New adventure, new country, NEW BLOG!

www.guatemems.blogspot.com

Greetings

The shackles are undone;

the bullet's quit the gun;

The heat that's in the sun

will keep us when there's none;

The rule has been disproved:

The grave is now a groove;

All debts are removed.

(Window in the Sky - Bono)

That's what we feel Easter means: 
freedom, end of fear, eternal hope, death's defeat, complete forgiveness!

That's a good song, but our Easter's sound is another one, still talking about change for the better, new life, freedom, lots of hope and reminding us of what we did, what we learnt, what we tried to convey, what we experienced and most of all whom we met in our past, troublesome, intense, exciting, fulfilling (at times), unforgettable year... you can find it here!

The next step

We left Rwanda knowing we wanted to find another opportunity to serve abroad, so as to channel our energy into other similar activities rather than go back and fall into depression and bitterness. We also knew we needed something to come up soon, as it would be better to take this month as a sort of holiday between two assignments, rather than settle back into "standard" life and maybe leave again in the future, which would be harder, especially for the children.

We are happy to say we've been lucky and we've found an exciting project to dedicate ourselves to: on the 7th of April we're leaving for Guatemala, in Central America, just south of Mexico.

We are going to work with UPAVIM (Unidas para vivir major, which in Spanish means United to Live Better), a 25-year-old local organisation based in a slum of the capital, Guatemala City, which runs several projects and focuses on women (hence "unidas", which means united but implies female people) - click on the name to find out all about it!

Mattia will teach English in their primary school, which thanks to the English programme 8 years ago managed to move from half-day to full-day, thus offering children not only more in academic terms, but also a way to spend more time in a safe and constructive environment rather than on the street. Elena will work in conjunction with their medical team (they have a clinic&pharmacy), training women on health issues, with the aim of widening the programme currently focused on nutrition and fitness to include disability, and possibly start a Paper Furniture workshop, which can be such an asset for any community-based project and was definitely a highlight of her Rwanda experience.

The boys will attend the school where Mattia will teach, so they will have to learn Spanish, which should not be too hard for those two bright minds, thanks also to them already speaking Italian, currently enhanced by this month of Italian schooling.

Guatemala is a violent country and the Esperanza neighbourhood isn't any different, on the contrary is a slum plagued by gang violence, but we've been trustily assured that volunteers are safe and have never been affected or have never witnessed any violence-related incident, though of course all this is a major aspect in the life of the people we're going to work with, from children to women.

To increase our security, and alleviate your fears, most likely we're going to be accommodated with other volunteers on the forth floor of in the main building of Upavim, which is completely safe.

The organisation is not supported by any big NGOs or similar entities, so this time we won't be rich salaried westerners, but volunteers with paid expenses. It means we owe a huge debt of gratitude to all those who kindly decided to support this new serving adventure of ours, by funding us very generously (which was a much needed help as we're paying our flights, health insurance and other Irish expenses, like mortgage-rent balance and house insurance): to Granny Chiara, Grandad Patrizio, Grace and Daphne our biggest and most sincere THANK YOU, as without you we wouldn't be able to do this!

We plan to stay there for a year and a half, because the local school year runs from January to October, so this year we're missing the first term but next year we'll be able to complete it.

"Last"

Goodbye Rwanda: one week ago we left Kigali on a journey to Italy, where we've been warmly and happily welcomed by our families.

Apart from the last Monday, spent mostly adding the finishing touch to the big packing job, the real last day was Sunday the 28th, when in the morning we went to our last service at the Anglican church, with a good praying moment for the whole family and the last Sunday School for the children, and in the evening we had our last, and very emotional, meeting with the youth, for the last cup of milk and to give away plenty of our things and sing the last songs (not recorded this time, but you can listen here).

Now it's time to reflect on those 14 months, so stay tuned to read some "emotions recollected in tranquillity".

In the meantime, here are the latest picture albums, for a visual tour of our last two months in Africa, especially for the last adventures, with plenty of trekking in the jungle, and more shots of our holidays back in December-January.

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.

2015, completed!

Yes, it happened 50 days ago, but now it's officially completed even as far as our picture collection is concerned, with the two latest and last albums, one for Christmas and one for swimming: enjoy (if you can still take it...)!

Home visits to say goodbye to the children

Yes, the time has come to do my rounds to say goodbye to the home-based children; not easy but a must.
Some are children and some are young adults, but for different reasons (severity of their conditions, area where they live, etc..) they don't attend the church's special needs school and they spend most of their time at home.

Their mums now feel more confident because they know what to do with them (thanks to the training I gave them) and they all have wheelchairs and toilet chairs, so everyone's life is a bit easier, and I've found a local physiotherapist (independent from the school), who will be available to support the mums and their children if needed and this is such a relief for me.

