Farewells - 24/05

A week of farewells began with saying good-bye to Christine on Monday, then two returning interns Belinda and David on Thursday.  In the evenings the interns and I have been making the most of our last days with these three fantastic friends, one such celebration involved making Kentucky fried chicken (see David and Paul in the photograph below).On the weekend I played American football, taught some rugby, organized relays for kids, taught acrobatics and sprained my ankle doing a backwards flip off an unstable wall. Wednesday was dedicated to project peer reviews and I presented the electrical and civil engineering aspects of Kibuye Hope Hospital.

Spiritual High - 17/05

Last weekend I had my laptop fan repaired, helped with games at Heritage International School and went back to my church Refreshing ministries. During the work week though, I helped to organize half an hour every morning for office staff to discuss how God is visible in our lives. Not to mentioning learning guitar and playing three songs for the whole office to honor God with. Wednesday was a day where the whole office went out to meet, pray for, physically help our neighbor hood. The photograph below shows some of the physical labor we did at a local school.

Halfway - 11/05

After realizing there is less than 3 months of my 6 month internship to go, I have begun to spend quality time with the friends I have made here. This week I had a couple of bonfires outside, slept under the stars, went swimming in the lake and taught break dancing to 10 year-olds. At the office I shared a book report, prepared a series of morning devotions, begun drafting the new Kibuye Hope Hospital buildings and completed the structural analysis and drafting for a roof design in Kenya. As a side note I provided a short interview for an organization called International Design Network (http://internationaldevelopmentnetwork.tumblr.com/). The  rendering below shows the existing hospital campus (top) and proposed hospital campus (bottom), the buildings highlighted blue are used for academic and administration functions.

Back in Burundi - 06/05

For the last week and a half I was part of a team including 3 architects, 1 landscape architect and 5 engineers. We were at Kibuye Hope Hospital to work on a master plan. Every day would begin at 7:00 am with breakfast, at 7:30 we would discuss how God is portrayed in the bible, 8:00 am would see the beginning of the work day, dinner at 7:00 pm, discussion of how God is portrayed in our lives at 7:30 pm, then more work before heading to bed just after midnight. The PRAYER tab has been updated and the photograph shows the office environment we worked in.