Food and Thoughts

Oh Canada. A place where endless choice exists when it comes to food. We have global variety available at the grocery store for reasonable prices. We have too many good restaurants to choose from. We have fast food, frozen food, junk food and fresh food. We are usually able to eat what we want, when we want. As you might have guessed, that isn’t exactly the case in Rwanda. Jackie has said to me many times, “we don’t eat what we want, we eat what we have.” And at first, I didn’t fully comprehend the difference between the two.

Breakfast for my Rwandan family is maize porridge. I eat the maize porridge most days, but sometimes I get oatmeal. Yesterday I got oatmeal, and to be honest, it was a struggle to eat it. This morning, the thought of oatmeal or maize porridge made my stomach turn. Even though I didn’t want to, I had to refuse the porridge and ask for something different.

My brothers and sisters here seem to have no problem with the porridge every morning. Today Jackie asked Frank, “Do you like eating maize porridge every morning?” to which he responded, “I wish we had it every morning!” He was half joking, but I know there have been times when they couldn’t afford breakfast.

A short time later, with a delicious omelet in front of me, I broke down. I cried because I felt unworthy of the privilege of having a choice. I cried because I thought about people here who feel like I do, but don’t have a choice. I cried because every day I see my family here eat porridge and they don’t have a choice. I cried because I understood a bit more of what it means to “eat what you have, not what you want.”

My yummy omelet

Lunch consists of a carbohydrate (rice, plantain, maize) and sauce with a few veggies. They usually make me extra vegetables, sweet potato or something else special.

Plantain & Veggies

Dinner might be rice or plantain (sometimes both), bugali (a carb made from cassava flour), along with cabbage and a few veggies in a peanut or tomato sauce, or even rice and beans with a few veggies thrown in. I am certain I am the only one who gets more than one serving of vegetables per day. Their plates are usually just filled with rice or bugali and topped with a little sauce. They also give me the most fruit and will consistently ask me what else they can make for me.

Their typical plate

And, to be honest, I’m still struggling with the food. It isn’t that it tastes bad - the avocado and passion fruit are the best I’ve ever tasted! I just miss the variety I am used to and having meat on a daily basis (a luxury not afforded for this family). Since I have been here, they have eaten goat a couple times (I couldn’t stomach it) and we have had beef a couple times as well. Oh, and we had one of our turkeys butchered for Liam’s birthday over a month ago. I didn’t have any though; I knew it was such a special thing so I wanted them and their guests to eat it.

Passion fruit

Avocado fresh off the tree

Jackie told me she didn’t even realize that some people “eat what they want” until she spent some time in America. She was twenty-something before someone asked her what she wanted to eat. She had never been given that choice before - something we take completely for granted. Again I am humbled by the privilege of my life.

In Kigali there is one decent size grocery store that imports food from all over the world. There is decent variety and choice, but many people will never shop here. One pound of butter from Ireland is $8.00; a large bag of marshmallows from Spain is $23.00; one box of Rice Krispies cereal - $11.00; you get the idea. For many Rwandans, especially those living on less than $2.00 per day, these goods are completely out of reach. They eat what is available to them at an affordable price - typically the foods I described above and not much else. They don’t have a choice if they want to survive.

Beans and maize

I can ‘tough it out’ for two more weeks here. And I could just buy all my own food or eat out at restaurants more often. Things I want to eat are available to me. But I will do my best to eat what is served and let this teach me about the world I live in, you live in, we live in.

Please enjoy your next meal! We will enjoy ours – particularly because we know that some of our neighbors will go without.



Making Rice Krispie Squares over coals (Yes, I splurged and bought the $11 Rice Krispies and the $23 bag of marshmallows, worth every penny!)






A lucky day: omelet, cabbage & veggies, rice


Frank making cabbage


Jackie and I enjoying some maize roasted over the fire - a delicious treat!

Swimming, Hope:Rwanda and My Birthday

A couple weeks ago I took my Rwandan family out for the day to the swimming pool. The first time most of them had ever been to a pool was last year (they were taken by some friends of James and Jackie). This time, dear family friends of mine offered support so we could go. It was very special. Diama told me it made her so happy; she said she felt like a rich kid. The swimming pool isn’t expensive ($4 per person) but many families here can’t afford it.

Since the kids have been to the pool only a couple times in their lives (it was actually the first time ever for Delfina), they don’t know how to swim. But they really want to know how and begged me to teach them. I tried, but I’m no swim instructor. I barely made it through half the levels when I was younger. Yet, in their eyes I am a professional swimmer and might as well be in the Olympics. And until this day, I took for granted knowing how to swim.


Eric, Sylvan & Matthew



Eric learning to doggie paddle



Teaching James to float



Diama & little Eric in the kiddie pool



With little Eric








While at the pool for the day, we had a nice lunch of fish, potatoes, soda and veggies – the kids really enjoyed it since they rarely get to eat out. The day was an absolute pleasure, one they won’t soon forget.




