Pineapple bushes

So, in the interest of time, I'm going to use a paper I had to write this week as my post. It might be a little drab writing wise, but it was a pretty cool trip :) By the way, Sina Gerard is this super entrepreneur in Rwanda.

On Wednesday of this week, we went to a city in the north to go visit Sina’s enterprise. We arrived in town and were taken to a nearby restaurant where we were greeted by one of Sina’s employees who spoke English. He told us how Sina began by selling donuts, moved to selling juice, then began providing farmers with seeds free of charge and opened up schools (nursery, primary, and secondary) that were primarily for the children of farmers who supplied him with raw materials. He now also sells wine, banana beer, and banana wine as well as a variety of flours and biscuits. We had lunch at the restaurant, then our guide took us to see the farms in Sina’s enterprise.

We first visited some of the cows. They had both black and white cows and Rwandan cows. He then led us outside to the garden where they grow strawberries and macadamia nuts. We were allowed to taste the strawberries, and even though they were tiny, they were full of flavor. We next went to go visit the school that Sina opened. When we arrived, all of the children were in class, so we didn’t get swarmed like we usually do. The school has nursery, primary, and secondary sections all in one building. We went to visit the secondary section and introduced ourselves to the students. They were having a lesson on business. After the school, we went to go visit another farm that had apples, pineapples, acorn squash, and more strawberries. I had never seen a pineapple plant before, so that was very interesting. I was never really sure how pineapples grew, but I guess I had always assumed they grew on trees rather than on a plant on the ground. It was interesting to see the different pineapples in various stages of growth so that I could see just how they grew on the plant. The apple trees at the farm were very different from apple trees in America. Whereas apple trees in America are tall and stocky, these trees were short and thin. The apples they produced were different as well. Whereas apples in America, even those that aren’t genetically modified, are round and full, these apples were almost cylindrical and not quite as filled out. I guess this might be because apples aren’t endemic to Rwanda. I assume it’s the same for the strawberries. Whereas in America, strawberries, even non-genetically modified ones, are anywhere from medium sized to large, these strawberries are very small. I could also tell by the names used for these fruits (pomme and fraises, both French words) that they weren’t native to Rwanda.

                Next, we visited a more urban farm/zoo. Here, they kept turkeys, geese, monkeys, pigs, rabbits, and turtles. It seemed like the pigs and rabbits were kept as food animals, but the rest were kept just for viewing. I’m not so sure how I feel about that. The monkeys were kept in small cages and seemed very agitated. The pigs were interesting. The brochure we read earlier in the day said that they “survive on music,” and that was absolutely true. The pigs were listening to hip hop music and eating “strawberry mash.” It was definitely an interesting situation.

Finally, we went to go visit the juice-making factory. That particular day, they were making passion fruit juice. The factory contained a huge machine that stretched from one end of the building to the other. It began with a person loading passion fruits in to one end of the machine. The fruits were then washed and sorted by workers. The good fruits were funneled down a chute and lifted via conveyer belt to the top of the machine where they were then juiced and de-seeded. The juice was then pasteurized and filtered before it was bottled. The factory makes both concentrated juice and regular juice. 

So yeah, that was our visit. It was pretty cool. Now on to Uganda!