the strangeness of the familiar

Being home again has been really strange. Like that feeling you get when you step off a roller coaster.....

I'm back in the office today after clearing out my inbox from home yesterday, well almost clearing it out. I have about 25 major things to deal with still sitting there, but all the smaller, easier stuff is cleared through.

My flight back was easy and on time, but getting in a cab and arriving home is always really weird for me after being away for a few weeks. Things seem so flat here. Even if there was no hot water and we ate the same starchy food for 3 weeks, I think I prefer Rwanda to Providence, Rhode Island. Maybe I was born to live somewhere outside the US? hmmm. Someday.....

I've been getting emails from the team there in Gatsibo and should have an update from them today or tomorrow on how things are going. They will have the community event tomorrow where the kids will show what they've been doing over the past week, do a debate, and talk about what will happen next (commitment to follow up).

more later when I hear back from the Rwanda team!

YETAM partner training, Rwanda

I couldn't sleep last night because of jetlag so was really tired today. But the workshop that we did and the partners were so so so good that it kept me energetic.

We started at 9 and went until 4.30. We had several people including Bernard, Jacques and Olivier - young guys who work with video through Maison de Jeunes; Musafiri and Patrick from PAJER which is a youth parliament organization; Nandita and Amina from Never Again which is a theater group; Chaka a painter; Genevieve and Edison from the Plan program unit office, Joseph and Jean Baptiste from the University of Rwanda as translators, and Isaac, Chrystel and me.

There was tons of discussion about the project, ways of working with youth, facilitating vs. 'training', etc. It was really clear that we are all on the same page in terms of how to work with youth and what the project can blossom into. I'm so excited. Already the partners kept saying how we think this but we should see what the youth themselves want/think. They are talking about how to keep the project alive and sustain it and support it if the youth decide to create a youth association in the district.

They are really happy that Plan is not a 'city' organization, and that we are going to the community to work there not bringing kids into the city. They were really complimentary about the project design and the fact that Plan/Nokia have general goals but are not obligating and pressuring the community to implement in a certain way -- that the partners and communities are able to find the best way for the project to work in their realities. Although when we talked about our 'hopes and fears' almost everyone had some concerns about being away from family, work, school and friends for 3 whole weeks, they were all extremely committed to follow up with the youth and to be really present during the 3 weeks training.

Now with a common vision, tomorrow we will work on who does what, when and how for the 3 weeks. We'll focus on more solid plans (though we will be flexible as the workshop goes on) for the first week and debrief each evening, and then after the first week we will re-group to take another look at the plans for the 2nd week, and the same thing for the 3rd week.

So tomorrow we'll put up flip charts on the wall, one for each week, and the partners will come with ideas for activities. We'll fill things in and make sense of it all. Well, that's the plan, at least.

on my way to Rwanda

So it's my last day in the States for awhile. I'm in a hotel near the airport in DC finishing up last minute things before I'm out till Aug 31 supporting the training in Gatsibo, Rwanda. Had a nice few days with my parents and kids in between work -- flew into Indianapolis on Tues night and spent a few days there and in my home town Ft Wayne. The kids will stay there until the last week of August when they go back home to start school. I hate being gone for their first week of school, but with the crazy schedule there wasn't much choice this time. There has been so much to do this past week that I was really stressed. It will be good to be able to focus on one thing for the next few weeks.

Julie wrote up a long report on how things have been going in Senegal that Chrystel (Rwanda coordinator) and I will use to shape the training in Rwanda. There are lots of experiences with Senegal as well as with the trainings I've been involved in to keep learning and improving with each time we do it. So I'm getting excited as well as anxious as I always do before starting something really important. It always takes a few days for everyone to settle into the routine, which is stressful.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures and short videos to post in the next week or so. I get into Rwanda on Monday after flying from DC to Rome to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) to Kigali, so long flights and lots of stop overs. Think I'll be exhausted but have to go straight into the office for a meeting. Then Tues Chrystel and I will get ready for the partners training that takes place on Wed-Fri. Sunday we go to Gatsibo for the training with the community and youth which will start on Monday. I also have a few meetings/conference calls on other things I have to do this coming week, but after that I will be free from phone/internet for a couple of weeks which will be nice!

More later....