Painting at Baho Neza Mwana and a King's House day at Cyato

This morning we awoke to a power cut, changing our plans for nice hot showers, coffee and eggy bread. Not wanting to let the rest of the house down with their offer of breakfast, Andrea, Maddie and Laurie set to work on making breakfast on the imbambura (fire) outside. We discovered that it is much quicker than using the small electric hobs in the kitchen so what we thought was going to be a challenge turned out rather well!

On our way to Baho Neza Mwana, the street children's village, we stopped in the market in Kamembe to buy some material for some of the group to have traditional Rwandan clothes made.

The rest of the day was spent painting the murals under Beth's excellent guidance and supervision. Beth, Stephanie and Maddie worked on the ingagi (gorilla), Andrea and Sue on the ingwe (jaguar), Laurie and Sarah on the intare (lion), Dave on the lettering for Baho Neza Mwana and Francine, Moreen and Stephan on the Rwandan dancers. The murals are already looking fantastically colourful and the boys are excited about the new decorations to their houses. Some were even keen to help out with the painting.

The team from King's House Richmond, Harriet, Jane and Ben, spent the day at King's House, Cyato; the school that was Rwanda Aid's first large project and has gone from strength to strength with continued support and funding. There are now 1000 pupils and they have just won an award for being the best Eco-friendly school. The headmaster met with Harriet, Jane and Ben to discuss how Rwanda Aid and King's House School can take the school forward. They had brought individual profiles from King's House from a number of pupils, which will be put on display for the Cyato children to practise their English. In return, Harriet, Jane and Ben asked the P4 class to write about themselves so they can take a snapshot of the Rwandan children back to the UK. They were then treated to a specially rehearsed dance and song routine to show their continuing thanks for help. Harriet, Jane, Ben and Alex all joined in the dancing with much hilarity. It was a joy to return to Cyato to rekindle links.

This evening the whole UK team went out for dinner with the Rwanda Aid team to say thank you for having us out here to stay and for looking after us so well. It is also Dave and Stephanie's 16th wedding anniversary today so another reason to celebrate!