Thanks to my friend Helen's donation, I was able to give each child some colouring books, colours and, for the more able ones, an abacus to learn some math at home and, for the more severe ones, colourful plastic bibs.

Unfortunately a couple of children were sick and I am not sure if I will be able to see them before leaving.

So here are some of the children.

 

Daniel, 4 1/2 yrs old, with his paper chair!

Kagaba, 18 yrs old

Beatrice, 13 yrs old

Lamistone, 10 yrs. She is an orphan and lives with her grandmother. She should be able to start in a special needs school next week. I am so happy for her! 

Mugisha, 13 years old.

Josieanne, 30 yrs old. She has been working with me and she has been trying to learn to colour well so to be able to decorate paper items and has learnt to make necklaces too.

 

 Silvie, 30 yrs old, very happy with her colouring materials. She has recently starting moving around with a walker thanks to her mum's help and supervision.

I was very happy to see the toilet chairs I built last year still in perfect condition and being used every day.

Eme, 5 years old.

.

Mums' cooperative goodbyes

Last Friday the mums' cooperative group organised a farewell lunch for Elena. We met at our house, cooked together and shared a Rwandan lunch, consisting of plenty of rice, Ubugari (Cassava bread, very sticky!!!), Isombe (Cassava leaves and vegetables cooked with cow foot), a mix of vegetables and cooking banana and even a mixed salad.

Unfortunately not all the mums could come but it was lovely to spend some time together to recognise what we have achieved in the past year by meeting weekly for training and other projects.

Some of the food we cooked was grown by them in our garden as one of their projects. Even though this project must end when we leave (because the church won't allow them to continue), it was a good one and for a while they had some extra food and on the same day they collected plenty of big pumpkins to take home.

After having lunch together we had some time for sharing and praying. The mums have finally chosen the name for the cooperative Duhumurizanye Babyeyi, that means "parents will confort each other". Elena was thanked for being there for them, for all she taught them and because thanks to the activity we did, now they have realised that together they are strong and they can work for a better future for their children and be able to help each other whenever in need. Elena was very touched by their words and that helped her realise that even if we spent only one year together, we have actually achieved a lot, thanks be to God!

Elena was also given an appreciation banner: such a sweet present and touching words.

So it was a beautiful day with plenty of food, stories and prayers. 

Addition

We know, some of your are still reeling and some others are being treated for a nervous breakdown after viewing only a couple of albums, but we really love you, so we've added four new albums to the gallery page, to complete the "August Holidays" section.

Oh, if that's not enough, there's also an addition to the "Rwanda's" series, with a new collection dedicated to its "flora".

So, if you can still watch some more beautiful pictures... enjoy!

Posting a post requesting no post

It's official: at the end of February we're leaving Rwanda (we're going back to Italy for some time, at least a month, then we'll see...).

Our P.O.BOX expires soon, so please

DO NOT SEND ANYTHING BY POST!

Stunning gift!

For those who followed us here on the blog, after plenty of words, now it's time to let you see something: we fell behind with offering you pictures, but thanks to the holidays we've now managed to get all last year's shots ready, sorted and available for you!

There's so many of them that you can enjoy one album per day and keep going for weeks...

Have fun!

The Twelve Days of Christmas, or...

...when gifts become a little burdensome and generosity goes over the top!

A wonderfully funny Irish version of a popular and extremely silly song.

Click here, download and enjoy your last day of the Christmas period!

On Rwanda, not from us...

...but from the journalistic professionalism of the Guardian, so, if you were sceptical about our not-so-positive comments on this country, elsewhere widely praised, or if you just want to read more about its deep problems, we believe you'll find the below articles extremely interesting, especially because it is quite rare to see anything as strong as this apart from human rights specific publications:

on Paul Kagame's lust for power

on crushing freedom of press (a bit old but still very relevant and true to the current situation)

Happy New Year.. "a la John"

So this is Xmas and what have you done?

Well, we've worked with the poor:

trying to live with them, walking with them around their areas, visiting their homes or no-homes, striving to speak their language, and we think we've done decently well at all that, despite our faults, like keeping living as Western people, sending our children to a super-expensive private school, driving our car, playing tennis, eating much better than them;

and for the poor:

from children to disabled people, from the youth to the mothers, from street kids to Mattia's drunk friend, and this is the reason why the "church" didn't like us much, as some people told us bluntly: "you worked for us, not for them, that's why they don't want you".

trying to "do good":

we've sent crowds of children to school (from primary to secondary and vocational training), we reintegrated a few in their families (with some success...), we've taught them (more chess than English), we've let them sing (Gospel, and literally so, not just music, but God's word in music), we've saved some families from their hopeless surviving in the city taking them back to the countryside, we've given children loads of sport&grinds and even some first-aid&food, we've organised Christian dancing and bible evenings, we've had a few as adoptive sons for a while, we've taken  the youth to Church (until the "church"  put them aside), we've explained disability is a problem to tackle not a curse to hide, we've trained them on how to take care of their "special" kids, we've "physio-treated" them, we've funded very small businesses, we've created paper furniture items for them (starting to teach them how to do it), we've gathered them in a small cooperative or in several saving groups, we've provided a market for their crafts and commissioned some sewing work...

