They're Finally Here!!!!

After months and months of preparing, learning, and buying supplies I'm very happy to report that last night at 6pm 1299 very happy chicks arrived at Agahozo Shalom Youth Village! They are eating, drinking, making lots of noise, and playing with each other...they are overall enjoying their new home!

Importance of Relationships

I’m so lucky to have the best parents in the world. I feel that they raised me with a great set of values. One of the most important lessons that I was taught was the importance of creating relationships with people. My dad many times would tell me this while giving example of how connections with people will help you in everything that you do. He has been successful in his career because of the relationships that he has created over the years. My mom just by the way she lives demonstrates this. I can remember as a young child being reminded of this. My parents would encourage me to make my own phone calls and always remind me to ask people how they are doing. These lessons have really paid off in my time here. I’m realizing that many of my success here have come from fostering relationships. Many of the times luck brings me to the right people but it’s the relationship creating that helps in the improvement and growing of the farm. I realized how incredible this has been for me here when I got a call this morning. At Hash I met this man who works for the Ministry of Agriculture. We became friends and I kept encouraging him to visit the farm. Yesterday, he finally came and was very impressed! I got a call from him today inviting someone from the village to attend a 13 day seminar on greenhouses. The ministry is bringing someone from Belgium to teach the class….and the class is free! We’re getting 5 greenhouses so this will be very helpful. I realized that I would never have known about the class if I wasn’t encouraging my friend to come for a visit. Also in the chicken business, creating connections with people that have lots of knowledge in the area has benefitted our business tremendously. There are many other examples here and each one is allowing me to grow and develop.

Another Year

So, I’ve decided to stay another year. For those friends and family that I haven’t told yet, I’m sorry that this is the way that you’re finding out. I was not the easiest decision to make. I kept going back and forth weighting out all of my options and what would be best for me. I wasn’t sure if I made the right decision…would I regret it? Is it the right thing for me? In the past few weeks, I’ve been asking myself many questions about my future and which path is for me. Yogi Berra, the famous catcher once said when you come to a fork in the road, just take it! I’m taking my fork and running. I’m had a few instances lately that have reassured my decision.

On Saturday, I took the farm club on a trip. We left the village after the kids showed up 30 minutes late (we had a long talk about that). Our destinations for the day were some greenhouses and an organic training center. The kids loved it! They kept asking such great questions and just wanted to learn more and more. Many of them kept coming up to me and thanking me for bringing them on the trip. They got so much out of it and just want to learn more. This was so exciting for me. Next year a big part of my job will be agriculture education. 90% of this country is engaged in agriculture. We want to teach our kids advanced skills to allow them to have useful abilities and knowledge for the future. They said that they want to visit the places again to learn more. I want to incorporate those things into our farm so that all the kids don’t have to travel far to learn. Before and after the trip, many other kids have come up to me asking to me in farm club for next year.

Monday was my last time teaching yoga to a group of girls. I tried to make the class fun and also teach them how yoga can benefit their lives. I wasn’t sure what they thought. For the last class, I let each of them lead their favorite pose for the group. Everyone was excited to lead a little part of the class. At the end, I asked them what they thought about yoga and how it can benefit their lives. They said many ways that they feel that it will benefit them.

These are 2 of the reasons that I want to stay another year, to bring more farm education to the village and work with students to find better ways to manage their stress, anger, and emotions.

This Weekend

This was a great weekend. Many weekends I feel pulled in many directions. I want to go and visit friends in Kigali but sometimes I have guilt for not staying with the kids. This weekend was a great balance…something that I work every day to achieve.

On Friday I traveled around Kigali with the director, Nir, Salomon, and the man who work with the chickens, Alfred. Our mission was to look at some chicken operations around Kigali. We visited 2 different places. Our first stop was to the ministry of agriculture. We met up with a man there and traveled 5 minutes to the National Hatchery. There were no chickens there but we got a tour and had the opportunity to learn many things. I was most interested in learning about their bio-security measures. I got some great ideas and useful information. Our next stop was the largest chicken business in Rwanda. I was shocked. The places smelled horrible (I surprised none of the workers passed out) and the birds all looked so sickly. Sometimes you can learn more from how not to do it…this was definitely the case here.

