3 Month Word Vomit

A lot has gone on since the last real blog update.  But, I hope you liked the last one with all the pictures…it was sure a pain in the butt to upload.  And, as promised, here is my word-vomit update.

As you know, I’ve been on my “summer” break here in Rwanda.  School came to a pretty clean end, lots of exams to grade, grades to calculate and record and then, oh right, write a second exam for students to take if they failed (just barely?) the first one.  That makes sense…right?

Everything from school wrapped up and then before I knew it, my good friend from high school, Dawson, was arriving in Rwanda for a 3 week visit!!  We had a great time.  He met a bunch of PCVs, we went gorilla trekking (pictures above) which was amazing, we had some nice R&R on Lake Bunyoni in Uganda and then we celebrated Thanksgiving at my village.  We killed a chicken, it was cool!

3 weeks went by fast!  I said bye to Dawson, hung out in Kigali and went to training for the new Education group, then hopped on a plane for the 1st time in over a year to go meet Mom and Dad in Cape Town, South Africa!

South Africa. Wow. I mean, yeah. Talk about different.  Stepping off the plane in Cape Town it was like stepping back into America…kind of.  While it is a very westernized place, there were still those moments where I went “Yup, still in Africa.”  But, all in all, it was amazing and wonderful.  I ate sushi, Subway and steak. It was delicious.  I got to drink water out of the tap and take REAL, like actual REAL showers with unlimited hot water.  It was just so nice.  And I mean, doing the tourist sites was fun too, but my sights on what’s interesting have slightly changed.

While in South Africa, we stayed in Cape Town, right on the beach at our friend Mimi’s home.  We went up into wine country and went wine tasting.  It was wonderful.  And delicious.  And better than ANYTHING California has produced (and it’s okay for me to say that because I’ve done the California wine tasting!).  We did standard touristy things like riding Ferris wheels, walking around tourist shopping centers, going to Cape Point and the southernmost point of Africa.  Overall, it was a very relaxing and enjoyable vacation…and I got to see Mom and Dad too which is always nice.

But wait!  Their visit wasn’t over yet!  The 3 of us hopped back on the plane for a week long tourist vacation in Rwanda, woohoo!!  That was a completely different experience as well.  For the past year I’ve been living in a rural Rwandan village, trying to be as close to a villager as I can and then I got to see what it was like to be a tourist with money!  (Jeez…I know that sounds really bad but, it’s true, yeah?).  We stayed at the Umubano Hotel in Kigali and Serena Hotel in Gisenyi.  Both were…well, they weren’t my house in the village, that’s for sure.  We visited my village –>Mom and Dad got to see where their baby girl is living and meet some of her friends, see the school.  We also did an 8hr (really actually 14) day tour to Akagera National Park.  We saw lots of animals.  We went to the Gisozi Genocide Memorial in Kigali and bummed on the lake in Gisenyi.  And I got a massage, that was cool.

Eventually I had to say bye to Mom and Dad, they needed to get back to real life and I needed to get back to the village…it had been about 5 weeks!

Parents left, new training group became volunteers a couple days later and after all that was done, THEN, I went back to the village because I needed to back to attend Euphron’s wedding!!!

Euphron’s married.  It was a tiring weekend full of wedding festivities.  But now he lives across the street from me and that’s fun.

Then came Christmas.  Jed and Gelsey came over and we spend the day over at one of the new volunteer’s house which was close to me.  there were about 12 of us total, we just hung out and had a wonderful Christmas dinner of tacos! (Anything different from Rwandan buffet is very welcome).  We didn’t feel like sleeping on the cement floor, so we did go back to my place after dinner…which meant we got to have banana pancakes with REAL (from Canada) Maple Syrup!!!  Thanks Mom and Dad for the inclusion of deliciousness in the suitcase of wonders they brought me from the states.

Keeping with the timeline, New Years was up on the list.  I spent New Years at site.  Why, you ask?  Well, I like my village, I’d been gone for a while and I was leaving Jan. 3rd for my groups Mid-Service Conference (MSC).  So it just made sense to hang out in village.

And that brings us up to the current day.  I’m in Musanze at MSC.  I’ve been a Peace Corps Volunteer for 1 year.  I’ve got one to go.  School “starts” Monday.  I’m not prepared, but that’s okay.

I’m ready to see what this new year will bring.  It feels like it’s going to be a good one.  ‘Til next time world…

The Past 3 Months in Pictures

Hey all! So, I know it’s been a while, and I apologize.  Things got crazy busy with the end of the school year, then Dawson visited, then my parents visited, then I had a wedding to go to, then it was Christmas and then it was New Years and you see, here we are at the current date.  So, I will do a word vomit blog update, but I figured first I’ll post a bunch of pictures so you can see what I’ve been up to in the mean time.

Per usual, enjoy!

Some of my students on their last day of school.  This is their best attempt at smiling.

Milo has grown to full size and proven to be quite an adventurous, but pain in the butt, cat.

Like I said, pain in the butt. That’s his kibble…guess he was hungry?

Dawson came to visit…our friendship in a nutshell.

PCV Thanksgiving, goodbye party to leaving PCVs…aptly named “A Primus TIe Affair” where wearing clothing with Primus Beer paraphernalia.  This is typical.

Primus print cocktail dresses.  Even in Africa we know how to party.

At the start of Gorilla Trekking

The Gorillas!  And a picture of me with our awesome guide.

Then we went to Uganda…to an island on a lake called Byoona Amagara for some lovely R&R.  The 3 of us stayed in a Geodome (me, Gelsey and Dawson) and had a wonderful time.  This is the billboard which welcomed us back in to Rwanda…Primus is a kind of beer.

Then I went to South Africa and met the parents! Here’s Cape Town and Table Mountain

Then we went wine tasting in Stellanbosch…Napa Valley doesn’t even come close to these wines!

We went to the Southernmost Tip of Africa!  It’s where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet and straight south is Antarctica.  Pretty cool.  Plus, I guess we’re a pretty good looking family…minus Greg.

And our last tourist destination in South Africa was Cape Point.  Yet another gorgeous view and lighthouse…and a marker saying how far it was home.  That’s a loooooong way back!

The parents came to Rwanda!  This was the courtyard at our hotel.

They even ventured out to my village.  Behind is a view from by my school, a picture with Twaza and then Donatira.

A day trip to Akagera National Park and we got to see lots and lots of cool animals!

We spent a couple days at the Serena Hotel in Gisenyi

Then the parents left and I went back to site for Ephron’s wedding.  A couple pictures of that before my camera died.  Whoops.

 

Post Christmas bumming.  Jed, Gelsey and Milo lounging after a nice Christmas with some new volunteers.  (That’s my house now, by the way)

And I do believe that brings us up to present day.  Later tonight I’ll hopefully write and upload a word version of what’s been going on in the Land of a Thousand hills, but really it’s typically just another day in paradise.  I’ll leave you all with a couple panorama views from vacation!

Cape Point- South Africa

Akagera National Park…lots of Giraffes.