US Marines Adopt a Village...."MY" Village!

I have written several times about my beloved village, which I now claim as my own (my friend Tom claims as his own too, but we really share it). The faces of the children, the joy, the inspiration every time I enter this village overwhelms me. Although they have nothing, or what we view as nothing in our minds, they are the most content people I have ever met. I have truly come to cherish these joyous people and this beautiful place where they live, so much that I talk about it often among my friends in Rwanda and they all know about “my” village.

I have some friends in town who work for a NGO called Project Rwanda, which distributes coffee/cargo bikes throughout Rwanda. The US marines living at the US Embassy approached Project Rwanda with the idea of having a fundraiser to donate bicycles and “adopt a village”. Since my friends have heard me rant about my precious village so much, they suggested that the Marines should adopt this particular village. Of course, I agreed this was a brilliant idea.
To make the whole experience more meaningful, I took several of the US Marines to the village so they could witness firsthand the difference they would be making. We were even able to take one of my very special students to serve as interpreter for the occasion. The Marines instantly fell prey to the infectious laughter and joy of the children. Their hearts were immediately stolen by these people who seem to have some special secret to happiness in life that most people only wish they could find.

The next week, they hosted a huge fundraiser at the US Embassy to raise money to purchase the bicycles. Pretty much every American in Rwanda was there, along with many Rwandans. They ended up raising twice as much as they expected, and were able to buy 10 bicycles for the village. The impact that 10 cargo bicycles will make on this small, remote village will be immense. Living on top of a mountain, they must walk all the way to the bottom to the lake just to retrieve their water and then carry the heavy jugs all the way back to the top. They carry bundles of food on their head and walk two hours to get to the nearest market to sell their products. They have no efficient way of getting to a hospital if someone falls sick. This seemingly small contribution of 10 bicycles will make a HUGE impact on the lives of these people. “My” people.