MY PLACEMENT!

Last night we had a big ceremony to announce our placements and organizations we will be working with for the next two years.  With chalk we drew a huge country of Rwanda divided up in the different sectors with stars were everyone will be.  Then Mup announced all of our sites, and we walked to the star on the map where we will be living.  It was really fun to see where everyone will be.  My site is…drum roll please…Kigali! Yes, that’s right, I am placed in the capital city of Rwanda. I was immediately disappointed with my placement.  My Peace Corps visions of myself dressed in traditional Rwandan clothes fetching my water and picking fresh vegetables from my garden in the middle of a rural village were immediately slashed and replaced with a familiar vision of myself living in a big city.  A big reason why I wanted to join the Peace Corps was to get away from the city environment and experience the rural world first hand, so being placed in the very busy city of Kigali was not what I had imagined.  There are 9 volunteers in the Kigali district, so we will all be really close to each other.  So needless to say, last night, everyone who was placed in Kigali was a little disappointed.  However, this morning we got our job descriptions, which really changes my whole opinion of living in the big city. 

            I will be working with 3 other volunteers with the International NGO (Non Government Organization), Education Development Center (EDC).  This non-profit educational research and management organization is based in Boston and has over 335 projects in 50 different countries.  The EDC is funded by USAID and we will be focusing on the Rwanda Youth Program (RYP—I know, there are way too many acronym’s!)  We will be providing 12,500 youth, ages 14-24 in Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali with market-relevant life and work readiness training and support.  I will be providing training in English and health relate topics, such as HIV/AIDS prevention, family planning ect as well as linking the participating youth to jobs, return to school and or business start up opportunities.  I will also be working with the youth in teaching them the importance of saving money and how to obtain small business loans.  So in short, it looks like I will be mentoring youth in a whole bunch of ways!

            I am very excited about my job description.  I was worried I was going to be placed in a health center or doing Micro financing with small business around Rwanda.  I really wanted to work with youth and I think being in Kigali, I will have access to a lot of different ages and ranges in social classes so I will be able to reach out to an eclectic group of kids.  I have had so many positive mentors in my life who have really shaped me and influenced who I am today, so I am excited to be that person for kids here.  No I will not have the typical “Peace Corps” experience without running water or electricity, but I do have 104 weekends in which I will definitely be visiting all my friends around the country!  I will also have a lot of visitors because according to the current PCV’s, everyone seems to go to Kigali at least once a month to pick up mail, go to the movies, or go to a restaurant, so it looks like I will never be lonely!

 

Next week we will be staying in our new sites for a week to get a taste of what our sites are like.  We will be moving to site sometime in May after training.  I think I will be living in an apartment by myself, which will be nice.  I am already excited to start decorating and cooking in my own place!  For site visit, I am staying with a current volunteer who has been living in Kigali for a year, so she will be a good resource for me.  I will keep you all posted!