Rwanda 2020 ~ Day 1

February 7, 2020 ~ Today we woke up in beautiful Rwanda! The first step is to always flag down a motorbike to take to exchange money and get some breakfast. Motorbikes are always an experience since there doesn’t seem to be any traffic laws in the country. After breakfast we take a walk through nyarutarama to the orphanage. This walk is roughly a mile and a half. The villagers give us curious glances until we smile and say, “Mwaramutse” (Good Morning). Then they laugh and say good morning back.

Once we pass the some the village we get to the top of a steep hill that is above the orphanage. At this point there is a local school for children. Once they see us they all run up the hill and greet us with hugs and smiles! These children live in the village. We make sure we bring enough candy to pass out to the children and their teachers every day!

We brave it down a steep hill. Don’t worry, if we slip and fall the children are there to laugh at us and help us up. We finally get to the orphanages big blue doors! When we arrive the children are in class. We wait patiently until they take their breakfast.

The children sneak hugs, high fives, and smiles as they line up to wash their hands. Helping the teachers pass out the bags for breakfast is always interesting.

Since it was the first day of our visit, the teachers allowed us to play with the children, after their breakfast, until they left to go home. It is so great to see the same children every year and know that they are being taken care of and healthy. We did learn that “Baby Shark” made it all the way to Rwanda!

Here is a quick breakdown of the orphanage, Daniel’s House, we visit:

• There are a total of 474 children under the care of Daniel’s House
• 7 are in Universities
• 22 finished secondary schools and are waiting to go to University
• 51 finished their secondary school, not attending University.
• 136 are in secondary school (ages 12 – 16)
• 191 are in primary school (ages 5-12)
• 67 in preschool at Daniel’s House.