For the past 5 days, I got to enjoy myself on the lovely shores of Lake Kivu at the Centre Bethanie in Kibuye. After spending school vacation in my village (slash Brittany’s village dogsitting) after an extremely long trimester…it was really nice to get out for a paid vacation.
Purpose of this one, to train the Education Group 2 volunteers and their invited counterparts (headmasters, teachers, students, nurses, best friend in the village…) in HIV/AIDs: what it is, prevention, problems in Rwanda, things infected persons face, how we can do training and awareness in our village, etc. etc… So you know, it was full of stuff. We had three days crammed full of sessions which were pretty dry but with occasional tidbits of informative information. Overall, I think it’s fair to say the conference was good in that it connected counterparts with other counterparts, counterparts with their PCV and other PCVs and was just a good time had by all.
However, nothing can ever go smoothly though, right? Right. So, we were scheduled to leave kibuye on Sunday…the day of the mass return of students to boarding school. Which means, moving around the country is hard and a pain. We were all able to get out of kibuye and to major cities, but me, I got stuck in Kigali because it’s impossible to get to my site on those days. And now currently I am sitting at Simba Supermarket enjoying their free internet, food until my bus at 11:30, which I somehow got a ticket for when there were none left (score!) Eventually I’ll get home…and the first day of school doesn’t count anyways so there’s not really an issue with me missing today.
And here’s a “Holy wow” moment everyone: I have been in Rwanda for 10 months. That means in 2 months I’ll have been here for 1 year, 1 WHOLE year. Yes, I can do math and that is kind of crazy! The time has been flying by, yet going so slowly sometimes, and I cannot believe for the life of me that I am almost done with one school year and half of my service! Wow. If you think that blows your mind…it’s blowing mine even more.
And in other news, I am slowly gearing up for November and December when people finally start to come to visit me!!! We’ve got Dawson making the trek to Africa in November and I’ll show him how it is completely possible for me to live in the bush! And then the parents are coming in December and we’ll spend some nice time in South Africa before gallavanting around Rwanda for a week. So that is exciting and slightly stressful since that means I have to plan things and actually leave my village and stuff but it’s exciting nonetheless because I get to show people what my life is like currently!
As usual, life is just moving right along. I don’t think it’s all that interesting but I do this for all my fans back in the states who want to know “What’s it like living in Africa?!?!” Well…it’s just, different. I can try to explain my life all I want to you all but really, just come out and visit and you’ll see for yourself! I think that’s all for now, I’ve got to start packing up and making my way down to catch my bus…til next time!
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