There was no running or farm on Saturday morning. Instead we prepared ourselves for a picnic! We got on the buses and headed to Seeds of Peace which is located on Lake Muhazi. It’s a beautiful place right on the water with a very large area to hang out. When we arrived, everyone went in all directions. Some went toward the lake, others enjoyed the swing, and some enjoyed just sitting down and relaxing. I found myself trying to enjoy everything and spend time with different students. Each family got to visit a replica of the king’s hut. We were shown all around and learned the history. The girls in my family loved taking pictures inside. After visiting the hut, I played frisbee with many of the kids. The big challenge was that the place to play was on a hill and some of the frisbees kept landing in the water.

Just before lunch I left the picnic and headed to Kigali. I got lucky because just as I walked outside, there was an express bus heading to Kigali. I arrived in Kigali just in time for my running group, Hash. The Hash was taking place at the Mutzig Beer Fest. The run was on top of a mountain where we could see all of Kigali. After the run, it was time for some good food, hanging out with good friends, beer (I’m getting so tired of the beer here), and lots of dancing! At the end of the night, I went camping with some friends at a place overlooking the entire city.

A Crazy Day in Kigali

Days in Kigali buying chicken food are never predictable. Sometimes we buy the things we need with ease and other times it’s a battle. The plan was to go on a Wednesday so I called the Monday before to check the prices of all the items. I wrote all those prices down, filled out a requisition, and got a check for all the ingredients. This sounds pretty easy right? All I need to do is take the money to the bank and then go to all those places and pay for the items…wrong…it was not nearly that simple.

I slept in Kigali the night before and then Salomon met me in Kigali the next day. I went to the bank and got the money…we were ready to begin. Our first stop was to buy indagara which is small fish from Tanzania. You can smell it from a mile away so we followed our noses. When we got there, I bargained hard for a better price. The price of indagara is very high these days which is raising the cost of the food. Finally I got a better price. We left it there and said we’d be back later to pick it up. Our next stop was the place where we get the majority of the ingredients. We arrived there and all of a sudden all the prices they told us from 2 days before were so much higher. This was the second time that they did this to us. I told them that they will lose our business because we need to find someone to rely on and that when we call we get the same price as when we arrive. The guy said well then go somewhere else…can’t you see what great customer service they have. I started to panic a little. I didn’t know of another place and I have 200 chickens to feed. We started asking around and finally someone pointed us in the right direction. Thank goodness the owner was there and agreed to give us good prices. He even promised to give us the price he tells us on the phone.

Before we could load, Salomon and I needed to find a truck. We arrived at the place with all the trucks and all the drivers there came running at me. They were pulling me in all directions trying to get me to use their truck. After a few minutes of being yelled at in Kinyarwanda and pulled around, I pointed at Salomon and said Salomon’s the boss! Everyone left me and attacked Salomon. I felt so relieved and a little sorry for him. Finally we had a truck! We went back to load up everything. They were missing one thing so we had to drive a little distance to find the last ingredient.

We went back to pick up the indagara and that’s when it got a little crazy. Everyone that I saw began demanding money from me. First the truck driver demanded more, saying that we didn’t agree on a fair price, then a man that was helping us asked for money after I already gave him some, and then the place for indagara wanted me to pay more. It was a little overwhelming all at once. There were even more instances of people asking and demanding money from me.

I decided that I need to learn how to say in Kinyarwanda, you’re taking money from orphan children!

Holiday Time

This year the holiday was celebrated differently than if I was in the states. All of the volunteers expressed what made the holiday special for them and we tried as best as we could to incorporate all of them to make the holiday meaningful. Some people wanted a tasty round challah, others a touching chol nidre for Yom Kippur, and still others a sukkah makes the holidays.



Rosh Hashana was spent in the village. I headed to the kitchen early the morning before to prepare the dough for the challot. It was a fun way to get into the holiday spirit. The highlight of Rosh Hashana was the delicious meal we all shared together. Everyone made such yummy food that made it really feel like a holiday...but of course I missed my mom's noodle dish that I love. Yom Kippur was spent in Kigali. I had a wonderful fish dinner for the pre-fast meal. One of the volunteers sang a very beautiful Kol Nidre. It felt very meaningful. That night I went camping with a friend and broke the fast on a meal that was cooked on a campfire.



Sukkot is one of my favorite holidays. I have great memories of decorating the sukkah is the parking lot of my synogogue at home. Since Sukkot is a harvest holiday and now I'm a farmer, it's even more significant. I even slept out in the sukkah. One of the highlights was sharing a meal in the sukkah with all of the farm workers.