Urakundo

Dear and dearest readers, thank you for joining me again. Work has been productive, but repetitive, and so I will do all a favor and spare you from the details. In essence, Aaron and I are still doing good work in developing concepts for E-Sponsorship. However, today I did organize a stack of papers into four books after watching Emmanuel struggle with the ordering the pages.

This weekend though brought about some fulfilling fun, as we traveled to Gitarama again for a dinner party that Alana was putting on. I knew she invited many guests, but it was not until the twelve or so girl orphans arrived that I figured out who the guests were. Though they only spoke Kinyarwandan, we had an excellent time entertaining them with games like 3-legged races and Steal the Bacon. After the games, we all enjoyed a wonderfully made Mexican meal, complete with tortilla chips and guacamole. Mmmmmm. Then came desert, which consisted of pineapple, peanuts and Aaron's and my surprisingly fabulous maple brownies. We're humble about it though. Following desert, the girls performed a native Rwandan dance for us before they had to leave to get to bed. It was definitely in my Top 10 list for best parties ever.

The girls were part of an organization Urakundo, which means 'love' in Kinyarwanda. The head mistress of both of the girls' and boys' orphanage was a 76 year-old women from Pennsylvania, known as Mama. She told us that upon retirement, and after her husbands death, she found her life becoming increasingly meaningless. But God changed all of that when she got pushed into volunteering abroad through her church. Now, she has lived in Rwanda for four years, having established and developed the orphanage and has found her purpose once again. When we told her that we had made brownies, she excitedly asked for one, saying she had not enjoyed a brownie in four years. I gave her two, commenting that she should just as well have two, since she would probably had four years until her next brownie. I hope that when I am her age, I will have the courage live and work abroad as well.

Sunday night, after another crowded ride back from Gitarama, us interns and a few others were lucky enough to be invited over to Dwight Jackson's (our boss) house for dinner. Aside from being a wonderfully gracious and kind lady, Dwight's wife Brenda is an amazing cook. She prepared for us a dish known as Mt. Kilimanjaro, which was essentially chicken curry with a wide array of toppings. In her explanation of her dinner, Brenda instructed us to add the coconut last, to represent the snow. "It's a good thing we're eating this now," I muttered, "because in twenty years we won't get any coconut." No one got it... but I thought it was funny. Anyways, dinner was delicious, as expected, successfully concluding an eventful weekend.

Tis all for now. The picture above is of a matatu, the primary form of public transportation in Kigali. I like this picture; it reminds me of Little Miss Sunshine. To accompany the picture, I have also added another video, complement of Aaron. Simply click the appropriately titled video on the sidebar of this page to activate it. This was the matatu ride on the first trip to Guitarama, which was some time ago, but it will give you an idea of this crazy mode of transportation nonetheless. This one is only moderately packed though, on the way back we were in one that had 21 people in it. I hope you enjoy it as well as the rest of your day. God bless.