Benefit Concert and Breast Cancer Dinner!

The Benefit Concert that the AIC did in conjunction with the German and French 

Institutes was a sold out affair!  The AIC was responsible for selling 

tickets... and I had the privilege of being on the planning committee. 

The Bass/Baritone was JACQUES –GREG BELOBO---

 He is originally from Africa... made it big in the vocal world and

now teaches and performs at the Dresden Opera House in 

Germany.  He had promised to come back and do a benefit concert

and he did...He also held a competition... about 40 students began but the last 9 

were presented and performed at the concert. 

This girl was one of the winners.  The two guys on the right of her were, too.  Two of them won a 2 year scholarship to study music in France and one of them won a 1 year scholarship.  An exciting night for them, for sure! 

 Cindy.. our ambassador's wife, was the head of our committee and Oct. 26th ( the day of the concert) was her birthday.  Jacques brought her up on the stage to congratulate her and we all sang Happy Birthday! 

A close up of Cindy, Don (the US ambassador)
and our guest singer!!! 

Amithy on the left.... got this classical world going here in Kigali years
ago and she has been highly involved with the school of music.
 She and her husband have run a tea plantation their whole lives here and
have recently retired.  She came back to Kigali (from Sri Lanka) for the
concert. Edna is next to her, from Brazil.. then Jacques and me. 

Innocent and Jacques!  

Hedda joined us for the evening and she is meeting Peter,
the head of the Goethe Institute.

Patrick on the left and Kofi on the right.. insisted that they wanted to come to the
concert....I told them i didn't think it would exactly be their "thing".
But they came with us and afterwards... Kofi said in a very deep, deep
bass.. singing/growling sort of sound.. "Lah, lah, lah.  The guy
was ok... but i didn't like the product".  Ha!
Needless to say... classical singing isn't the fav of most 12-14 yr old boys!

BUT we filled 400 seats and  raised over $4000.00 to support
the Kigali School of Music.
The funds will be used for extra instruments or for training teachers
but not for day-to-day expenses.
All in all it was a great success....  Jacques didn't sing quite as
much as most of us had hoped.. because the last 9 competing
students performed a lot. But maybe next time..

The next night was the Breast Cancer Awareness Dinner in the
same room at the Serena Hotel.  It was very good... 

Ann Rugege was the main organizer. We had friends with us,
The Hughes, The Shaw's, Hedda and some others joined us, too.
Mike and Collette are in the forefront of this picture.  Fun people!!!

It was a big weekend!!  Roger and Faith Shaw stayed with us for the weekend since

there were so many consecutive events going on.  They live an hour south (and run

the fish farm) so it was easier for them to stay in town than run back and forth.

 After they left we both commented how much

we missed them being with us. We hit it off really well and have many things in common. They have 18 foster children.  They have a real heart for children and big hearts to love them with!  ( i missed getting their pictures.)

The Lord has given us so many wonderful people to interact with here..

I wonder how many of them we will keep in contact with when we 

are back home?  

Might be quite a few!!  

love, 

margie