Saturday, March 28, 2009

Umunsi Mwiza!

I've been writing my blog update for the past two weeks. I wanted to write about starting the new semester, traveling to Burundi with a band, celebrating the 100th day of school, reaching the 6 months mark, language lessons, having a birthday, spending the weekend in Kibuye, and a slew of other distinctive events.

But now, I've realized if I keep trying to clump together 3 months of my time in Rwanda into a blog, I won't get a chance to tell you about the wonderful smaller moments. Like, for instance, this Saturday. It is 3 in the afternoon central African time, and I have had a lovely day so far. I slept in (thats what I do on Sats, especially Umuganda), and made coffee right after getting up. I joined two of my roommates ritual of watching TV episodes, and we had some good laughs. After getting a bit of washing done (finally), I joined them again. Well, last night we had a few friends over to watch the movie Mamma Mia, and had brought our mattress from the spare room out to make the tile floor a place for seating. The mattress is still here. Someone had the absolutely BRILLIANT idea of building a fort in our living room. And you know what? We did. In about 5 minutes flat. We can accomplish a lot when we get determined. But, then we decided we could expand. So, I brought my mattress down, and we brought in the rest of the chairs from the table, connected extra sheets to the light fixture in the middle of the room, and... Viola!

Next surprise for the day is that Jess and I went for a jog! We knew it was 2pm and super hot, but something just came over us. It was a great run through Kibagabaga's finest dirt roads. On the way back we were looking over across the hills (we can see about half the city...gorgeous), and we could see it raining in the distance. It was the most magnificent sound to hear it pouring rain about 10 minutes drive away. And of course, it came. We heard it approaching on our left, and it just kept landing closer and closer to us. There were a few houses on the left side of the road that suddenly started sounding like a huge rainstick had just been turned over. And a few seconds later the hugest drops of rain I've ever seen were falling right around us. And then it poured. We just kept running and smiling. I think our neighbors think we're nuts. And mostly we are.

So now my lunch is warming in the oven, I've taken the best luke warm shower, and I'm laying in the fort (still to be named) with a candle, listening to music a great friend sent from the States. :) Does it get any better than this?