Early last week I had the privilege of joining up with an Australian team of teachers who come each year and help out an organization called Hope:Rwanda. For two weeks they run conferences for Rwandan teachers, produce and distribute teaching materials, meet with government officials and support activities the organization is involved in year round. I had contacted Hope a few months ago to see if I could help them out with some photography. The team was a lot of fun and I enjoyed taking a few pictures for them. I was even able to tag along and photograph a meeting with the Rwanda Minister of Education! This organization is doing great things here.




And the other news this week is that I turned 27. I can’t believe it, but it’s true. Jackie’s brother Eric had been telling me for the past few days about a place nearby that he wanted to show me. We decided in the late afternoon on my birthday to walk there and Sylvan joined us. After about half an hour along dirt roads, passing school and homes, we came to this beautiful vista overlooking an open valley. There were big African trees and distant green hills; the familiar noises of daily Rwandan life had faded away. This is not the Rwanda I normally experience, so what a treat!


















Before I visit a new place, a new country, I have a picture in my head of how it will look and what it will be like. This picture I have is usually not how a place turns out to be; I think this is especially true in Africa. Yet, there are moments when the picture I had does meet up with what I’m now seeing, hearing and experiencing. The walk on my birthday was like that. This big open valley felt like Africa, the Africa I had thought, pictured, dreamed about.

















So back to my birthday… I went to an Italian restaurant with James & Jackie for pizza. Then, since we couldn’t take all the kids to dinner, we brought back some treats so we could celebrate with them. Pop, candy, popcorn and the movie Avatar made for a perfect evening. They sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me over and over, gave me homemade cards and giant hugs, and made me feel so loved. It was awesome.

Beautiful Widows and Stunning Vistas

There are 700 widows involved with The River – Rwanda organization. They live all over the country and have been organized into local support groups. The River – Rwanda has helped these women find ways to provide for themselves; some women are involved in farming, some basket weaving and others jewelry making. The River -Rwanda tries to do what they can for these widows when they have money and when they don’t.






I have had the privilege of twice visiting one such support group. To get to them we must drive up a steep mountain along a dusty dirt road. We pass women carrying baskets on their heads and babies on their backs, men pushing bicycles loaded with water jugs or supplies, and children waving and shouting, ‘muzungu, muzungu!’ upon seeing me. Once the road ends, we take a dirt trail through a sea of banana trees to a small mud home on the mountainside. The view from this spot is nothing short of spectacular. But upon looking around you realize this isn’t prime real estate. There are many impoverished people living here, toiling out a basic existence. A common misconception in western nations is that people such as this don’t work hard enough or have done something wrong to land themselves in extreme poverty. But reality is exactly the opposite for most of these people.




We enter the yard of the mud home and one by one greet the widows who have gathered together. Some are wrinkled with age and likely lost their husbands and children in the genocide. Others are young with small children so perhaps their husbands have recently passed away from sickness and disease. Either way, I find them instantly charming and lovely. They are so welcoming and allow me to take photos as they work at their weaving or bead making. Jackie and James (The River – Rwanda founders) converse with these women to find out how they are doing and how we can help them. They tell us they are low on supplies for their jewelry and basket making and are also struggling to find fair trade for their creations. They are frequently forced to sell their wares locally for a dollar or two above the raw material cost because they have hungry bellies to fill and basic needs to provide.



I ask one lady to teach me. She kindly shows me step-by-step how she makes a beautiful basket from dried grass, plastic strips and thread. A large basket will take two days or more to complete. So much care and precision goes into this work and I’m certain I can’t replicate their talents.


I brought some Canada stickers with me on the second visit. The kind you get at the dollar store - a simple page of stickers. I thought the kids would enjoy them, which they did. And the women enjoyed them just as much. They wanted to put these stickers on their best blouses, their special clothes reserved for church on Sunday.


Their gift to me is a fresh papaya just cut down from a nearby tree. But they have given me much more than that. This is an experience I will never forget.

After spending a couple hours here, it’s time to return home. I don’t want to leave. I enjoy being here so much. I feel privileged to interact with these women, to watch them work. They work hard and they have a sense of humor. Even though they have many troubles in their lives, their eyes are filled with hope. They are so beautiful!



We spend some time in prayer all together and then we leave in a trail of red dust, a throng of kids chasing our truck and waving goodbye.

I spend the ride home thinking about how we can help. What can The River –Rwanda do to give these women a steady income, not a handout; to empower them, to give them the ability and opportunity to provide for themselves and their families? Thankfully, it’s not all up to us. This is God’s business and He can do infinitely more than we can think, ask or imagine!


Jackie and James


One of the widow's baskets


Beads handmade from scrap paper







Can you spot the muzungu?