Fire(d)works.1

It's now only a week before your flight back, but you've written, recorded and taken shots aplenty about your year-and-a-bit in Rwanda, so the big question is: what the f...ired has Mattia been doing since the 30th of November, when the Bishop "terminated his contract", due to devilish occupations like visiting street children at night, gathering too many unknown children and mothers in the church compound or visiting the police station to plead for youth's release?

Well, actually he first stopped him from doing any work with children or mothers on the 27th of October, so it is better to start from there to tell you about his... 

                                           FIREDWORKS

1) SAVING THE SAVERS 

After the evil lord banished them, the mothers' "save4school" groups went underground, which in actual fact means Mattia advised/begged/ordered them to keep meeting&saving, only outside the devil's den, which they did, first on the pavement, just outside the gate, then at a nearby football dirt-pitch and finally, thanks to Assistant Ildephonse at a newly opened building managed by the local authorities; we lost a few mothers and many lost constancy, but the project survived, even when they heard we would leave soon, and recently they've cashed their savings to pay for this year's school fees (first term). We had a major setback when it came out that due to their insistence on asking for amounts they were sure of and Ildephonse's big mistake of not trusting the copybooks (makeshift account-books), he handed out more money than due, so we had to step in and fill the hole in the accounts, thanks also to some leftovers from donations. However, apart from these unhappy details (mostly due to inexperience and excessive trust, on Ildephonse from our side and on the mothers from his), the numbers are quite positive: around 250 mothers cashed savings for nearly a million RWF (1000GBP), which means that, as we hoped and believed, despite their lack of belief in the idea and their financially desperate situations, they were, on average, able to send at least one child to school through saving rather than receiving aid. 

We won't be carried away by the apparent success, as they've all got more than one child and they also need uniforms, stationery and fees for two more terms, yet it is a very encouraging beginning. 

The big issue is: will it continue? Lots of doubts about that, with us gone before it was all more firmly established, but that's something the Bishop and WCR (the Methodist Mission Office who sent us and is now taking us back) will have to answer to the Boss upstairs.