Today we started the morning by heading down to the AGR headquarters. We are staying very close to it so a walk in the sun was a great way to start the day!
When arriving at AGR we immediately saw traffic cones laid out in an obstacle course with two learner drivers making their way around it. It turns out that the surrounding area of the Girl Guide headquarters is open to the community to play in, attend the on-site health clinic, play basketball, and even learn to drive! It’s a lovely patch for people to go to in the middle of a housing area.
We met our six counterparts from Rwanda who have also been selected to be on the GOLD team with us. They will be spending time with us, showing us new places, taking us to trainings, translating and generally helping us through the next three weeks. We all introduced ourselves and felt immediately welcomed by the team.
The first task was to go through our itinerary… where were we going to be, who would we be training, how we would get to each place and what our topics would be for each day.
Once that was sorted we headed out for a tour to see what the AGR do and the areas that they have. We met a group of young women from the Umuhoza Project which helps those who have had to drop out of school with learning essential life skills. Time for a team photo shoot to start off the excitement and adventures of the next three weeks.
We were then taken for a tour around Kigali and shown the best places to get the bus to and from. We used our ‘tap and go’ cards for the first time which allow us to get onto the bus, similar to an Oyster card in London, and found out the best way to stop a bus. In Rwanda you just need to bang against the ceiling and window – it’s guaranteed to stop for you following that!
Lunchtime followed our big supermarket shop. Banana curry, rice, cassava, spinach, fanta, peanut sauce and chips! It was very tasty. The girls took us to a beautiful fabric shop so that we could get some clothes made for us over the next couple of weeks!
The evening consisted of sorting badges that we had ready to give to the Guides. We were LOVING the sorting and had thousands to sift through. All sorted into piles and packed up ready for everyone that we trained.
Our first proper training sessions start tomorrow in the Southern Provice of Rwanda. We are very excited to get stuck in by starting with World Guiding, WAGGGS and women’s rights training sessions.
Over and out for today, be back soon!
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GOLD Rwanda 2019 