Another year over

It's been tough,

as the "church" has never been with us and often against us; as Rwanda is not an easy country (for its troubled present rather than past and its dependency on aid) and Rwandans are not easy people (from their lying habit to their tendency to take help for granted); as being white and rich here isn't easy either (the former is not our fault but race is an issue anywhere - the latter is and we've been trying to work on that, but it's a long way and perceptions are hard to change); as the language is very difficult (and that's a fact, though another fact is we could have studied more); as we were learning and shaping our work by the day; as poverty is hard to digest yet it cannot be solved by a family in a year.

It's been good,

as the weather is among the best on earth and the same goes for fruit; as the boys settled in well and have always been happy, at home, at school (where they made friends and learnt plenty) and on the football pitch, where they played with the local kids; as we've found a few friends, a couple of good people who helped us and many more who sincerely appreciated what we've done; as the short summer holiday and the current long Christmas break have been very nice, with the highlights of the animals and plants of the national parks (savannah and jungle) and the fun and beauty of Lake Kivu;  as people visited us and gave strength and encouragement to keep going, confirming us in our ways; as the youth, the disabled and all their parents are tiring but pleasant company.

It's been amazingly great,

as we've never felt more blessed ("Imana ibahe mugisha"/God Bless You, often just a formula, yet many times seemingly heartfelt), more fulfilled, more needed and helpful ("there are some people who are giving us hope and help for the future"), more "in step" with Him ("Jesus come back for street children"); as the boys have been our greatest supporters, proving themselves strong, righteous and faithful; as we've learnt so much about Him (we've seen Him in the people, we've heard His voice so loudly, we've felt His hand on our shoulders, we've found what following Him means), about us (what we are, what we can do, what we must do), about poverty, about history, about aid, justice and equality.

It's been awfully bad,

as having to chase away children and mothers is the worst thing that can possibly happen to you; as stress affects you in a lot of terrible ways (from your behaviour to your stomach...); as we came hoping that partnering with a church would help us to avoid a lot of negative approaches and instead it was that partnership which made everything so hard; as our sending agency let us down completely, never taking into serious consideration or even respecting our work, never siding with our Christian approach and finally treating us at best as simple employees and at worst as parcels for which to arrange flights&freight.

a new one just begun

an uncertain one, hopefully a better one, surely a good one if we keep being a unit, certainly a great one if we find out His way and follow it with complete, faithful abandonment.

-----

The near and dear one

So many of you to us are dear

and really you all felt near 

throughout this year

so thank you for reading, listening, writing, sending, praying, thinking!

A Happy New Year

Let's hope it's a good one

without any fear

No fear of doing what we all feel called to do;

No fear of what is new, different, challenging;

No fear of doing what we know is right, whatever the cost;

No fear of being rejected, attacked, mistreated, for the good we do!

Christmas' family tradition

Some people have traditions for dinner, for presents, for decorations, for invitations... we have special traditions! What happens in the Leoni's family on Christmas Eve? Sam gets sick, meaning he vomits: yes, it's already two years in a row, so we can call it a tradition, can't we?

Well, if you want something more Christmasy from us, why don't you go to soundcloud (see bar above) and listen to our Christmas greetings? 

If you really don't want to (why?), here we go

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU!

Pre-Christmas update

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. 

Invitation for people in Clonakilty

There will be crafts made by some mothers from our projects in Kigali, Rwanda: necklaces, plates and shopping bags.

Article on Rwanda... uncut

(Article published on One Mission Matters, magazine of the Methodist Church missionary section; here in its entirety, as we have more space!)

Rwanda, “the land of a thousand hills”, the country of the Mountain Gorillas… sure, but who isn’t thinking of the genocide first?

Yet, that was 1994 and since then the country has been peaceful, rebuilding and reconciling, so in 2015 it’s hard to see a direct impact of those 100 hellish days on modern Rwanda: the orphans are now in their 20s, at least; what was destroyed has been rebuilt or replaced; trials are mostly ended; the following wars, fought outside the country, are basically over and ethnicity is no longer mentioned. Moreover, as cynical as it might seem, in actual fact the genocide has had some very positive consequences: from the guilt and compassion of the West a huge stream of aid has been flowing for 21 years to this very small country, allowing it to grow much more than others, so that it now boasts tarmac main roads, a great number of schools and health centres, very good access to ARVs, political stability, high-ranking levels of security and an economy that keeps receiving praises for its GDP growth.

