Twese Hamwe!!

Paske Ziza is "Happy Easter!" in kinRwandan and the beautiful women and children dressed in their Sunday best yell back Twese hamwe (To all of us!!) as I pass them on my morning run in Volcans National Park today!

It is a brilliant Easter morning in Musanze, Rwanda! And I do some of my best thinking and reflecting on this rural road dotted by picturesque villages and surrounded by imposing Volcanoes that are home to the rare Silverback Mountain Gorilla.

It has been less than a week since a handful of cold-hearted, soulless cowards went and blew up the Brussels airport. I have been in a part of the world for the last week that has no idea why you would possibly kill people you do not know who are traveling to and from their families. And even if I explained to them why this is happening or why they did it they still really don't get it.

I am not sure I get it. But here goes.

I do understand that these men were accessories to something bigger than them. And they accomplished something very big and very bad.

But this is not the norm. By any means. This is the extreme. And what the people who I have encountered this week remind me is how much positive impact on the world you can have when you become an accessory!

You can also do something very big and very good!!

As I traveled thru Uganda and Rwanda this week having spent a decade coming here to build what is now the Global Livingston Institute I realized that I am now

...an accessory.

I am not the driving force of the GLI but one of many important parts that is changing the way we approach community development. Manager runs Entusi, Martina coordinates logistics in Kampala and Raymond has emerged as the Ugandan leader who meets our guests at airports, guides them through their travels and ushers them across borders. And so on.

And I am an accessory.

Clare Byarugaba is an accessory for those who do not have a voice and for those who are scared and disenfranchised as she boldly champions human rights in the face of people who can harm her. She will grow that voice in Colorado in April when she visits our communities to talk about her advocacy on behalf of LGBT persons in Uganda.

She is an accessory to human rights and worth listening to.

International Medical Relief is an accessory to communities in 40 countries around the world as they provide public health access and basic care to underserved people who have been overlooked. They have served almost 2,000 people this week in our travels together.

The Paper Fig Foundation is an accessory to 190 women that they trained in Kasese with basic business skills to grow their incomes and provide for their families. And they are an accessory to the budding fashion artists in Kigali who have a talent that they want to share with the world. And my god can they sew!!!

I had two friends who are very dear to me who lost their moms this month. And while their mothers have passed both of these people have become accessories to the good will that their mom's brought into this world and are quite elegantly carrying on this spirit through their own extraordinary actions of generosity and kindness.

One of the women I deeply admire and look up to, Donna Lynne became an accessory to the Hickenlooper administration this week as Colorado's next Lieutenant Governor. We are accessories to an administration guided by the core principles that we should act as good public servants and genuinely listen to the voice of the people; that we should work hard and be nice. Values not always embraced in many corners of the world.

And Joy!!! I met Joy yesterday and she lives up to her name. She has now trained and employed 4,000 women in Rwanda with basket weaving and artisan skills that put them back to work and help them care for their own families.

Joy is an accessory that reminds us that it is not NGOs or quick fixes... but rather jobs that will move people out of poverty.

And you could even say that I was an accessory to Barry Manilow this morning as fifty Rwandan children ran along with me singing "Can't Smile Without You"!

Seriously.

My partner would say I am also an accessory to bad music and bad taste and hopes that by traveling with the folks from New York Fashion Week I might change my ways!! We shall see!

...But I am also ridiculously fortunate to be an accessory to my kid Troy who graduates from college in a month and has become a young man who I am so proud of in the way he treats people and thinks about the world and the good that he will do for others!!

And so on this brilliant Easter morning enjoy your day and be an accessory! Be the very best accessory you can possibly be as the world is so much better off when we pay particularly close attention to our family and friends.

My Entusi family in Uganda has taught me that when we step out of being in the lead and focus on how we can be an important part of something bigger than us...

Well some really big and really good things happen!!

Twese hamwe... To all of us.

Much love from Rwanda, jamie