At
long last…
It’s
been a while.. a long while since the last update. But finally, you’re wait is over!
I
apologize for the delay! Things have
been…chaotic, discouraging, inspiring, and basically just one big roller
coaster ride. When I read back over the
last update and think of the “wall” I was referring to back then, I realize that
that “wall” was really just a door and not even a big or strong door… just a
plain, simple door but when we finally got it open.. there it was…
the
REAL WALL ….
The
massive nearly impenetrable WALL…
Let
me explain…
I’ll
start back where I left off in the last bulk.
We were told to stop working on the land by the village government.
We
stopped.
Tabitha
met with the Minister of Sport at the District Government office (a little
Tanzanian political lesson- Village Government
is ruled by District Government who
is ruled by Provincial Government and
so on). So, the Minister of Sport is
this amazing lady who was super supportive of our project. She agreed to come out to the land and have a
meeting with the Village Government. The
meeting happened on May 5th.
It was great. 30 village council
members showed up. They asked a lot of
questions. The Minister of Sport did an
awesome job of running the meeting, making sure everyone was on the same
page. We cleared up some rumours that
were floating around… mainly that we paid 50 MILLION SHILLINGS for our land
(roughly 30,000$). Obviously, we didn’t
money since we don’t even have that kind of money to fork out for land. The meeting ended really well. We typed out the Title Deeds document. Seven of the right people that needed to sign
it, signed it. The eighth person was
out of town so all we needed was for him to get back. However, we once again had permission to work
on the land. HORRAYYY!! We started working on the land the next day.
That’s
where things were at when I went then left for Rwanda.
RWANDA
So,
I left for Rwanda on May 15th.
I was going to help with a Tag Rugby Tour organized by Friends of Rwandan Rugby (FORR), a
rugby charity based in the UK started by two friends of mine I met in Rwanda
back in 2007. I had helped the tour in
2009 and was excited by the chance to help out again this year. I met up with the 13 English rugby coaches
who came over to teach tag rugby to the primary school students. The tour was awesome!!! Once again, a complete success!!!! Hundreds
of kids got to learn how to play rugby and participate in a big tournament on
the last day! It was great!!! The
coaches were a blast and I learn tons of about “British humour.”
While
in Rwanda, I also got to spend time with Marceline at the St. Laurent Nursery
School. It was amazing to see her
again. It had been 3 years since I had
been to the school which was way too long!! Marceline is doing incredibly well!
The school saw a few changes this year and there are a few more in store. For starters, in March, the second teacher,
Francoise, got a paying job which unfortunately meant she was unable to
continue volunteering at the nursery school. Obviously, we were disappointed for us, but
happy for that she was able to find a job.
Marceline is continuing on herself and still manages to teach 84
students every day.
At
the start of this year, the Rwandan government implemented a new rule that made
attending nursery school mandatory (not that it means that every kid magically
ends up in a nursery school, but it does mean that the government is supporting
and encouraging the idea of nursery school and that’s an important step). As a result, there have been two new nursery
schools going up in neighbouring villages and we are thrilled! With the government encouraging nursery
school, more families are seeing the value of an early education. We definitely believe early education is the
key to success so the more kids that get to attend nursery school, the
better!!!!
The
next change that’s happening at the school is an important one. After 10 years of providing free education, Marceline
has decided that, to really keep the school going, she needs to collect some
small school fees from the parents. This
is something Marceline and I have talked about in great depth and I definitely
agree with Marceline and have to admit, I am very excited to see it
implemented. Although the fact that
Marceline has been able to provide free education for the last 10 years is
wonderful, she simply cannot keep going without some small financial support
from the parents. The school fees
Marceline is imposing is the equivalent of 50cents/month. All the families can afford the cost, the
problem is convincing them to pay for something that they are accustomed to
getting for free. The fees would allow
Marceline to pay a second teacher a small salary and have some money left over
for chalk and hopefully a little for herself as well, although paying herself
is the last priority on Marceline’s list.
She’s had a few meeting with parents already and many are on board. Starting in September, which is the start of
third term, Marceline will be collecting school fees. As a result, we’re prepared that some
families may not continue and we’ll lose some students, but in the long run,
having small school fees is what will allow the school to be fully
sustainable. I’ll keep you posted on how
things go. We believe over time, the
rest of the families will come around and the little bit of income will allow
the school to be that much better! We also have an exciting proposal in the
works to get support from a group of university students from Edinburgh
University in Scotland. If they accept
our proposal, they will fund and build a third classroom/library, design and
build play equipment for the school (swings, see-saws, monkey bars, etc), and
install a rain water catchment system.
We won’t know for a while if our proposal will be accepted, but here’s
hoping!!!
So,
also in Rwanda, I got to reunite with a bunch of my students! It was pretty
exciting! It was so neat to see how much they’ve changed in three years. Lots of them have graduated high school! Lots
have moved on to universities around Rwanda and are doing incredibly well!!!
