Day 3

Day 3
After a good night's sleep, we all awoke for breakfast and piled into the mini buses and went on a long drive to a youth group building in the rural part of Rwanda. Bouncing along narrow dirt tracks and Rachel banging her head on the roof from time to time, we finally arrived. We were welcomed to their village in their personal way by singing and dancing!This gave us an amazing sense of love from the locals. We were privileged to find that they actually took time out of their daily jobs and routines just to welcome us. We were shown around the grounds of the building that we helped to fund, being told about what the building was going to be used for, such as youth clubs, worship and weddings. One of the Pastors walked us around outside showing us the local trees and plants and the boundaries of their land.
They gathered us together into the building to sing a number of songs, which we were pulled into their group to dance along with them. This was a good way of getting us all to mix together and encourage interaction as a community. A number of speeches were made by the committee of the youth group explaining how peace work has made such an impact on their village and to thank us for visiting them. They expressed how they found it hard to believe that people from another country would help them and thanked us for our contributions towards their new building. John showed our gratitude to the locals of our welcome and how happy we were to be there. We gave out our gifts that we had brought for them. Crosses on rope necklaces from the Holy Land with personal messages attached. Also, football kits. Its was lovely to see the children's delight on their faces when they saw what they had got.
We then helped to move sand from outside the building to the area of which they were working inside. This was to make concrete for the walls of the building. Many times Lucy and Alistair (who were in competition to carry the heaviest bag) walked into the low scaffolding which the locals found hilarious. The locals found it amusing to see how the westerners worked, our weakness and lack of speed compared to their rate of work!

We then drove to the trade union centre, which is a shopping centre. In here we realised the difference between the rural areas and the more Americanized parts of Rwanda. Many of us visited the coffee shop that Yvonne has raved about and enjoyed, cakes, chips, coffee, hot chocolate and burgers!