Sorry it has been so long since we have written. We have had difficulty with internet access because of issues here at the guest house which include turning the computer room into a bedroom and Becky and I getting "displaced." The good news is that we have a really great place we are staying in now. Our Canandian Baptists friends are away for a week and asked us to house sit in there really nice little home that just happens to be close by to Solace. We enjoy having a kitchen to actually prepare real meals in and not having to sleep in the same place as our office.

In the past few weeks I finished writing the five year strategic plan for Solace and just finished the evaluation report for the Child Sponsorship Project in Kabuga. Becky and I will both work on the baseline evaluation report for Nyagasambu where Solace is considering sponsorship options. We got to spend a full day in Nyagasambu last week. Becky did some of her own research and I interviewed the Solace community President. We also brought some other foreigners with us who are supporters of Solace and are volunteering here right now. Nyagasambu is even worse than we thought, if you can believe that. It seems that a lot of the people we were able to interview for the evaluation were actually the ones doing the best...and they aren't doing all that well. Everyone else leaves as soon as possible. The boys often end up on drugs and many of the girls have gone into prostitution. A lot of these orphans were taken in by relatives after the genocide who treated them like slaves and took away their remaining property. I asked the community President what can be done for them and she said, "Actions, not words." A lot of people have gone there over the years promising help and nothing has come of it. They are really desperate now. The good news is that some of the Americans who came with us had raised extra money for their trip and want to use it as seed money for a project in Nyagasambu. Also, the evaluation we are doing is the groundwork for starting sponsorship projects there. Becky has done an amazing job of recruiting sponsors for children already but a more structured system would really help the entire community. We will keep working for Nyagasambu even after we leave. There are few people advocating for the orphans there.

We got to take a fun trip yesterday to Akagera National Park and go on a short safari. Akagera is on the Tanzanian border and is filled with typical East Afrian wildlife. Since it is the dry season we didn't get to see a whole lot of animals but we did see zebras, giraffs, hippos, impala, baboons, warthogs and a plethora of birds. We had some especially close encounters with the baboons because they are aclaimated to humans. We do have an "R" rated account of an encounter with one baboon that I won't describe here. All in all it was a great time.

Becky and I are also preparing for our short trip to Ethopia on the way back to the states. We wanted to go to a rainforest in southern Rwanda to go chimpanzee tracking but we decided to save our money for the trip to Ethiopia. While I am enjoying my time here I am definitely lookinf forward to taking a break from my work. In addition to what I'm doing for Solace I have also been trying to interview people for my own research. I'm not sure if I will have enough when I leave and I'm still not certain what I want to focus my MA paper on. Hopefully that will become a bit more clear when I'm away from here and have some time to reflect.

Anyway, that is it for now. I'm sure Becky will write her own update soon. We will also try to post some pictures soon.