Making a difference in Rwanda

By JEANETTE SUNG

Published in the Star (Malaysian national newspaper on Sun, Jul 29, 2007)
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2007/7/29/lifefocus/20070729084644&sec=lifefocus

ACLOUD of red dust hangs over Kigali, Rwanda. We come home everyday with a layer of fine red dust covering our faces, clothes, shoes, and bags. My camera does not escape the dust. 

I am in Rwanda with Youth With A Mission (YWAM), Canada. It is a Christian missionary organisation who are active in humanitarian works, and also run various schools that equip you with skills to be effective on the mission field. 

I attended one of these schools – Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) first in Michigan, US, in 2004, and then the certificate course in Washington in early 2007, and that is how I became involved in the Rwanda missions trip. 

We are a team of seven, and I am the only Malaysian. The other six are Canadians. We had a four-day boot camp in Toronto, Canada for a cultural orientation, practice for presentations, and other preparation for the trip. Finally, we left for Rwanda early this month. 

Rwanda is a beautiful country with hills upon hills, and houses dotting the hills and the valleys. It is a nation scarred by genocide but seeking healing, reconciliation, and peace. 

Despite the sufferings they have endured, warmth and love overflow from the people I have met. They greet you with three kisses on your cheeks, like the French. 

During the first week, we were in Butare, a town two and a half hours from Kigali. It is more rural and there are fewer mzungus (white men). The children yell mzungu every time we pass by. I was also called a mzungu and I am not sure why because I am neither white nor am I a man. Later, I corrected them and told them I was a mushinuwa (Asian). 

In Butare, we worked with the Africa Mission Alliance (AMA - www.africamissionalliance. org) and one of our projects was to set up a recording studio for them to generate income through recording albums for sale, running a radio program, and selling airtime. 

We brought over donated studio equipment and trained a gifted local musician JP to use it. I was not directly involved with that but my time was spent training English teachers, some of whom were teaching in primary schools and some were teaching pastors. 

Our team also ran children’s programmes in schools started by AMA, and most of the children have sponsors who pay for their school and basic needs. 

One girl in our team, 20- year-old Judith Lawrence from Quebec, Canada, raised USD$1,700 (RM5,950) to buy between 50 and 65 goats to give to widows as a source of income. 

Under this programme, each widow who receives a goat has to give away their goat’s first kid, and then they can sell the successive kids and also its milk. This creates an exponential effect, and hopefully Judith's seed contribution will eventually help raise the entire village's income. 

My main role is team photographer. I post pictures of each day’s activities on our weblog to keep our sponsors, supporters, family, churches, and friends updated. It is also to report on the work that is being carried out here to show the people who contributed to our trip that their money is being spent wisely. 

Last Saturday, I took portrait photographs of 53 children who are on the waiting list for sponsors who will look after their basic needs. It costs USD$28 (RM95) per month to enable a child to go to school, buy school supplies, have a balanced diet and other basic necessities. 

There are pictures of the children on the weblog but I will be setting up another website for AMA to post the sponsor children’s pictures and profiles for potential sponsors to browse and donate. 

We were spoiled in Butare. We had five dishes every meal, someone washed our clothes and our dishes, made our beds, and we had hot water showers and flushing toilets. 

This week, our team is staying at the Rwandan YWAM base in Kigali, and we are getting the full missions experience here. There is no running water, so we have to haul water up the hill in buckets for flushing the toilet, showers, brushing our teeth, and washing our clothes. I took the easy way out and paid someone to wash my clothes. 

It is the dry season now, so our clothes gets very dusty and the weather is cool – between 16 and 25 degrees Celsius so our bucket showers are very cold. 

Our meals consist mainly of beans, peas, potatoes, plantains, rice, and the occasional pasta. Tonight, we had French fries and cabbage in tomato sauce, a special treat. I filled up my plate tonight. Beans and peas are my least favourite foods so I survive on granola bars and chocolate. 

We travel mostly in mini-van taxis but I had the experience of riding on a motorcycle taxi once and that was quite an adrenaline-pumping event. We sleep under mosquito nets every night and have to take daily anti-malaria pills. We also filter our own water for drinking and brushing our teeth. 

My life has been changed by this trip. I have developed deeper compassion and a greater sensitivity to the needs of people. 

In the sponsored schools, there were over 200 children and we had limited supplies so we broke crayons into quarters for children to share. 

When I saw their faces light up at such a small item, I felt remorse in my heart. These children rejoiced over so little. How much more should I rejoice and be content in whatever I have. 

Another thing I have learned is that one person can change a village, a city, a nation, and even the world. 

Rwandan Amon Munyaneza, 31, founder of AMA, is changing Rwanda. AMA started in 2002, and he has since started two schools with over 200 children in each, runs a feeding programme for street children, found sponsorship for has over 500 children, trains English teachers, offers vocational skill training such as sewing, and has goat and cow programmes for widows. 

I, too, am setting out to make an impact. I would like to complete my Masters in TESOL to train English teachers in the University of Rwanda and also in other countries. I also feel that my role is to travel to different countries to show people through pictures, the humanitarian works that are going on and how they can do their part too. 

I have fallen in love with the people of Rwanda. Our team leaves soon, but a part of my heart will always remain in Rwanda,des Mille Collines – the land of a thousand hills. 

If you would like to sponsor a child, please email me at ahnette@gmail.com. Please visit our team weblog if you would like to see pictures from our daily journals: www.xanga.com/thesoundofhope07/.