Newest Little Member of Our Rwandan Family!

Our friend Claudine, whose daughter Sylvie RA2 is sponsoring through school, just had a little daughter, and we had the privilege of meeting her the day after she was born. As we told Claudine, not every little girl comes into the world with two ready-made muzungu aunties! Rwandans don't name their children until they're three weeks old, and the conversation about that went something like this:

Claudine: What are you going to name my daughter?
Manolos: ???? We're not going to name your daughter! YOU'RE going to name your daughter!
Claudine: OK, I will tell you a name, and you can name her that.

Since Claudine's daughter was born on International Women's Day, we did throw out a few appropriate ideas: Hillary (Clinton), Margaret (Thatcher), and Debra and Kelly for our moms.

We've said over and over that the best part about living here for three months has been having the time to form deeper relationships with the people we work with, and there couldn't be a better example of that than the privilege of being here long enough to get to know Claudine, meet her daughter the day after she entered the world, and watch them name her.

It was also really interesting to get a sense of what maternal health looks like here. The baby was born in a clinic, not technically a hospital:


The women have a dorm-style room to recover in afterwards. They bring everything they might need with them, including their own sheets:

Does the look on that baby's face, or it does it not, say "Who the hell are you, and why are you made of the wrong stuff?"

Yes, that IS in fact RA1 EVER SO GENTLY cradling a newborn. They were right - the strangest things happen in Africa:

Beautiful mommy and new baby!