All good, then?

Unfortunately not: if the typical problems of poor countries might be slightly less crippling here due to the aforementioned development, they are all still present, at times made harder to tackle by peculiarities clearly arising from 1994.

First of all, the genocide was part of a war and in every war, especially civil and ethnic ones, the first casualty is truth: the historical truth about those events has not been fully revealed yet (watch the BBC documentary issued in October 2015), which prevents the country from achieving real reconciliation, despite many wonderful examples of forgiveness, and it may well be that even Rwandans’ terrible (and admitted) habit of lying to protect or pursue their interests is a consequence of how the country dealt, from top to bottom, with that dark page of its recent past, where so many people had something to hide. As anyone can imagine, to work in such a context of constant lies, where you cannot trust anyone, is extremely stressful.

Secondly, inequality in developing countries is quite common and astonishingly higher than in the West, but here it is even more painful to see, not only because with all that aid publicly available this “unified” society should have grown more evenly, but also because inequality works partly along those same ethnic lines which have now “disappeared” (only because the topic is banned): one portion of the population has clearly benefitted much more from some forms of aid, as only the victims-victors were entitled to receive it, and still are.

Thirdly, as in most post-disaster countries, the enormous influx of money has created a culture of “milk the white man” and a tendency to rely on external sources which permeate all society, church included, making it difficult not to feel like a wallet-on-legs and hard to instill any sense of responsibility and ownership in projects.

Last, but not least, the current leadership, in order to maintain its iron grip of power, has turned freedom of expression into “something for western countries”, as we’ve been bluntly told (“to protect us”) by a religious figure who, like too many people, justifies the dictatorial regime with the excuse that “Rwanda went through the genocide”; therefore, discussing policies or showing any form of dissent is out of the question, which is not only soul-destroying for human rights lovers and defenders, but, more importantly, absolutely incompatible with a healthy and just society.

If you're not listening...

... you can still read!

Those who are not accustomed yet to listening to us on soundcloud, ("MEMS Leoni") can find out here about the latest sad developments of our mission, especially's Mattia, but in Elena's words, so you can't blame him, for a change.

Nearly two weeks ago, we had a meeting with Bishop and some representatives of the the church, whom we are serving in Rwanda, and it felt more like an ambush than a meeting. They had already decided in their hearts to stop what Mattia was doing for the poor children and their mums and they did it by using the authority card.

It didn’t really matter what Mattia had to say to defend his work, as he had always kept them updated through several reports (and meetings) about his ministry and Bishop all along said that he was doing a good job; Mattia also tried to involve the church more and more, but in the past few months, even if verbally they kept saying that what Mattia was doing was good, they kept closing one door after another (literally, they locked the school where Mattia's activity used to take place), until they got the point of ordering him to stop.

It didn’t matter how many people we helped, how many people we brought closer to the church, nothing makes sense…

They complained the children clothes are not good enough... laughing at this. They brought up safety issue and more and more excuses reaching the absurdity of even telling us that our house is in the Church compound so that they have a say in whoever can come or not into our house...

It was a really hard week, with many tears, frustration, sadness and questioning why we have to go through this. The faces of the children not understanding why they couldn’t come for their sports and lessons any more and desperately asking when they could come back, what they did wrong, as tears filled theirs eyes…. The desperation of the mums that cannot meet in the church grounds just to learn to save so as to be able to send their children to school next year… The teenagers now forced back in the street in the evening instead of coming for singing, praying, dancing, lessons and Bible study….

We know we touched many people since we have been here, but Mattia felt called to serve the least of the least, especially the poor children and their mums, most of them single mothers, but now all this has been taken away from him…

Now we are in limbo, we accepted with humility what we were commanded to do and now we have to wait till the end of the month for the visit of our coordinator from the UK and only God knows how things will be then. They keep saying that they have no problem with Elena's job, but she's had many issues along the way too.

The whole relationship with this "Church" is now crumbling, as we don't want to worship, with our children, in a Church who refuses, excludes and discriminates the needy, as this is not what we can call Church. So, we've started looking for other places and recently we've been going to an Anglican Church.

Apologies...

...to all (?) those who signed up for receiving new posts directly to their email inbox:

those two very long posts on Amizero and Skids (special needs school and street children project) which you received some days ago were sent by mistake as we were tidying up the blog a bit and converted out-of-date pages into old posts, without realising that even though back-dated to March the posts would be sent by email anyway.

We hope you got that soon, before wasting time in reading old stuff...

If you forgive us and are still interested, we remind you of our latest way of staying in touch, that is 

www.soundcloud.com 

where you can listen to us by doing a "search" for "MEMS Leoni"