6/15/2018 0 Comments Two schools linkedThree years ago while doing a WaterAid assembly at Bosbury Primary near Ledbury in Herefordshire, I was chatting to Maggie the Headteacher about my time in Rwanda and she expressed an interest in forming a link. The children wrote letters to their partner school, ECPS Tara Primary which I delivered when I visited the school in 2017. I brought letters back from the Rwandan children and videos. The a couple of months ago we found that the British Council was funding link school visits through their Connecting Classrooms programme. It was a lot of work for both schools to complete online courses before the deadline and was particularly challenging for the Rwandan school as the network can sometimes be poor here. But they managed it and at the beginning of June, Sue and Lizzie from Bosbury Primary arrived to spend a week with their link school. I was so excited that finally the schools would form a proper link and no longer rely on me as a mediator. I arranged a day's leave so i could spend time with them at the school. And then ---- was told that there was a full week's training for me in Kigali so I had to cancel the leave. I was gutted but still managed to spend the weekend and part of the first day before I had to travel to Kigali. We spent Sunday with Sue and Lizzie at the fabulous Hotel Emeraude. We went into the town via moto which was great fun. Emmanuel came to the hotel to meet Sue and Lizzie for the first time. They had some books to give him. He was so excited. He had told me previously he is planning on having a library so this is the start! The we were invited to the Abagore bar (Ladies' bar) near the hotel to meet the parents' committee from the school and local leaders. Lots of speeches (Sue and Lizzie had to do two each!) We were well looked after with drinks and chicken and chips and everyone was so happy to see their visitors. One of the members of the parents' committee Jean Paul (a founder member of the school) is a coffee farmer and we were delighted to receive a packet of his coffee that he sells all over the world. On Monday morning Sue and Lizzie went to the school for the first time to meet the children and the teachers. I was able to call in for a couple of hours before I had to head to Kigali on the bus. We managed a video live chat with the children at Bosbury who sang to us from their school assembly. P4,5,and 6 children at Tara crammed into a classroom and sang as well. It was also lovely to spend time visiting classes and seeing my former student, Valens, in action with his nursery children. Tara primary has benefitted from money raised through Welsh Water and now have two rainwater harvesting tanks (previously the school did not have any water tanks). Sue and Lizzie are Welsh Water customers and in some way so is Emmanuel! I was really sorry to have to leave and would have loved to spend more time with them all but I knew they would have an amazing week.
Emmanuel and the teachers and parents at Tara Primary did an amazing job and I am sure the link between Bosbury and Tara will go from strength to strength! We did have a final chance to meet up with Sue and Lizzie before they flew home as we attended the Queen's birthday party at the residence of the British High Commissioner in Kigali.
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6/15/2018 0 Comments Rwandan wedding - part 2!!Having attended the dowry ceremony for Isaie and Noella the next celebration was the religious ceremony at a large catholic church in Kamembe. I had been told we would be dressed so arrived at the Rwanda Aid house and met Janyis where we awaited our clothes. There had been some miscommunication and this time we were not going to be provided with Rwandan garb to wear. Fortunately we were staying at a nearby hotel so Glyn whizzed me back by motorbike so I could change quickly into something a bit more wedding appropriate than my tatty cut off jeans and T shirt. We joined the ceremony at the church where the bridal party were getting ready to enter the church. The super cute bridesmaids and page boys were inside the church sat at the back The photos were taken by the lake Then the reception was at the Divina Centre by Lake Kivu - the friends and family had done a fantastic job with the decoration of the hall. ![]() ![]() The lighting of the candles on the cake was pretty spectacular The table bling was also very impressive! ![]() Very excited to see the bottle of red wine ----- non alcoholic? Really??
So we danced instead and yes Ed Sheeran did feature! We were honoured to be invited to the wedding of Isaie and Noella. Isaie works for Rwanda Aid.
The wedding was a very big affair with about 800 guests invited. It took place over two days. The first weekend was the dowry and the following weekend the religious ceremony and reception. The RwandaAid ladies were all dressed in matching outfits for the dowry which took place in the grounds of the Sunshine Academy (a nursery school that used to be a hotel) in Kamembe. The pictures say it all, I think! |
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December 2018
Preparing to go back to our second home
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