Also this year, a group of volunteers has gone and visited our children in the Cité of Nazareth. We were three prepared and extremely motivated girls.

I was the responsible of this mission. My task was to collect information about our little guests and to renew the relationship between children and their foster parents. A professional photographer, my friend Angela, was able to impress some of the most beautiful moments spent there. Her marvelous photos will be printed in the Nolite Timere’s 2007 Calendar so that our generous benefactor will be able to understand how important their help is for us. Ida, another friend of our charitable institution, helped us to manage the distribution of school equipment, sport clothes, games and all the letters written by foster parents to their adopted children.

Our stay by the Cité allowed us to collect information particularly about the 31 children who are attending the secondary school, after having completed the primary school within the Cité. Besides, we realized an interview with each of the children who had the opportunity to tell their foster parents the way they live, their expectations, dreams and hopes. These interviews were recorded on dvd in order to be sent to our benefactors.

As you well know, in Rwanda school starts at the beginning of January and ends around the middle of September, with exams expected in October. So, the Nolite Timere’s little guests can spend their summer holidays (and two other months in November and December) with some hosting families around the Cité. In this way, they can learn a lot of things about their own Country. This has allowed us to better understand many important aspects of the Rwandan society.

I remember the story of little Claudine Muhayemariya, who had arrived at the Cité in 2005, and her lovely grandmother who told us that Claudine had been infected by HIV during a blood transfusion. Besides, the story of Vincent, whose hosting family gave me the chance to visit Mbare and its tumbledown school, surrounded by small houses made of stones and mud. Vincent’s hosting family is composed by 6 members, mother father and 4 children. They can live thanks to the money earned by their mother who realized the so-called “American placemat” made by weaving banana leaf. Their father does not work, while the 4 children attend school. Before and after school, they give their mother some help by tidying up their house, farming their vegetable garden and banana tree. Their house is very humble, with just a couple of beds made of stones and straw.

Among the personnel who is responsible for the dormitories, I knew Francine a very sweet woman. After having lost her husband and 2 children during the terrible genocide of 1994, she has decided to dedicate her life to the children of the Cité.

Francine with her memories, Vincent and Claudine with her grandmother, the children who live in the Cité, I will never forget my stay in Rwanda! Their strength will give me other reasons to hope in a better future for the Cité of Nazareth and its guests.