Today was another very special day for us. As a regular tourist, you don’t often get the chance to meet locals in their personal environment. Sure, you meet them in restaurants, in the markets, and generally out in public. How often do you get to go inside their homes? Join them in a community event? Get a peek of their actual daily life? For us, that doesn’t happen very often.

Margaret’s first excursion was to go meet a woman, Anathale, at her new house in a village about an hour away from Kigali.  With funds raised by INSPIRE!africa and the manpower from SURF, her house had just been renovated. Anathale’s original house was in shambles: the roof was leaking, there was no floor, no toilet, no security in her home.

Anathale greeted us all with the biggest smile. She grabbed each one of our hands, looked us directly in our eyes and expressed gratitude, relief and joy. The pride in her step was palpable as she showed us around her new digs. Her new home is a typical African style house: a cement box with four rooms. Two of them had single beds and two of them were completely empty. There was no electricity and no running water. BUT. What it did have was a roof that kept her dry, a floor that kept her out of the dirt and a door that kept her safe. Just behind the main house, she was quick to show us her new bathroom, complete with an area to shower as well as her new kitchen which was covered!

Can you say ‘life-changing’? She can now live in peace, in security, in comfort. What a privilege to see this. What a privilege to be a small part of this. What a privilege to be able to meet the needs of the people in the way that they need it. What a privilege to have been able to meet Anathale.

Our day of changing lives was not over. Not by a long shot.

Off we drive to an even more remote village down the road. When our bus stopped in front of a building, I wasn’t sure what to expect. We all got off and were led into the front door. There were kids and young men crowded in the yard and they watched us intently as we went inside.

We were greeted by a roomful of women of all ages singing and dancing and welcoming us inside. What unbridled joy. The spirit definitely moved all of us as we joined in the dancing and clapping. We couldn’t sing, of course – we didn’t know the words! Or the language, for that matter.

This was the place where we were going to hand out solar lights and energy efficient stoves to 26 families. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? It would not be an exaggeration to say that with these two small items, we gave them the gift of time. Let me explain how.

Solar Lights

• Because there is no electricity, once the sun goes down, their houses are pitch black from 6:30pm until 6:30am. Having light will increase their living hours allowing time for more activities, homework and family time.
• These lights also come equipped with a radio, meaning they can stay connected with the world easily and for free.
• The lights keep their charge for 36 uninterrupted hours, so even in the middle of the rainy season, they’ll have enough power to keep the light on when they need it.
• They are able to charge their cell phones with this device. The crowd went wild when they heard this. Again, sounds simple, right? Except that normally they have to walk up to 2 hours (or more) to a place that has electricity, pay to charge their phone, wait their turn for the phone to get charged, then walk back home. This whole process can take anywhere from 4-8+ hours three times a week. Now, not only can they recharge their phones at home, for free, but they can now charge other people in their surrounding areas to charge their phones.

Energy Efficient Stoves

• These stoves use 5x less charcoal so now a bag of charcoal will last about 3 months instead of less than a month. A savings of 6000 RWF/month.
• Since they retain more heat, they won’t have to continuously feed charcoal into the fire as they cook beans (one of their main sources of protein and they take hours to cook). This frees up time for them to do other activities: pick up their kids from school, harvest their crops, socialize, etc.
• These stoves have a longer life than the ones they’ve been using now.

The pure joy, gratitude, relief, enthusiasm, and smiles these ladies showed as we handed them out was so genuine. It was moving to be a part of this experience. These two small items will immeasurably change their lives and impact their way of life immediately. We got so many pictures as each lady wanted to have a picture taken with one of us as we handed over their gifts. They were just so darned happy.

Not to take away from this amazing day of changing lives, but a highlight for me was meeting a couple of the children. OMG. They were so adorable and curious. They were studying my camera and wanted to take pictures and to see what would happen as they pressed the buttons. LOVE!

We said good-bye, got lots of hugs and handshakes and smiles then loaded ourselves back onto the bus. It was a long drive back filled with quiet reflection.

What a day.