Greetings all.

Just home.

Sending out thanks to all my wonderful women for all the runnings shoes!

4 hockey bags filled with almost 300lbs of 150 pairs of runners of all styles and sizes made their way from Toronto to Musanze earlier this month, changing planes in Amsterdam and Nairobi.

Paul, our Rwandan partner, connected us with a local girls' high school, government run, for orphans and especially poor.

As the school population was significantly higher than 150 girls, the headmaster determined that girls participating in school athletics would get the runners, to enable them to participate effectively. (It's hard to play soccer in flip-flops.)
The most amazing part of the experience was, in the end, how generous the girls were with each other.
Very counter to the 'f#8k y#o' free-for-all' I've witnessed at clearance house events here in Toronto over the years!


This was but one small part, impacting in a simple yet profound way, of a very exciting and productive trip.
Thanks again to everyone who helped make the event back in June such a success.
Roughly the same time next year, ladies?

Oops, Wait...There's More Sh*t...

I almost forgot to mention that I had a 'Celebration Of Women' back on June 28th. A wonderfully eclectic group of women were treated to an evening of insight and aMUSEment thanks to a very talented group of 4 Intuitives (aka psychics) lead by Mara Leja who read Tarot, Rune stones, Goddess cards and the like, as well as some pampering thanks to masseuses Kimberley Landreville and Heather Heaney. Beautiful handmade jewelry by Shari Morasch and gift cards by yours truly provided a shopping opportunity.

Every woman was asked to bring gently used running shoes to be given to our Rwandan sisters when Jeff and I return to Musanze in October.

I am happy to report that thanks to all these wonderful women, we raised just under $1,000. and 150 pairs of running shoes!

Hey, What's Up With That Sh*t?

It's been quite a while since we updated our blog and there is much to tell you about this little initiative that just keeps growing and gaining traction.
Our February trip seems so long ago.

A brief recap...
Beatrice's house was rebuilt and the community volunteers were kind enough to wait for us before the finishing touches.

As these homes are a combination of wood and a mud/aggregate/cement mixture, we were able to help out with the 'mud' flinging that fills the spaces between the wood. It was great fun, very cathartic, and not nearly as easy as it first looked.

With Paul, our co-founder, Beatrice and Andrew, the leader of The Porters Club of farmers, all standing inside Beatrice's unfinished house.

A volunteer smooths the 'mud' 

We are excited to visit Beatrice and her children living in their new home when we return in October.

We also had a chance to be present for another round of sheep purchase and delivery, this time beginning with the first of the Amizero Group of farmers.
It was a lovely surprise to see that some of the recipients were the same people we met when we stayed over-night at a "traditional village', Iby'lwacu almost 2 years ago. In fact, Jeff had drummed and I did some dancing!

Andrew, the leader of The Porters Club of farmers addressed concerns the farmers had that they would soon have more sheep than they could look after, and wanted to get on with the last part of their commitment to the project, passing on a sheep to other Rwandan farmers from a different cooperative.

Logistics such as the great walking distances between the various farming groups made it difficult to easily pay forward the sheep owed to the project on an individual basis. It would also be more difficult to keep track of the growing number of sheep and to tag them, as well as to have them examined by a vet.

We would need a place to keep the sheep until the transfers could take place.

And so our project begins another initiative.
Thanks to the incredible generosity of a small handful of supporters who will be joining us on a trip to Rwanda/Tanzania in October, we are in the process of negotiating a 5 year lease on a lovely little piece of land, in the heart of the farming community, next to the Iby'lwacu Village, very near a small, spring-fed lake where women and children come to fill their gerry cans with water.
The lease contract is being prepared now, in Knyarwanda of course, so we will have to wait for the translation to be forwarded to us.

Once again, we cannot thank Paul, our co-founder, enough for all his commitment to this amazing little endeavour. It's really his efforts, along with the Rwandan farmers, that make this all possible.

standing on our land with Iby l'wacu Village in the distance

the spring-fed lake just beside our land

It's Not The Same Old Sh*t...

