July 2nd Orphanage Visit

We went to spend the day at a small orphanage, it had about 20 kids and they were all orphaned because their parents died of AIDS or HIV or they only had one parent who was living but very sick. The man who was running the orphanage has a family of his own, but has dedicated his life to the children he takes care of. So we decided to go and spend the day with the kids. It was some of the most fun I have had since I came to Rwanda! We met all of the kids, then we had to figure out what to do with them for the rest of the day… FOOTBALL! Ricky brought a football and before we could even ask them if they wanted to play, they grabbed the ball and ran out side to find somewhere to play. We divided up into 2 teams, Brazil (Ricky, Amanda, and I were on this team) and Barcelona (Seth and Erin’s team). The kids picked the names.


Team Brazil


Team Barcelona

We played long and hard! The kids were so good, and tons of other kids in the area heard us playing and came to watch. It was a never ending game, Barcelona was KILLING Brazil! But all in good fun ☺, I think by the time we all called the game quits due to heat exhaustion the final score was 23 to 7, or something crazy like that. We didn’t even care about the scores because we were all having so much fun.




After the game we hung out for a little bit longer, and the kids wanted to sing us a song they all knew. Their father got them all in a line, youngest to oldest and the choir started singing…

“We are the youngest stars, we sing all over the mountain. We sing, sing, sing all over, sing all over the mountain…” Then one of them would Sing solo “I am Mimi, I dance all over the mountain. I dance, dance, dance, dance, dance all over the mountain…”

And they all went through the song singing about their talents. It was so precious! After the song and dance, we had to go. I am shocked every day by peoples spirits here! Even though these kids have lost their parents, they are still so happy and thankful for the live they do have. We are planning on visiting again soon.