Feelin' fine at 29!

In honor of my birthday I had a party at my house. I wanted to do it potluck style and of course I always have to have food and drinks on hand.

Before the party started we cooked up a storm. Two of my colleagues came over early to cook and they made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and butternut squash salad. I was sad that one of my favorite restaurants in town, Papyrus, had closed so in tribute I made gnocchi with vodka sauce.

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough

Chopping the chocolate!

Butternut squash salad

A pinch of salt to the start of a vodka sauce

I combined a few recipes for the gnocchi with vodka sauce and came up with the following (this is made with ingredients found in Rwanda as well as kitchen supplies):

Gnocchi:
6 potatoes (about 1 kilo)
3 cups flour (plus more if its too soft)
1 egg

Boil potatoes with skin on. Once they are boiled, remove the skin and mash them to a pulp with a fork (A potato masher would have been excellent if I had one).  Create a well in the middle and add in the flour. Mix with your hands until they are thoroughly covered in dough and sticky. Add a lot of salt and pepper. The dough should be soft but not too sticky. Roll dough into "snakes" on a table and cut with a butter knife into small pieces. Use a fork to put pretty lines on the gnocchi (also serves the purpose of getting more sauce on it). Meanwhile, boil water with salt. Once the gnocchi are made, drop them in the boiling water until they float up from the top. Put cooked gnocchi in an aluminum foil made "take away" container that can go in the oven.

Vodka Sauce:
6 tomatoes, diced
2 onions (red)
2 cloves garlic
fresh basil (from friend's garden)
1 cup vodka
1 container Masaka farms creme fresh (or any other creme)
Akabanga sauce/piri piri/ hot sauce/ red pepper flakes
Parmesean cheese

Chop up the garlic, onions and tomatoes. Saute onion and garlic in a pan until soft. Add diced tomatoes and chopped basil  let simmer for 30 minutes. Add in 1 cup vodka and simmer for 30 minutes. Whisk in the creme with a fork so that it doesn't curdle. Add in some shredded parmesean. Add hot spices to taste.

Putting them together:
Add sauce to aluminum foil container (ie baking dish) and top with extra parmesean. Bake as long as you can take it before you think you NEED to eat, ie 10 minutes. Voila! Delicious!

People started arriving and eating. After awhile we started up the dance party and for the next 4 hours we were standing outside my house in a circle taking turns going in the middle. It was a little intimidating but a lot of fun!

Hanging out on the wall

This was probably the song Bella by the Dreamboys, one of our favorites!

He said he doesn't smile in photos...

My favorite artists in Rwanda- check out their website www.ivukaarts.com

Not quite sure whats up with the peace signs here

Our attempt as serious faces

Streets of Kigali- A few articles on Kigali

I found this article this afternoon which describes Kigali's streets. While nicely kept, there are no street names or at least street signs which means getting around Kigali is based on giving landmarks or telling the driver a neighborhood and then directing them to the place. If you don't know French, your ability to get somewhere goes down about 70%. Some moto taxi drivers speak basic English but if you want to end up where you are planning, they understand French way better.

For me, famous for my lack of direction, it has been quite a challenge explaining things to people. For instance, I had a party for my birthday and tried giving out directions. What I wrote out seemed extremely complicated but it was all land marked based. To get to my house you have to make 3 turns and describing them is not so easy. "Turn right when you see a red and white barrier in the middle of the road where you are not supposed to take a u-turn" "Turn at the school." "Continue down a small road." " Look for the house marked with a silver star or just look for my roommate's car outside."

Even my office building's address is "the pink buildings" on "the road to the hospital." The only way mail actually gets here is because we have a P.O. box but I still laugh every time I address a letter back to the states.

In b-school, when you talk Rwanda  it is frequently about its development process compared to Singapore's. The government is certainly making an effort to increase development, foreign investment, and decrease reliance on foreign aid. This article talks about Kigali's cleanliness, development goals, and reasons for such an emphasis on keeping the city clean. Plastic bags are illegal, people are paid to clean the streets as part of a poverty reduction program (and I swear I've seen people painting the pristine black and white lines at least 2 times since I've been here), and the last Saturday of every month is a mandated day of public service (mostly planting and cleaning). In the five months I've been here, they have put in reflectors on the streets and street lights that tell you how much time you have at the light. At the school near my house, the entire school spends the Friday before picking weeds, picking up trash, and beautifying the school. This upcoming weekend is this public service day, called Umuganda, and I plan on spending it cleaning in my neighborhood. There are signs everywhere designating where to go based on where you live and its highly organized. It's an awesome time to be here with the government's Vision 2020 policy and plans and seeing how PSI works with the government (and other NGOs) to help accomplish these goals.

Refresher Training: Ngoma

A few weeks ago (aka the last week of September) I spent a week in Ngoma helping with the 12+ refresher training for mentors. This training reviewed the training that they do with the girls each weekend, went over activities and got their creative juices flowing, and reviewed/updated them on the M&E tools.  Between the instruction and activities, we did ice breakers for them to do with the girls. The following photos are of the mentors doing the Human Knot ice breaker.

Moonlight VCT

Now that I have been in Rwanda a few months, I felt that it was important for me to see some of the activities that we do. I spend most of my time in the office so going in the field and seeing what we are collecting and analyzing data on gives me more of a connection with what we do.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a Moonlight VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) event in Kigali. Our partner organizations implement these invents- one group does the actual counseling and testing and another puts on skits, songs, and entertainment while people wait for their test results.


