Amanda: Steve and Jeff
From Jeff: How is it possible?
How is it possible after going through the most horrible events possible that the kids and staff can find the strength to ever love or trust again? I ask myself that pretty much every second i am here. Amazingly, there is more love in this Village then i’ve ever seen. The last few days have been a worldwind. I am happy to say the offsite was a huge success!! Amanda, Mary and Steve were tremendous!! They really helped me stay focused and grounded. They all brought such value to the experience and the participants loved them for it!
As great as the conference was, it is the ever increasing tears from our group that I continually thing of. We consistently say to each other- okay, no tears for tonight and sure enough there is a moment(s) of pure generosity that touches moves us to tears. What amazes me the most is how sweet the kids are. They have soooo much life in them!!! How can that be- it just is!!! They love to translate for us and take pictures with our cameras.
Family time, village time, the cd party, the going away party for one of the volunteers, sabbat, the house naming and sooo much more all in just two plus days and all absolutely amazing!
Getting up in 3hrs to hit the safari. More soon…
from Amanda: so much to share, so little time
It’s amazing how busy we’ve been. It’s now after midnight and we’ve been sitting in front of our computers since about 8 or 9pm. First we were winding down our final day from the Leadership Seminar. Then we skyped home, but that takes a LONG time - connection to the internet was really sporadic today - until Nir reset the router which is up at the water tower. There’s a sentence I’ve never said before!
So…let’s see. Today was our last day doing our formal training with the Directors. It’s really been quite an experience - we all feel that we are truly a part of this amazing village now. We can now say we’ve made direct impact, which is incredibly rewarding because the village is making a direct impact on us as well.
So, let’s talk about the children. Today was the naming party; wait…I just read Steve’s post, so I won’t go into the details surrounding the event - but I will add that it was beautiful. The children are so PROUD. Over the past couple days we’ve gotten to know several of the kids - (sidebar: more and more each day feel comfortable enough now to approach us. They want to see pictures of our children at home - who we talk about a lot - and they want to take pictures with us and have us take their pictures (have you SEEN Mary’s link???) So, several of the ASYV kids have become visible “leaders” within their groups - and they present with confidence and pride.
We were observing last night that if we didn’t know better, we would think these kids were at a “leadership academy for gifted children”. We were reminded that not only are these children of the genocide - with visible (and emotional) scars - but they were selected based on vulnerability - meaning the MOST vulnerable were selected. So, to say they’ve come far since they came to the village just ten months ago is truly an understatement. I just wish I could articulate my feelings and experiences better.
Perhaps if I get some sleep - we get picked up in just over 5 hours for the safari…more blogging and pictures tomorrow!
From Steve: We'll Sleep on the Plane
“We’ll sleep on the plane.” That phrase has become pretty popular amongst the 5 of us (now including Anne). Friday night was PACKED … and truly wonderful. We’re doing our best to keep the blog up to date (especially with photos) so you may have read a lot of what we’ve been up to … but I wanted to give my own update on some of it.
I started this update on Saturday morning but didn’t get far before we had to get over to the house where we’re holding our “offsite”. Friday “night” ended at 2am this morning! We didn’t get back to our house until about 11pm and then had to get prepped for today. Let me tell you a bit about last night. We ended our session at 5:00 so that we could get to Shimon’s house for Kabbalat Shabbat. It was really so nice. Amanda already posted some pictures … but it was a VERY casual service where we said a prayer over the candles, over the challah (baked in ASYV bakery … and DELICIOUS), a prayer over the “wine” (we used Orange Fanta in this case), and then sang a few songs. I was invited to say the prayer over the wine (the Kiddush) and had a total “Hebrew-freeze”. I said the wrong prayer but Amanda had my back and helped me out. Shimon offered coffee, tea, peanuts (VERY popular here … and also very good). We all chatted a bit and shared some stories. I made up for my earlier freeze by saying a prayer that we often say to celebrate any first (this was my first Shabbat in ASYV, in Rwanda, and in Africa) … it seemed fitting.
We left Shimon’s to head to the Dining Hall. 6pm on Fridays is “Village Time” at ASYV. It’s an hour planned and led by the students in the “Village Club”. There were several speakers and Media (one of the girls in the village) slid right next to me to translate for me. This is so amazing to me. I never have to ask for a translator … a kid always just appears to help me (or the rest of us) out. Anne was asked to speak and it’s clear that the people of this village simply adore her.
After village time it was time for dinner. Dinner was … wait for it … rice and vegetables and potatoes. While repetitive, I have to say that that the food is really pretty good. We eat a lot of stewed vegetables over rice (or some pasta). Friday night’s dinner had something new though. Stewed cassava leaves. This has been the only food that I did NOT like. I was able to gum it down but it was NOT for me.
After dinner it was time for the CD “release party”. Each family wrote and recorded a song that is being put onto a CD. They setup a stage in the dining hall (we’ve been eating on the “patio” of the dining hall) out of large wooden boxes. One by one the families came up and sang along with the disc. It was really pretty incredible. A few other groups also recorded and sang (e.g., the religion club, the staff, etc.).
Had enough? We still weren’t done. Nir invited everyone to a farewell party for Sarah (the music therapist that had been volunteering for the past year). We all went to his house with the entire staff. They gave her a few gifts and a few people made a few toasts to her. I’m finding that it’s all very hierarchical here. The speeches had to be made in a certain order and the presentations had to be done by a certain person. Interesting. By 11:00pm we were DONE! We headed home so that we could prepare for Saturday.
As I said earlier it took until 2am until we felt ready enough to go to bed. Morning came quickly … but we decided to skip the walk to the dining hall to have instant coffee and granola bars in the house. We got to the offsite by 7:50am and several of the directors were already there. I’m not going to go into the details of the day .. but it really was another great management training day. Jeff asked everyone to share what they found most valuable from our offsite. My answer was that I now feel like I’m a part of the village and not just a part of the Liquidnet family that has been helping the village. I feel very lucky to have been a part of this trip.
We headed to the Dining Hall at 5 pm for the Family Naming ceremonies. Every family selected a famous person (now dead) that is meaningful to that family. From this point forward they will be known by their family names rather than Family 1/House 1. Some of the names chosen include: Socrates, George Washington, Thomas Sankara, George Washington Carver, Anne Frank, Benazir Bhutto plus a few more. The ASYV Board had chosen a few names for the familes to choose from … but they added a few of their own. The Liquidnet Family guests were asked to come to the stage and speak for a few minutes. Anne was asked to speak again as was Nir … again there is a lot about hierarchy and protocol.
We then had dinner and stuck around for a dance party that was being thrown for the kids. We danced a bit, shot some pictures, and shared a lot of smiles with everyone. It was clear that the kids LOVED the party.
I know this is a LONG post … but I wanted to capture as much as I could. I know that I won’t remember all the details so forgive my details. I actually had to hold back (it’s late and we have to be up at 5:30 am tomorrow to go to the Akagera State Park). Check out all the pictures that the group has been posting … sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words!
