supplies and toothbrushes that our sponsors had sent over for the children.

Amber organized the messy supply closet so the rest of the supplies we were leaving would fit.

One of the highlights our last day in Nyabihu was getting to serve the children bread and Fanta. All anybody drinks over there is Fanta! Something my dad is always talking about is Matthew 25, where Jesus says “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brother, you did it to Me”. It was such an honor to break bread with the “least of these”, these little children, it was almost overwhelming. My heart was so full just spending time with them in this way, that I received all the blessing from it!

The Rwandans can pop the bottles open like nobody’s business! Like unbottling machines.

Meanwhile, Amber and I maybe got three bottles open between the two of us, while Anastas and Onesimus were popping bottles open using the crate, the door hinge, the table, and even other bottles.

Show-offs.

It was driving the kids NUTS having to stay outside while we were all in there setting everything up!

Then finally all the supplies were ready for the children!

We were also getting to meet and spend some time with the children’s parents in the school, which was a rare treat for us.

They brought the little ones in first, and you better know Paige Sloan wasn’t gonna pass up a photo opportunity like that!

After the younger kids were seated, we got to see the cutest blessing you ever saw.

It was pretty much dead silent in there for a few moments while everybody was chugging their Fanta and inhaling their bread! It was sobering to remember that this little bit of bread and soda may be the first thing some of these kids have eaten in a day or two.

Not sure if Jarrod posed like this or if he just stepped into the picture but it cracks me up.

Now that I think about it, I think he was trying to get out of the shot but was too slow.

That kid was still sleepy! A full belly just made her even more drowsy.

It’s precious to see how close some of these kids are to one another. Rwandans are a very affectionate people, and it really shows when you spend time with the kids.

After they finished their bread and Fanta, the children asked to pray over us before we left. They had us kneel on the ground and they all gathered around us, laid their little hands on us, and prayed the sweetest prayer of safety and thanks you can imagine. By the time it was over, all four of us were crying and trying not to let them see. It was just so incredible to have them pray for us and to hear how much love and faith these little ones are overflowing with. Cory had said last year that it was one of the most spiritual moments of his life and now I understand.

After we all said a few words to them and to the parents, we told them to run home with their school supplies and put them away, and we said our goodbyes to Henriette and the rest of the precious babies.

This kid was instantly christened “Nakey Bottom II”.

We’ve got to learn some of these kids’ names and stop calling them whatever Cory calls them.

We heard the most giggles coming from the Dusty Kids when Cory and Jarrod were pretending to be asleep and snoring, then jumping up and scaring the kids. They did this over and over again and every time, the children would all scream and giggle and jump away.

The strength of the women in Rwanda simply amazes me.

The mischievous one! She was tickling Jarrod with the stick when he wasn’t looking.

Finally Jarrod had enough and about broke his neck and ankles trying to chase her across the rocky yard. But look at those smiles!

Luckily, the kids had some “help” from Gaudence in getting Jarrod back.

This is why they call Rwanda “The Land of 1000 Hills”!

After Cory and Jarrod scared the kids, they taught them some of their funny little catchphrases and inside jokes from work like “it don’t mattew” and how to fist bump and “blow it up”.

If you ever wanted to know what a Nyabihu PTA meeting looks like, here you go!

Cory noticed that this little girl was favoring one foot so he asked her if he could look at it. At some point in the day she had busted her toe open on a rock. He was afraid it would get infected if it stayed that dirty, out there where the cows roam around, so he asked her if he could clean it up and bandage it properly. She was afraid and it obviously hurt, but once she realized that he was helping, she settled down and you could see that she appreciated the attention and bandages.

I understand this is not safe with out latex gloves but we had used our only pair a few days earlier and Cory couldn’t leave her toe the way it was. Note to self, bring a box of gloves next year.

Little No-Teefs came back around after she went home and changed so she could tell Amber goodbye one more time!

I told Cory and the crew to stand out in the yard and let me get my camera settings right.

This is what I get for asking.

We couldn’t have been more blessed to spend our first week in Rwanda with these folks.

Onesimus is as bad as our guys with the poses! I guess that’s universal.

We had time for one last scare.

Saying our goodbyes and “blowing it up”…

But I couldn’t say goodbye so I snapped some pictures from the truck while fighting back the tears.

As we were pulling out of the school, the tears really started flowing knowing that we wouldn’t be coming back to these sweet kids.

But this little boy made it all better.

Ben had to stop and get some potatoes as soon as we got back on the main road and this little boy was acting crazy outside our truck. We couldn’t help but be entertained and forget about how sad we were about leaving.

Right after she got home from school, Henriette done got her hair did.

And getting to see her and her new do totally made our 30 minute ride back to Musanze better.

Breakin’ it down.

This is how loaded down our truck was heading back to Kigali. We had enough onions, potatoes, and suitcases to go live in the wild for a couple weeks. The worst part was, somebody had to sit on top of all of it on the 3 hour ride back home! Ben and Jarrod took turns with tater-sittin’ duty.

Aaand of course Cory found a way to get a speeding ticket in Africa. It was only a matter of time, since this was his third time getting pulled over since we had gotten to Rwanda. Everything was going okay until Cory told the police officer he didn’t think he was speeding. Then the police officer made him get out of the truck and Cory got a lecture on motorist safety. The cop asked him if he had even gone to driving school, which Cory obviously had not…luckily Cory has his International Driving Permit! The officer said that ordinarily he would have taken his license, but that he was going to reduce the fine in half. Whew!

But we still had to pay a dang speeding ticket!

At least we had some entertainment while Cory was trying not to get arrested.

After stopping for some roasted potatoes, goat brochettes {or meat sticks, as I called them} and pineapple nectar, we made our way back to Kigali.It was after dark before we got back to the city and the traffic was absolutely awful.

Never in my life, have I felt closer to death as I did when Cory blazed {okay, he did stop but just assumed everyone else would stop too} through an intersection  and literally came inches from getting us t-boned by a dump truck. Out of sheer panic, I fussed at Cory and poor Ben started apologizing for the traffic! Maybe my reaction was a little unwarranted.

Maybe.

Cory still denies we were that close to the truck but once we got back to Ben and Josephines’s, Jarrod confirmed mine and Amber’s story and said he could have reached out and touched the truck. Dinner was ready for us when we walked in {we were so spoiled!} and after we ate, we called it a night retiring to our bedrooms. Even though our bodies were tired, we all stayed up talking until almost midnight processing the past few days and trying to soak it all in.

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