Long overdue update on our situation here: for the sake of clarity and shortness, as factual as can be, leaving extensive comments for another occasion.
As you might have guessed from reading posts below and/or listening to our sounds (see bar above for soundcloud), things are not going well at all, and have not for a while.
Mattia was stopped from his very good work with children, youth and mothers at the end of October and therefore resigned from his post, as he cannot work with/for an organisation which chases children and mothers out of its (and his!) premises. Resignations were not accepted, but after a month of soul-draining wait for a supposedly helpful visit from our coordinator, the outcome was simply having to listen to the Bishop firing Mattia, quoting as reasons that he goes to the slums and even to the police (not to be arrested, but to plead for the release of youngsters) and that he gathers too many unknown children and mothers: if all this is wrong, well then it is right to be fired; sadly, our sending agency just accepted the Bishop's decision and, to add salt to the wound, decided to fire Elena "as a consequence", meaning that now both our contracts have been terminated, though, despite all her troubles and frustrations she was willing to continue her job, the Church had nothing against her doing so and we were ready to keep going with only one contract and/or to look for alternative options, such as being re-deployed to other centres managed by the Church, to keep the partnership alive without the constant clashes we have been experiencing in Kigali.
Not only they let Mattia down without saying a word and fired Elena without any real reason, but they even expect us to go away "immediately", or "as soon as possible"; yet, not being parcels but a family, we are trying to stay as long as we can, to manage the transition to our uncertain future in the best possible way, taking as much time as we need, also to finish as decently as we can all we started and worked on so passionately for nearly a year.
We are currently arguing about our departure's date and it is hard to understand what we really want or feel like we should or actually can do in the near future, so we are not in a position to tell you anything more specific yet.
In the meantime, to escape a destiny of mental breakdown, we've stuck to our pre-disaster plans and now that the kids are off school for their Christmas break, we have fled Kigali to seek shelter in Kibogora, a village in the West, on the beautiful shores of Lake Kivu, where the Methodist Church founded a hospital decades ago; we are staying in one of a wonderful group of houses for missionary families, for some much needed holidays and for Elena to spend some days (both before Christmas and in the new year) training the hospital's physiotherapists in Paper Furniture, so that they can manufacture assistive devices using cardboard and paper, and homemade glue.
