Wednesday saw the official end of our project! What an amazing three weeks we have had in Rwanda. We have seen some fantastic things, met some amazing young women and explore every district across this beautiful country of a thousand hills!
As part of the end of GOLD projects there is an official evaluation that is completed between the UK and host country. Ours was particularly special because it is the final year of the project.
The feedback from our project this year and overall across the five years was overwhelmingly positive. The AGR feel that they have met their aims for the project and are very sad to not be able to host another GOLD project. We talked to them about potential future partnerships with the UK, what could be done next and how they could take he project forwards. They were so positive and want to continue the work in any way possible as well as hoping for an opportunity to come to the UK as a team in the future!
The official meeting ended and we followed it with a celebration. Lots of cake, sharing of presents, pictures to commemorate such a special occasion and a wonderful project for all as well as BUBBLES! We were even lucky enough to be able to get a Rwandan guide t-shirt and necker – we were very excited to wear them.
We couldn’t thank the GOLD team here in Rwanda enough. They have been to every training with us, shown us around the city on their days off, taught us how to use the buses, advised us where to buy food, been at the end of the phone for anything we need and just been great friends whilst we have been out here. To say thank you, we went our for food to Just Chill – the place with the cat in the wall! We enjoyed pizza, chips, samosas, salads, chicken and fruity drinks. It was delicious and a really relaxed afternoon!
Our final stop for the day was to collect our traditional clothing from the tailor. Shemsa, Safa and Dodo took us there and really enjoyed seeing us in our clothes, we love them.
Time to say goodbye was hard, we had spent so much time with the girls in a short space of time – we certainly will miss them when we are back in the UK. A slightly emotional goodbye and we went to find our bus queue (with another long wait) to get back to Gikondo.
Now time for a few short days of onward travel. See what we get up too!
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GOLD Rwanda 2019 