Class and some fun adventures

The school week (Monday-Wednesday) of last week was really cool too, even though it wasn't that eventful. On Monday, I met a student named Peter next to the guesthouse. He told me that he wanted to learn English because the first person who comforted him after the genocide spoke English. Then we had a speaker come talk to us at lunch. It's crazy, because the man was like my age and he had already started an NGO! I mean, dang. He talked about how he thought we could stop genocidal ideology through education and financial empowerment. I totally agree.
Then Jenny, Meghan, and I went to this really cool Co-op where there are like twenty stores all filled with awesome souvenirs. I bought a lot of cool things, which I probably won't be able to fit into my luggage. Don't worry, I bought everyone awesome gifts, so get excited! I also bought these awesome tiny wooden elephants that cost almost 8 dollars, but I lost them already! I think I left them in the store, sniff sniff. When I walked into one of the stores, I saw a National Geographic lying on the ground. I got really excited, and I started talking to the store owner and these two German guys about National Geographic and other books too. The Rwandan store owner named Abraham had read the Kite Runner, isn't that awesome!? I told him he had to read A Thousand Splendid Suns, because it is seriously the best book ever.
The next day after class, we were sent on an assignment to interview someone from an NGO. There are like ten NGO's on every street in Kigali, so it wasn't hard to think of one to go to. Jenny, Moriah, Julia, and I tried to talk to someone at the Clinton Foundation, which has an office about five minutes from our guesthouse, but no one was available. Or maybe no one wanted to talk to us. So we stopped by a couple other organizations on the same street, and we walked by a lot of embassies, which was pretty cool. After awhile, we finally go to talk to someone from World Vision, which is an international Christian organization that works to improve the lives of children and to help reconcile the country. We interviewed the communications director, whose name was Frank. It was really interesting because it turns out that he used to be a news anchor for the Rwandan news! (isn't that cool Lauren?!). But he quit because he got kind of sick of the government censorship, even though he believes that there has to be some level of censorship in Rwanda to prevent divisionism between ethnic groups, especially because the media (radio) played such a huge role in the genocide. We ended up going to dinner with him a few days later, and then he confessed his love for me, haha. Most girls on our trip have gotten at least five marriage proposals, haha.
After class on Wednesday, we had another assignment. We were put into groups of three and then given different districts in Kigali to go and explore. We had to take a photograph (after asking permission), and then we had a photo competition. Julia, Amber, and I went to the Biryogo district, which is mostly a residential area. It was really cool, because we just walked around and talked to people. There were women and girls on almost every street corner, sewing with sewing machines powered by their feet. We took a picture of one of those women. She was so nice and so beautiful. Julia printed the picture and brought it to the lady a couple of days later. She was just sitting in the exact same spot, sewing away. Our photo didn't win, but that's ok! In Biryogo we also went into a hospital started by a few Spanish women. It was really cool because I got to practice my Spanish! But there were so many people there that looked very sick, and very sad. The organization is really cool though, because it provides free HIV treatment.
The end!
Love Colleen