Day 5 - Tubehotwese Cooperative

July 14, 2018

Written by Sydney

We woke up at the usual time, some of us slightly less rested because of nearby late night wedding festivities that filtered into our rooms.

Today, we had the longest drive thus far. We piled onto the bus around 9am and drove about 4 hours north toward the Ugandan border, where we would meet Tubehotwese ("Let Us All Live") Cooperative.

This co-op is famous among WD4H travelers for their abundance of beautiful children - and their growing Nursery School project.

We danced and were greeted by the members of the co-op before taking our seat at the top of the sunny hill, with green and brown hills rolling in the distance.

The new co-op president, a man named Andrew, welcomed us and talked a bit about the on-goings of the community.

(Note from Genevieve: The previous president, Naome, was the extradorindary woman who founded the cooperative. One of our most experienced leaders, we always looked forward to her strong embrace upon our arrival and hearing her words of optimism and determination. Naome passed away in February of this year, a deep loss felt by all of our 25 cooperatives. With great love, Tubehotwese is continuing on in her name.)

We listened to brief testimonies from co-op members about the how their lives have changed due to the goats, cows, mattresses, and student sponsorships provided by WD4H.

It was a sweet moment when we learned the co-op president's son is sponsored by Jojo. There was a lot of joyous hugging! We met the parents of the other students and passed out their letters.

As the group meeting ended, we made our way to one of the school classrooms, where we met with the teachers and administrators. They laid out a refreshing snack of fritters, peanuts, hard boiled eggs, soda and water. We all enjoyed our treats as Oscar, the headmaster of the school, gave his introduction.

The school room was simple but clean. There were blackboards on the front wall and banners of pink paper with the English alphabet written and another of words such as water, bed, and cat. There were also posters on the wall, describing animals and household objects. We were perched on the wooden benches and desks that the students would sit in.

"African Hill School" currently has 197 children enrolled from ages 3-12. The levels offered are Nursery 1, Nursery 2, Nursery 3, Primary 1, and Primary 2. We learned that the co-op is saving money to build another building, so they can add Primary 3 (equivalent of 3rd grade).

The meeting soon turned to a discussion of how the school was going, their plans for development, and issues that the school faces, including a lack of uniforms for students, lack of food to provide a meal for the students, and lack of funds to pay the administrators.

With great generosity, Jojo, Leesbeth, and Arlene all stepped forward and offered to contribute to these improvements. They were immediately flooded with a sea of hugs and "Murakoze's" by all!

After saying individual goodbyes to practically every child in the co-op, we piled back on the bus and began our long journey to Kigali, with the sun setting over the hills behind us.

Tomorrow is a much-needed rest day in Kigali...