SHOUT OUT!!!! To my IC fam… and you sis ☺

A HUGE shout out to everyone that I love who is in DC right now for Invisible Children’s Lobby Days!!! I LOVE YOU CLAIRE!!!! I love and miss you all terribly! Bethany, thank you for the call! it was the best 4am wake up call I have ever received. I was in the dark, under my mosquito net, with big crocodile tears running down my face as I am listening to all of your voices. Tears of excitement, envy that I am not there, because I miss you all, and hearing your voices Bethany, Wallis, Sis, Jo, Margie, Chris, Chad, and Jason made me remember all the amazing times and crazy times we all had over the past year and how much it physically hurts to be away from you all. Words cannot express how happy I am that we made it to Capital Hill! Even though I am sad to be missing it, I know that this is exactly where God wants me to be, and DC is where you all are meant to be, taking it by storm!

AND… HOLY CRAP I just got to watch the Rescue Aftermath Video… cried my eyes out in front of my whole house. No words… Just tears! God I miss you guys, ASSISTANTS I WISH YOU WERE WITH ME WHEN I WATCHED IT!
MUCH LOVE! I cant wait to see you all again!

First Rwandan Football Game!!!!

Last night we went to a Pro Rwandan Football Game. Rwanda vs. a team made up of All Stars from all over Africa. This was actually my first Football Game ever, I have never seen a soccer game in the states. It was a lot of fun! The stadium was full of loud, noisy fans and it was so much fun! It made me feel like I was back in the states watching a the Bears play or something… Rwanda won!

What is to come....

For the next week we are going to begin filming for the Remba videos. Remba is a mobile beauty academy for Kigali's beauty industry and business development for established and aspiring hair stylists. Over the next month Remba is holding competitions (American idol style) to select the top 8 who will be the leaders that will be Remba industry leaders for years to come. For training they will be partnered with 8 new aspiring stylists to teach them and develop leadership skills. For the next 5 Sundays women will be competing against each other, and the women who win, will win a scholarship and a spot to work for Remba. So starting tomorrow we will be going to film in hair salons all over Rwanda, interviewing stylist in preparation for the competition. We are filming not only for media purposes, but over all to show what the beauty industry is like here and that Rwanda is thriving with opportunities. Again, we have A LOT OF WORK TO DO!

THEN... in a week or so… we are going to UGANDA!!!!!!! AHH I am so excited to go back!

KEZA (Beautiful) Women June 12th

This past week was spent filming the women who make beads and the other products for KEZA for their promo video. These women are amazing individuals! We wanted to spend a few days just getting to know them before we began to film so that they, and we, would feel more comfortable in the days to come. From the get go, they were some of the most loving women I have ever met! They taught us how to roll beads, let us play with their children, laughed with us, and even though we didn’t speak the same language, in those moments it was as if it didn’t even matter because you could feel the love with out speaking.

Pictures by Seth-Mic-Sethster

Life in Rwanda June 10th to June 12th

After we arrived in Rwanda, we took a few days to settle into our house and get situated. Then we got straight to work having meetings about filming for KEZA and Remba and the other non-profits. Ricky began teaching me how to use the camera, techniques, Final Cut Pro, and then we went out and actually got some hands on practice. We spent a whole day riding around Kigali’s countryside on Boda-Boda’s capturing Rwanda’s beauty to use in the media.


This is the Fam Bam (The pose was Seth's idea... the tall one)

Boda-Boda
Kigali Sky

It was nice practice, for Ricky to teach me and then just let me loose with the camera. We met with our boss Jared to discuss this videos we will be making over the next few months. It was so exciting to hear what our plan is and that WE (Ricky, Seth, and I) get to be the people that make KEZA’s first pieces of media. These 2 guys are extremely talented and I am stoked to learn all I can from them. We have so much to do in such little time! I feel so blessed that God has given me this opportunity to learn film through experiencing it in a place I love, before I head off to film school.

OUR HOUSE!!!!! June 9th

Before I came to work here in Rwanda with KEZA, I thought that Ricky, Seth, and I would be traveling a lot and not have one location that we would call home… On the contrary, Rwanda is where we will be working the most, and traveling for little spurts of time to Uganda and Zambia. So we DO have a HOUSE! Rachel rachelinrwanda.blogspot.com, Amanda amandainrwanda.blogspot.com, Ricky africa.rickynorris.com, Seth sethmjohnson.blogspot.com, Erin peaceloveafrica-e-griff.blogspot.com are my roommates/Fam Bam!!! Check out their blogs! We are paying rent for this Beautiful house here in Kigali where the 6 of us are living now. People will be in and out of the house over the next year. It is absolutely adorable. We have a little garden, cute kitchen, living area, and the rooms are spacious as well… Take a look…



Enough Said...

We finally made it to Rwanda!!!

Ricky, Seth, Rachel, and I spent the last week in Uganda waiting for Rachel’s bags to come in. Day after day they still hadn’t arrived… Finally after a week in Kampala, they arrived. We get the bags at 8pm June 8th and headed out on our 10 hour bus ride to Rwanda at 1am June 9th (HAPPY BIRTHDAY WALLIS AND DES!!! I didn’t forget ☺ ). The trip was very long and squished but worth it! Around 4am the sun began to rise, and along with it came the beautiful silhouettes of the mountains, hillsides, landscape, the endless greenery, and all around beauty of Rwanda! As we came around a corner of a mountain, I saw one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen… It was a see of clouds! After coming from around the mountain side, the sky opened up into these deep deep valley’s where we should have been able to look down and see the ground and trees, but all you could see was clouds and the tips of green mountains sticking out of the mist. This went on for miles and miles until the sun fully rose and the fog began to dissipate. All there was for miles was hills and more hills and villages were women were all up and down the hills collecting food and working the land. You could spot the women a mile away because of their beautiful bright clothing. We hit the boarder at around 7am, went through customs and bag checks and proceeded to Kigali. Another 3 hours… And we made it, then we headed to our house… PHOTO BY SETH-MIC-SETHSTER