Yeah. So my first time going to Rwanda, I was 12. I just turned 12, and it was 2007. And the genocide had, you know, only ended a few years ago. It was in 1994. And so you could still kind of feel a remnant of war and tension, but you could also see that there was a lot of rebuilding going on. Um, but at that young age, I did notice, you know, I visited many memorials and the school where we were kind of based out of in this rural village, there was a church where, you know, 10,000 people alone were killed inside that church. And to be there at this age and see the proximity of this school to this church and the damage and trauma that was affecting not only the whole country, but each individual person was very visible and was traumatizing, you know, to see, but really important because that's why you could understand why I could understand how education could be transformative for each young woman after going through an experience like that, being orphaned by it, being just a baby when the genocide was going on, education was a way out and was a way to grow and to create their own sustainable families and lives. And so my first trip, I got to meet like 12 young women that we were sponsoring, and many of them were very shy and kind of kept their heads down. And I'll never forget that, because over time, slowly and slowly, they would look me in the eyes, and they built confidence after knowing that they were being invested in and that, you know, they were powerful women who just needed that chance to go to school. And I was actually very, very sick on my first trip, and I could barely stand up, which is why many of the photos I'm sitting down in a chair, because I was very sick. Um, but it just showed, you know, how important it was for me to be there, and I don't get sick anymore now, but after my first time, I kind of, I really felt like I was learning about this community and why it was so important.
