Email journal: July 6, 2004, Rwanda I made my first trip out to the Gikongoro Province on Wednesday 30th June accompanied by Sara Brown who was visiting from Clark, Rosemary Musana*, who is translating for me, and Mr. Eliezer who manages the World Vision Rwanda projects in Gikongoro. Like much of Rwanda the province is made up of undulating terrain upon which have been cultivated bananas, coffee, kidney beans, cassava, and sweet potato. We spent the day at the World Vision office located in the center of Gikongoro town. Until Wednesday, I had been unaware that I need a letter of permission from the Regional Commissioner of Gikongoro that would enable me to enter the communities and do my research. So with the help of Rosemary and a few of the World Vision staff we scripted out a letter asking permission and began the pain staking process of translating into Kinyarwanda. Searching for the right words in Kinyarwanda that accurately described what I would be doing took over an hour. I had no idea it would be so complicated. According to Fidèle, a member of the World Vision staff, Kinyarwanda is the 7th hardest language in the world and the meaning of one word can be easily altered by the use of another. Because of technical difficulties we were unable to complete the letter and submit it to the office of the Regional Commissioner. In fact the submission of the letter was held up till Friday afternoon due to Thursday being the Rwandan Independence day, and Friday being Mugande (a time set aside for cleaning the environment). On Tuesday the 6th of July, Rosemary and I returned to the World Vision Office in Gikongoro town where we hitched a ride into Ruramba Sector, which is part of the Nyaruguru Commune. We were warmly welcomed by the community who allowed me to take several pictures of them in their community. In Ruramba, World Vision runs a sponsorship program for orphans and vulnerable children. It was interesting to learn about the selection process, and what it might mean to be one of the many who fell outside the selection criteria. In order to be sponsored you needed to be recruited into the program between the ages of 3 and 9 and have been orphaned by the 1994 genocide or HIV. Abandoned children or children whose parents where unable to support them are also accepted into the program. Sponsored children are given shelter, access to education (school fees are paid and school materials supplied), and medical care. They are also given Christian witness and are monitored by a member of the World Vision staff at least once a month. My concern about those children who are excluded from the sponsorship program emerged from a World Vision Rwanda report of Child Headed Households (CHH) in the region. The report suggested that children in CHHs felt ostracized from the community. There was also a problem of jealousy between those CHH who had NGO support and those who didn't. The report suggested that, as a result of the jealousy within the community, those families with NGO support were often maltreated, and suffered violent attacks on their property. As I continue my research I would like to explore the effects of ostracization and jealousy on the construction of self identity, value, and vision, among other social issues. *In my last journal entry I said that Rosemary Musana graduated from the University of Tamil Nadu in India. This information is incorrect. Rosemary graduated from the Allahabad Agriculture Deemed University in Uttar Pradesh, India with a Degree in Agricultural Sciences