Last weekend, we spent a night at the Virunga Safari Lodge in northern Rwanda. While there, we took the village trail to Mwiko Primary School, a public school that receives support from the hotel.
There is an inspiring mural of the students’ hopes for their school on one of its buildings.
Below, on the right side of the mural, there are classrooms and well-built latrines* with a hand-washing station.
There is also a computer, a teacher talking about HIV-AIDS, and students and teachers joined by love. The organization Mothering Across Continents mentors teachers at the school and sponsored the mural.
Below, in the center of the mural, there are solar panels and tanks to catch rainwater runoff from the classrooms’ roofs, a grassy playing field, a smiling graduate.
The mural was painted by Igala J. and Kabuye G. working from ideas from 50 paintings by the children.
On the right side of the mural below, there are chickens and rabbits, hills terraced for planting, the mountains, and Lake Burera.
The children currently raise rabbits in pens behind the school.
The school’s motto is “knowledge, wisdom, hope.”
Below is a photo of the school, which serves over 800 children and has 12 teachers. You can see more pictures here and here. There’s a video of a class singing here.
*More information on the importance of adequate latrines in schools in developing countries is here and here.
enclos*ure 
latrines – so taken for granted in the First World, but a serious problem which can put girls off going to school.
In Niger, where schools have few or no latrines (and there are very few trees or bushes), we also heard that teachers would stay home if they had any stomach illness because of the lack of facilities. Once an expat group I worked with there received a grant request for money to build a 4-seat latrine for a school of 4,000 — because it currently had no working latrines.
Things are certainly not so bad here, but I can still see why bathrooms would be part of the mural.