Our First Care Package!!!!!

Much to our very great excitement, we got our first care package this week, from our dear friend Genevieve Wanucha, who writes The Blood Sugar. The contents of this package can only be described as phenomenal. We might've gotten JUST A TOUCH EXCITED upon opening it:


RA2 may possibly have used Glamour to bribe some of the older girls into doing their homework, BUT JUST TRY AND PROVE IT. There was a great article on a Harvard grad who started a business making sanitary pads out of banana tree fibers after she found out that women in many developing countries have to stay home from school and work when they get their period, and lose a lot of income that way. The business she founded is called SHE (Sustainable Health Enterprises), and the article explains that she opened the first factory here in Rwanda, largely because she knew she could count on the support of the many women in Parliament. RA1 then had the brilliant idea of emailing SHE to see if we could see their operations and bring some of our older girls to witness a revolutionary woman-centered start-up in the works. Fingers crossed that they get back to us!

One morning this week we found ourselves with 9 kids, mostly beginners but with enough shades of in-between that we couldn't simply do the ABCs, and there were too many levels to split between just the two of us. We really wanted to use the AMAZING new supplies we had received from Genevieve. All of a sudden RA1 looked up and said, "Color by number," to which RA2 replied something along the lines of, "You are made of GENIUS and WIN." Not only did the kids practice their colors, numbers, and, much to our surprise, their sharing, but they were absolutely the quietest and most well-behaved we have ever seen them. As an added bonus we actually hadn't considered, they were extremely excited to bring them home. Most houses here have very little by way of decorations, and for some of these kids this will be the only picture they have.




One of our older girls benefited very directly from Vive's thoughtfulness. Our Girl Friday Clemence had noticed that she didn't have a sweater, and she looks gorgeous in the one Vive sent.


Vive, we can't thank you enough!!!!!!

xoxoxo,
The Manolos