Every year, my posts have become quite similar to each other. Read back, and there is a blog before the run, one following recapping the run. Now and again, when something big happens, we post about it. But, I have failed to share with people, for awhile, about some of the individual kids (now adults) that we have had over the years. these are just a few of the reasons why we run, and why we continue to support such a special place like Ubaka U Rwanda. If you read this and feel compelled, please consider going to our donate page to help support. Thank you so much.
Side note: please do enjoy laughing at my aging process as you see early photos and new ones!
YVES GATOYA
If you have followed us for awhile, you would have heard Yves’s name because he is one of our most storied boys of Ubaka U Rwanda. Evode always likes to tell stories about Yves when he was on the street. Yves is an orphan and was on the street from a very young age. He got pretty good at surviving. Something you should know about street kids in Rwanda, is that there is a prison that holds street kids, simply for being on the street. Almost of all of our kids have spent time there. Yves spent YEARS there. By age 7, he had the street and prison figured out. What he didn’t have figured out..was love.
Evode tried to keep Yves home for a long time but he continued to run away. Yves refused rules, chores, and a family environment. It wasn’t until one day, Evode decided he wasn’t going to make Yves do anything around the home that all of the kids were expected to. The kids cooked, they cleaned, they did their homework and studied etc. They weren’t allowed to fight either. Yves got away with not doing these things unless he felt like it for over a year. When I heard these stories, I used to ask Evode why he put up with that when there were others kids who would have shown gratitude for everything. Evode explained that he needed Yves to understand that he wasn’t going to abandon him and that he loved him like he was his own.
It worked. One day, Yves accepted a punishment (time out) for one thing or another. One day, Yves began to study like the other kids. One day, Yves walked up to Evode and explained that his small size didn’t matter, he deserved a big school bag like the rest of the kids in his grade, and that he was going to study hard.
And today, Yves is a chef and rising rapidly in doing so. He is an example to every kids that comes to us that anyone can accept love and family. He comes home and mentors the kids just by standing there in front of them. But he does even more than that. I, myself, was intimidated when I met him. Yves walked ten feet tall. Now he’s twenty feet tall, but with humility and compassion.