Some have started working, and some of the younger ones are now in their final
year of secondary school. It was great
to see them again! I also visited APAGIE, the highschool I used to teach at.
It’s had some amazing renovations and looks incredible! Two new classrooms, 9
rain water catchment tanks installed, a bio lab, a chem lab, a new computer
room. It looks amazing and is great for
the students!! A package my parents sent me in March of 2007 even arrived! It
was full of biology and chemistry posters and those are all up in the lab! Only
4 years late! :)
And
I the last thing I have to say about Rwanda, is about the most inspiring 24
hours I have spent in a long time (and a little reminder just how destiny
works!!) It’s not really about GO!, so I
decided to make it a separate email.. which you are free to read if you so
choose.. but no pressure!! :) It’s a little bit of a warm fuzzy! :) click here for the link to the second update!
So,
after a month in Rwanda, I returned to Kisesa.
While I was away, Tabitha and our GO! staff were CRAZY busy working on
the fields!!! I can’t even believe how much they got done in a short time!!!
First
they finished making bricks. I forgot to
mention, we started making bricks before I left. We found 2 awesome brick makers from the
village and they went to work on our cement bricks. When I left, we have about 250 bricks. By the end of May, they completed 4720
bricks!!!!! AMAZING!!! Plus, Tabitha got 20 people from the village to clear
the land. By the end of May, the entire
land was cleared of brush and scrub!! And Tabitha finally got the Title Deeds
document!!! We got the last signature
and we thought, that everything was done!!!!
Hahahahahaha :) “thought!!!” being the key word.
So,
I got back on June 11th and on June 12th, we finally hit
our WALL..
Our REAL WALL.
Our enormous, nearly impenetrable
WALL!!
And
this is reason I haven’t been writing… I apologize but I just didn’t know what
to say or how to explain everything that we’ve been through in the last month…
On
June 12th, Tabitha went to the District Gov office to deliver our
Title Deeds to the Minister of Land and get him to come out and officially
measure our piece of land. Some people
in the village had been complaining that we were on their land, so to clear
everything up, we went to the District Gov to get an official measurement
done. The documents had already been
passed through all levels of village government and the Minister of Sport had
approved it all. All that was left was
for the Minister of Land at the District Office to send someone out to mark the
land and then we carry on with our project.
Well, the Minister of Land turned out to be a horrible man who berated
Tabitha and basically said, “You have no
land. Your title deeds mean nothing
because the land you were given doesn’t belong to the Village Government, it
belongs to the District Government and we’ve given it to someone else.”
Like
I said,
THE WALL…..
THE MASSIVE WALL…
Basically
it meant, the last two and a half years of meetings and talks with village
officials was for nothing because apparently the land wasn’t even theirs to
give out. Tabitha has started this
process back in 2010 and had done all the necessary meetings with the village
government. Years ago, the federal
government gave all the land to the village government since they would be the
ones overseeing it. However, apparently
the piece of land we were given was exempt and for some UNKNOWN reason, still
belonged to the district. We started the
process with the Village Government because as far as we knew and as far as
they told us, the land belonged to them and was entirely theirs to give out as
they saw fit. Apparently, this was not
the case. It meant that all our
meetings, including our meeting in February of this year and our last meeting
in May and our Title Deeds, and all the money we had spent until now on the
well, the bricks, the land.. was for NOTHING…
Obviously,
this information hit us hard…
Liking
run smack on into a wall.
A
massive wall..
Tabitha
told me all this information at like 8pm, while sitting on the floor in our
little kitchen …and it definitely felt like a train plowed through our kitchen
and just knocked the wind right out of me…
But
luckily, we discovered that we both have these amazing powers of denial!!
We
didn’t scream… too much…
I
only cried a little bit…
and
basically, we just made the decision to refuse to accept it.
We
believe in what we’re doing. We know
there are thousands of people in the village who support our project. If adults and their politics want to try to
stop development from coming to the village, then it just means we need to work
even harder, because in the end, we’re not doing this for adults, we’re doing
this for kids. For kids who are living
on the street and have no one to care for them and love them.. and if these
adults are actively preventing this project from happening, it means they are
not at all concerned about what’s in the best interest for the kids, and
therefore it means the kids need us even more than we thought!!
So,
that was our decision.
We
decided, while lying on our cement floor, that we were going to do everything
in our power to make Hero Home happen.
When
Tabitha initially met with the Minister of Land, he did give her one tiny ray
of hope. He rudely explained that District Gov had already given the land to
some organization that wants to put in a wildlife college or something, but IF there is land left over, then we can
apply for it and we’ll go from there.
But basically, it meant we would have to restart the ENTIRE process of
asking for land and having the necessary meetings.. AND every meeting is just
one more expense that we cannot afford.
