October is the celebration of Halloween in my home state, Pennsylvania, USA.
Beautiful foliage and roadside decorations of the season!
I miss the colors of fall, but I do not miss the scary decorations.
This does not happen at Urukundo. We have been busy just being and looking to the future.
I am so pleased to share with you a new photo of the Urukundo Learning Center and the top of the mountain where we hope to construct classrooms for Grades 7, 8, and 9 in 2025. This photo was taken in September 2024.
Top level: Preschool, kindergarten, school offices, and the library.
Middle level: Primary 1 through 6.
Bottom Level: Primary 5 and 6.
Red roof: Music classes and teacher resource rooms.
My “hope made real” is to build a secondary O Level school (equivalent to grades 7, 8, and 9 in junior high) on the next level of the mountain, above the current buildings.
This construction has been in our five-year plan since 2021. On my visit to the USA in 2021, Phelps Chapel United Methodist Church in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, shared our hope and started a building fund with a donation of $5,000. Here it is almost 2025 and time to move forward. Picture, if you will, a secondary school building something like this design on the next level of the mountain.
We promote people from the inside. Our librarian Desire has been promoted to an English teacher. Our need for another English teacher became apparent when the adult class became a reality. Welcome, Desire, to the Urukundo Learning Center faculty. We expect great things from him for our schoolchildren and adults enrolled in classes.
Elie Uwitonze has been hired as a librarian. Elie served his internship in library management at Urukundo Learning Center several years ago. We are pleased to welcome him back to serve as Urukundo Learning Center’s librarian.
Living on a mountain is a challenge. Nature tries to claim its territory, so we level the land and then build retaining walls to hold back the mountain. After completing a classroom, we need to protect our children and the classroom. One heavy storm can move the mountain into the classroom. The retaining wall must be in place before the next storm comes.
It requires moving a lot of mountain and then
setting the perimeters with a blue string. Can you see it?
More moving dirt. Then stones arrive as well as bags of cement.
Lots of huge rocks chiseled into shape by hand are placed to create a beautiful retaining wall. This is all done with manual labor. Hard work.
Finally, a beautiful wall is created. Nothing comes easy. Hard work and dedication are essential.
Our family continues to grow. I share this beautiful baby girl with all of you. She is my newest granddaughter in Rwanda.
She is Eva.
Her parents are Sandra and Tresor. Tresor is one of my Urukundo kids and our Urukundo media person who publishes the newsletter every month.
Tourism options offered to Urukundo volunteers include the opportunity to visit a village in Muhanga near Urukundo village, meet our neighbors, and experience village life.
Juliette and her family invited our volunteers to visit their village to experience village life.
Volunteers Cassi, Ruby, Barb and driver Eric were welcomed in Juliette’s home by Julliette, her three children, and two neighborhood kids.
Arriving from the USA in September and leaving in October, Cassi, Ruby and Barb are featured as volunteers in both newsletters. Ruby is from Maine, her sister Cassi is from Pennsylvania and their cousin Barb is from New Jersey.
Some of what is ordinary village life became real for them.
Neighbors prepared to carry water. Jerrycans full of water weigh about 40 pounds and are carried on the head.
Here are cassava plants in a small field. Farming is a way of life in small villages.
Bananas are grown locally for local use.
These bricks were vulnerable to wind and rain and often collapsed.
In earlier times in Rwanda, mud bricks were the only available material for building homes. Construction has improved. New homes now use better baked brick. Doors and windows have also improved.
Kitchen help is always an option.
Ruby learns to peel potatoes, Rwandan style. The kitchen helper laughed a bit but appreciated her assistance.
Volunteers Barb, Cassi and Ruby got a lesson on how Rwandan mamas carry their babies, leaving their hands free to do work. The wrap is unique. Dolls work for teaching.
Epiphanie, Barb, and Ruby.
Our volunteers picked material and a style of dress, and Epiphanie, head of the Tom Nunnally Sewing Center, turned it into a “hope made real.” Aprons, long jackets, table runners, tablecloths, and bags were also taken home with them. The Sewing Center is versatile.
Safe travels to Ruby, Cassi and Barb!
What better way to share the the gifts you, our donors, send than this: have the mothers from families who need a bit of help and who know best their children’s needs come and choose an outfit for each of their children. This is a different Christmas outreach. We are reaching out in ministry to the community by sharing clothing and hygiene supplies. From Oct. 1 to Dec. 25, we hope to reach as many as possible God in charge.
Rose has three boys. Boys grow so fast. Undershorts, pants, and shirts for her boys.
Rose, Mama, and Libby
Trying for size
Francoise has three children, two girls and a boy.
Anuaritte is the mother of three, and Diana is mom to two.
We are glad our good neighbor policy is helping them.