These activities are held in areas with large amounts of people at risk. This particular one was held by the stadium, a place where there are lots of bars, sex workers, hotels, and foot traffic. The group that does the entertainment sets up a stage, puts on loud popular music and draws the crowd. People enter into the event and register when they arrive. They are given a number which is used for the VCT.

People register as they arrive for the event

The person in charge of this event walked us through the different components. Here she is explaining to our PSI Fellow how the system works.

Next we visited the laboratory. The lab technician explains the process of testing the blood. There are 3 tests that they can perform on the blood. If the result tests positively for HIV, they do additional tests to ensure that it is not a false positive.

Here he is showing us how they write all the tests in a logbook.

After explaining the lab we walked over the the tents where they did the actual testing and counseling. The photo is quite dark but you can see that people are in line waiting to be tested.

Here a counselor is counseling a patient. She explains to him the possible outcomes of the test before he takes it. Before reading the results, the counselors prepare the patients for possible results and next steps.

While they are waiting, the performance group entertains the crowd with music and dancing.

Here, two actors are performing a skit about a woman that gets pregnant and asks him to get tested with her. Here, he has just found out and is speaking with his friend about he does not want to get tested because he has been sleeping with many girls.

 He later decides that he should get tested, calls the girlfriend and they go to a moonlight VCT. Here they are anxiously awaiting results. They find out that they both tested negative and they shout for joy.

This made my day!

We received the following email (edited for privacy) from one of our 12+ focal points and it completely made my day. It's great to see how a project you are working on really takes off and affects the people involved in it!

"I would like to share with you a good idea that I observed in one of the teams of girls with their mentors. This initiative is a Sunday home visit between girls with the main objective to build solidarity among them. They make rotations to visit each girl and they make some surprise activities for those who have a birthday.  One parent was happy because a team  had visited her daughter."

Busy busy bee!

What a crazy few weeks I've had! I'm sorry for the lack of blogging lately- I seriously have not had much free time recently. The past two weeks have had major activities for a few of my projects.

I've spent every morning (and a good part of every afternoon) since last Wednesday in a conference room at the Top Tower Hotel meeting with our 10 RPOs (Rwandan Partner Organizations. (If you are counting, you realize I still have 2 more meetings to go!) Each day has been spent helping them create their work plans and budgets for the last year of a USAID funded project BCSM (Behavior Change and Social Marketing) project. As we are all well aware of our flailing economy, funding from many donors has been reduced which is a challenge in creating new budgets. So this year instead of just showing up and starting a work plan and budget from scratch, we gave each RPO a budget amount and told them to draft a plan. Our individual meetings have been to polish the budgets and plans to work within our decreased amount and time period. I have been on an emotional roller coaster over the past two weeks from being ecstatic with organizations whose calculations and plans fit perfectly into what we asked to frustration with those who are sticklers on one last thing that "cannot" be removed. One thing I can say is that I have definitely learned the art of negotiation. I also really had a chance to spend time with the leaders of each RPO individually which made me feel more like part of the team (minus the rapid fire Kinyarwanda which at times makes me feel even more like an outsider). My supervisor was not able to attend these meetings as she hoped so it makes me feel good to show her that I (and another co-worker) can get this done in a timely and accurate manner.

Aside from working with the RPOs, I've been busy working with 12+ (as you see from some of my previous posts). At the same time that I have been working with the RPOs, we are doing refresher training for the mentors in each district. I left Kigali last Friday morning for Huye (in the South) to attend the end of the refresher training and help out at the actual 12+ training event. Despite the cold, rainy weather, the girls had a blast and this is the happiest I have seen the girls at a training to date. They were all singing and dancing and cheering and having a blast. It made my heart smile. On the back end, ie the M&E team, things are starting to get more organized but its still a little chaotic. A database is now in the works which will make a significant improvement in updating forms and being able to calculate data more accurately. We've also reviewed all of the questions asked during pre and post tests to re-evaluate what we are asking. As a pilot program, we are constantly re-evaluating what is working, what we can do to improve the program, and how to make the documentation process simpler for the girls and for ourselves. Despite the challenges, I am really enjoying this project. A new intern is arriving next month whose main job is M&E for this project which should be really good. I'm hoping that I will still have a role in 12+ once she arrives since it is so rewarding for me.

Next week I'll be meeting with the final 2 RPOs, finalizing all of the budgets and work plans, and then doing a refresher training in Musanze (the North of Rwanda-- think Gorillas in the Mist area). This time I should be at the training for the whole time. I'm leading the M&E tools part of the training which I have managed to prepare in between meeting with RPOs, data entry for 12+, editing creative briefs for our website, and assisting with our transition to a local NGO.

Outside of work I went to trivia on Monday and my team came in 2nd place! I've been wanting to get 1st or 2nd place since I arrived in June and finally it happened! Our prize was our drink bill removed. I realized that I should have ordered more than just a bottle of water but free is free!

I've started doing exercise videos after work which give me more energy and are a good release from sitting down all day. I've been mixing Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred with Zumba videos and P90X. It's also kept me from going out spending money which is good since I spent a fortune over the last few weeks for my friends'  departure dinners.

Tonight I went out to happy hour at the Marines- this time they opened early and had badminton set up, the pool open, and a Mr. Chips booth (a new restaurant that is the closest to a McDonalds that you can find in Rwanda). The owner makes fresh cheeseburgers, chicken burgers, hot dogs, and even pulled pork, all served with french fries (chips). Apparently they also have fish and chips. After being here for a few months, it is the closest taste to home and a welcomed meal. It was nice to sit and relax, have a burger and a drink, and
start off the weekend. Tomorrow we start the third 12+ training module and then its on to movie night at Heaven. Have a great weekend!

12+ Ngoma