SKids
Enlarged family: no pregnancy, only (!) 4 children from the street to our place, or better first in 2 tents in the garden, then the rainy season stopped our camping project and we found a room in Amizero Special Needs school; they take meals (either we cook or they do it on the traditional fireplace) and showers and wash clothes at our place (mostly outside).
EASTER
Saturday event for children: we planned it, led Sunday School for 2 Sundays to prepare sketches, then led the event, Mattia telling the story of Easter and then explaining it (with translation), Elena and Mattia leading one sketch each, the kids joining their age-group; at the end, drinks and cakes for everyone (150).
FAMILY EASTER
We treated us to chocolate-bars: an imported rarity we bought only for the special occasion, for ecological/sustainable-reasons; we enjoyed lunch inviting our 4 adopted sons to our table and for dinner we were invited to a very poor house by a brother-father with 4 siblings we had just started to support.
HOLIDAYS
One week for our children: some time together, some with our adopted sons, but mostly still busy with our activities, as the needs of Mattia's children have no holidays and we had to supervise the building of the new physio-room, trying to finish during the two weeks of local school holidays (we didn't...)
VISITING TRIPS
During the holidays and on a Saturday, Mattia took 3 of our 4 adopted sons to visit their families and went also to check how our first reintegrated boy is doing, also to start a new project of family support, buying animals for his mother; on one occasion Pastor Eraste and Michele joined the tour, on another Sam&Michele; one time we saw a lake, the next we swam in one!
STRESS LEVELS RISING
The above mentioned supervision of the building process not only cancelled any idea of Easter break, but also kept us busy and stressed for the rest of April, as did buying material and chasing plumbers and water-officers in an attempt of suppling running water to Amizero School and fixing all toilets. The non-cooperation or the clashes with some figures of the local church didn't help either...
RAIN
Not to forget Ireland, the rainy season, started in March, kicked in seriously in April, with a daily hour of deluge and temperatures decreasing significantly morning and evening, which means respite from the heat and a rare usage of jumpers for us, but a feeling of "cold" and frequent illnesses to the locals. Real problem: mosquitoes abound!
MEMORIAL WEEK
from the 7th of the April, to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the genocide, people are off in the morning and some go to meetings; slogan: REMEMBER, REUNITE, RENEW; we took all our 6 children to the Memorial in Kigali, with museum and the resting place of 250,000 bodies: first time for all of them (we went in August), all quite moved.
For all of this and more, and especially for some picture-stories of the visiting trips, please check the galleries page!
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