Amahoro!
Africa is the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my entire life. There are hills beyond what the eye can see. The landscape is painted with banana trees, coffee trees and fields of different agriculture like tea, wheat, potatoes. Patches of different colours paint the distance.
Some huge differences in culture would be that here white people are very rare. When you drove by, every kid and some adults yell MUZUNGU (muh Zoong goo) meaning white and they get excited and wave or give a thumbs up. Another thing that is different is the openness of strangers. Everyone is excited to meet new people and have a conversation. No one is rude to strangers. The country is very open and friendly and is very honest. They actually care about each other and us, where as North Americans don't care how you are doing when they ask. We have not met anyone here who was not excited to meet us or get to know us. We were guided around by Hermes for the first few days. He is a manager from the washing station. He treated us like honoured guests, always making sure we are okay and satisfied. He was so nice and friendly and he said he was blessed by us working hard and being so friendly and open.
Another huge difference is poverty. The city has more rich people but the country is full of rows of the poorest houses I have ever seen. Many of them are nothing but empty brick shacks. Filled with kids in torn up clothes and no shoes.
Surprisingly cell phones are EVERYWHERE . They are super cheap so you will see a row of brick houses and one will say charging station above the door. Every adult here pretty much owns a cell phone.
So we arrived Sunday night, we waited at least an hour in a crazy packed tiny airport to grab our luggage. We drove out to a centre where we stayed the night. In the morning we visited the headquarters for long miles coffee project. They started a fair trade coffee washing station. The people are wonderful and the coffee is amazing. They are the company that provides the coffee for good coffee, the company our leader justin started.
That evening we visited the coffee washing station where they wash and dry the beans before they are shipped. We met a few of the managers that worked there. It was wonderful to see a company that is such a family providing amaZing hand sorted and picked coffee that not only tastes AMAZING but pays the people a living wage. We often forget that certain things are so cheap because someone somewhere down the line is not getting paid what they Are worth. We got to put a face to the faceless and see that these people need that $5 we try to save more then we do.
Tuesday we went out to the coffee washing station in heza and poked holes in the nursery of baby trees and then fertilized them. We also met some local children who we played with and although we don't speak the same language we spoke through funny faces and dances. We then went to the other washing station in bukeye and planted coffee trees.
This morning we visited an orphanage. The kids were wonderful. We gave them school supplies and played what time is it mr wolf. We took videos of them and showed them the videos and they thought it was hilarious. They were so happy and fun. These kids were some of the poorest of the poor and the leaders of the orphanage said they would not have survived of they had not been taken into the home. There were 8 boys and 8 girls there currently but they are expanding the site to add more rooms, they are finishing a maternity hospital and a meeting room to teach the community about hygiene. A lot of people die because of improper hygiene and water because they don't know better. They also explained that although sometimes we feel we don't have enough money to make a difference it costs only a dollar a month to keep one of the kids in school. If you are interested in knowing more you can check out https://thecriesofachild.org
That is All I have for now. Please excuse the poor grammar we only had wifi for an hour before we drive to murambia for the next few days to parter with harvest for Christ. Byeeee!