So, the first step was to
attend a meeting with over 60 district gov officials. Tabitha went with the Mayor of the Village where
our land is. He’s been an absolute gem
in this whole process and actually appears to WANT development to come to his
village! Strange concept, eh? I, of
course, couldn’t go to the meeting because my skin colour was not going to make
the process any easier or any cheaper.
Tabitha explained our project and answered questions. She then met with the District Commissioner
(the top dog of the District Government) and he said the project sounded fine. He ordered his guys to go measure the land
and see if there was enough land for us and the college. However, because all of this has come out of
nowhere, they had no budget for anything.
It meant that if we wanted this to happen in a timely manner, we had to cover
the cost of getting the people and a car out to the land. So we began forking over the cash. The guys went out two days later to measure
the land. They discovered that there
were over 250 acres. More than enough
for the college, which wanted 100, and us who wanted 30. One tiny crack in our WALL!!!! :)
Despite there being enough
land, it didn’t guarantee on any level that we would get the land that we had
already cleared. It only meant that the
potential was there. From there, we drafted a letter to official ask for land. We also mentioned in the letter that we had
already started on the land and had invested time and money in the
process. Tabitha delivered the letter
and some more chaos ensued, but again.. another crack in our WALL!!
In delivering the letter, we
learned that the only way to get our projected accepted was to present it at a
meeting with half of all the people in the 7 villages of the division of Ihushi
(where our project is taking place).
That meant funding a meeting with approximately 3500 people!!!!!!! It
meant a HUGE expense that of course we had not budgeted for. We tried getting around it and finding any
other path, but in the end, it is the official procedure for any project and
that left us with two choices.
*One, we do the meeting,
fork out the money (approximately 7000$) and we hopefully get our land and
carrying out our vision of Hero Home.
OR
*Two, we don’t do the
meeting and that’s the end. We cut our
losses and run.
Although the money was HUGE
and neither of us could even fathom the idea of spending that much money, we
knew that cutting our losses wasn’t an option.
There are so many people invested in this project and we have worked so
hard for it and the kids need it…. so in the end, we knew that there was only
one option.
We had a preliminary meeting
with the District Gov officials and the Village Gov officials and then planned
the main meeting. The HUGE meeting took
place on Friday, July 13, one long and stressful month after we were first told
we didn’t have land. The meeting took
place at 3 different locations so that everyone could attend. According to Tabitha, there was tons of
chaos. Basically, the villagers are fed
up with the government, and rightfully so.
However, they chose our meeting as a venue to express their
frustrations. Basically, none of the
problems related to US personally or
our project or our vision. The issues
all surrounded the government… It was hugely frustrating that we had to get
swept up in the politics, but it was encouraging to know that people didn’t
have issues with our project.. just issues with the government. After hours and hours of dialogue, every one
at all three meetings voted in support of our project and over 3500 signatures
later, our project was passed through!!
Take that impenetrable WALL!!!
So, it took over a month..
and more money than we could ever have imagined.. but we now have 30 acres of
land in Bujashi, Tanzania. I feel a
little like a broken record. It’s like
I’ve said that a few imes before! :) An official letter has been drafted. We’re waiting for it to be signed by the
District Commissioner but as of today, we are back to work on the land. I’ll hold off on the full celebration until I
have a signed copy of the letter in my hand.. but as sure as you can be in Africa,
we are sure that the land is now officially and hopefully, undeniably ours.
Our next steps are building
a storage shed for our supplies, clearly the rest of the land, making cement
fence posts, making more bricks, designing our house and starting construction
of our house, planting trees, and much more!! Hopefully we can move full steam
ahead and hopefully all the government issues are well behind us. On the upside, we’ve become extremely well
known in the village and people are definitely supporting our cause. It’s been quite a learning experience and one
that I don’t want to live through again anytime soon!!!
Otherwise, we’re doing
alright. Tabitha is doing much much
better! Thanks for the all the prayers, vibes, thoughts, and wishes! She’s amazing!!
And was absolutely phenomenal in dealing with the government officials!! Here’s
hoping I can be amazing in fundraising the rest of the money :)
And last update, we had our
first volunteers!!! Tom Clarke and Claire Kassidy Kojima from England graced us
with their presence!!!!! They’ve been amazing! Tom is spending a month with us
(has 1 week left) and as a professional accountant, he’s been amazing at
helping with the budgets and project plans! Claire spent 12 days with us and
has just graduated from Med. School. I’m
working on convincing her to become Hero Home’s official doctor!! J Tabitha’s son Victor is also with us so the house
has definitely been full of life!! It’s been fantastic!!!
I hope everyone is enjoying
the summer!!! Take in the warm weather while it lasts!! I’m sure snow is right
around the corner! :)
Thanks for reading and
thanks for all the support!!
Amanda