Many of the farmers from our first project, The Porters Club, are now ready, and eager, to pass a sheep on to another farmer, this time from The Amizero (Hope) Group.
And The Amizero Group have been meeting in preparation for our arrival on February 8th.





Meanwhile, we have also undertaken a small side-project.
Beatrice is a hard-working single mother of 3 and struggling subsistence farmer. After only one year Beatrice went from no sheep to 4 sheep! The ewe she received from the project was already pregnant. It gave birth to a female lamb and then went on to have female twins 10 months later. And all 4 will reproduce before the end of 2012. That’s a load of sh*t in the best sense!
Her crop yield increased and she started a small kitchen garden with her children’s assistance.
The co-operative leaders showed us the broken down state of Beatrice’s small, single room home back in October 2011. I didn’t have the heart to look inside. They said if we provided the materials necessary, the community would build her a new one.
Done!
So when we return in February, we will be part of the construction crew in this community initiative.
And we will witness as Beatrice, now the proud owner of a flock of sheep, passes one on to another farmer in a new co-operative. Rwandans helping Rwandans, making us eventually obsolete.

Interesting Sh*t...

We are humbled by and excited about all the support we are getting.
It seems sh*t really can be interesting.

An evening of mesmerizing theatre at The Tarragon introduced us to the incredible talents of d'bi young and her one woman 'Sankofa Trilogy'.
Couple that with the generosity of family, friends and a surprising number of 'newbies'.
Together they have helped to raise almost $9,000.
That's enough for 180 sheep.
Almost exactly what we need to begin our next initiative, working with the 'Amizero (Hope) Group'.
Ex-poachers who gave up illegal hunting to encourage the preservation of the wildlife in the National Park.
As there are 567 of them, we will work in stages.
Beginning next week, Paul, our partner in Rwanda, will meet with the leaders of the 4 groups that make up our first stage.
147 females and 30 males, thanks to our supporters, will be sourced in the extended community, stimulating the local economy.
147 families will soon begin to benefit from the rich, nutritious compost generated by the sheep manure.
And not long after, the babies will begin to arrive.

Pretty soon, we'll have over a thousand sheep in the project.
And that will double a year later.
No shit!


Merry Everything!
Happy Always!

educational sh*t...

There are over 2000 children in Kabwende Primary School.
Half go to school in the morning and half in the afternoon.
They are desperate for school supplies. Basics like pencils, pens, paper, as well as all kinds of additional learning resources and teacher's aids.

To help collect these much needed items, we are putting together educational baskets.

classrooms are as basic as can be imagined

Headmaster examines early readers and math aids

From: Clement Nkuriyingoma <clementnkuriy@yahoo.fr>
Date: 17 October, 2011 11:51:40 AM EDT
To: <rayman@secutor.ca>
Subject: Thanks

I'm Clement Nkuriyingoma Headmaster  of  Kabwende  primary  school near Guest house KINIGI in Musanze  District , Northern  Province / Rwanda . I am very glad to write  for  you .  Thank  you  for  visiting  Kabwende  primary  school  . We enjoyed  very  much  the  gifts given  and we  expect       with  gladness to  receive   other  gifts  of grammar  , dictionaries , worldMap .
In next  January   2012  . _ If  possible  , we  would  like to  ask  you  some teachers  Aids  of Science for each  topics  as mentioned  below :
 1) The water  cycle,
2) Eye ,
3) Purification
4) human  body ,
5) Skeleton  and  Muscles  of the  human  body 
6) Male  and  female  reproductive   system  ,
7) Digective  organs ,...
 We  are  very  happy   for  you  and you have  

delivering supplies

most well come at Kabwende Primary School  .
 Thank you  indeed  .
Faithfully ,  Clement  NKURIYINGOMA

So thank, honour or entice
someone this holiday season!
Instead of the same old baskets of jams,
coffees and cookies, why not ...
Open the doors of learning to change a
child’s life...in the community 
of Musanze, Rwanda- in the foothills of
the forest home to the world’s only
Mountain Gorillas.
School baskets will help teachers put children on the right track to a
positive future!

BASIC BASKET     COST:  $30.00      

greetings and thanks from Musanze, Rwanda

Rarely can simple tools hold the                  

potential to impact a classroom.

Pencils, pens, erasers, rulers,

chalk, notebooks, teaching

posters, world map.

LITERACY BASKET     COST: $50.00

For children living in

poverty, learning to read can

be a powerful life-changing

achievement. Basic Basket

plus storybooks, exercise

books and dictionary.

DELUXE BASKET     COST: $75.00

Resources can transform a

classroom helping children grow

brighter, stronger and more

imaginative. Literacy Basket

plus calculators, protractor sets

and assrt’d creative learning

tools.

email ritarayman@sympatico.ca or call Rita at 416 657 8246 

Tax receipts will be issued.



                                

 

And More Good Sh*t...

In old days manure from various animals, once dried, was used as medicine!
It was rubbed on the body, mixed into food, or made into a tea!
Did you know that dried manure can be burned to keep houses warm or for cooking fuel?
No shit!

Greetings from what is now, here anyway, The  Nkunda U Rwanda Project -a kinder, gentler name we've adopted locally that means "The I Love Rwanda Project".
It seems "The Shit Starts Here" just doesn"t translate.

Our meeting today was with the Executive, yes Executive, of a cooperative of ex-poachers who refer to themselves as 'The Hope Group'.
There are 567 members, divided into 16 groups, spanning a distance of 60km.

We were positively blown away!
From the president to the accountant, this Executive was organized and cohesive, proving that a lack of resources doesn't equal a lack of intelligence!

A small group of hunters had voluntarily stopped poaching in 2000.
In 2007 The National Park started paying a small allowance to the first ex-poachers to encourage others to join them.
Their numbers have grown steadily since then, recognizing that it was better for them, their community and the future of their children to protect the animals and their environment.
Today, having given up illegal hunting, those that do not have land to farm are limited to making potato seeds to sell at market and carving wooden gorillas and walking sticks for sale to tourists for income.
While every family has a small house, for those who do not have land, farmland is shared, kibbutz style.

We were originally only meeting with these representatives to determine if and when we might begin working with a new cooperative.
Thinking that we wanted to see our first cooperative of porter/farmers firmly established, and knowing that set-backs are still likely to occur, we were thinking that maybe in another year or so we'd be ready to expand.

Well, we were so impressed with The Hope Group that we decided to excellerate our timetable and begin immediately.
In fact, an initial proposal for a contract will be drafted before we leave Musanze.

Now, sourcing 567 sheep for purchase is a daunting and expensive task, so we agreed to start with roughly half the cooperative, knowing the rest would have to wait a year or more, after the start date more than 3 months away.
How to decide who the recipients would be?

We were once again blown away when the Executive of The Hope Group immediately suggested that we focus our efforts on those most in need.

Wonderfully not the expected "what about me" thinking

They brought to our attention an area they call The Critical Zone.
The soil is especially poor and it is located near the animals in the National Park, thus being a constant temptation to revert to illegal hunting.
6 of the 16 groups live in this area, roughly 220 families.
So we will be purchasing 220 females and 44 males.

We're stoked!

And the shit continues...

The next few days  will be a whirlwind of various farm visits, meetings with local government officials, banks, and even the Park Warden, and last but not least, one of the neediest of the local schools.

A special thank you goes out to the kids at Perth Elementary School who raised $100 one dollar at a time, selling bracelets, to help buy 2 sheep.
The beautiful story book they made has pleased and amazed both young and old alike.
And to Trish, the very special  teacher/librarian that inspired them, our thanks for passing on "The Truth About Poop", a charming and insightful book for kids of all ages that has inspired the "what next?" part of our collective efforts here.

Stay tuned for more shit...