just another day in Rwanda

It's been a while since I've wrote here, partly because of the busyness that has ensued but mainly because life has resumed to the ordinary things. Well, at least as ordinary as life is here. We're now half-way through our second set of classes which we are all enjoying quite thoroughly. The work load is definitely more demanding with this set of classes but the reward in it has been worth it. We have our post-colonial african literature class three times a week and then our african culture and traditional religions class usually once a week for seven hours. It definitely says something about our professor, since he's able to keep our attention for the majority of the seven hour class. There's something special about reading the literature of the people here and diving deep into their culture and tradition. I feel all my years at the University have led up to this point where I'm really putting all I know and have learned into what we're doing here. It's no longer facts and theories to be studied but people and actualities to be experienced. It's a very satisfying feature to it all. 

Some interesting events during the week: 

Sunday, me and another girl from the house found a rec Ultimate frisbee team that plays in Kigali. Both Rwandese and some expats come together each week for some games. It was the most refreshing and invigorating thing to get involved in, especially with the sun blazing down with a slight breeze. Bringing me straight back to summer!

I killed my first meal ever on Monday. We had 6 turkeys brought to our house to be killed and sold. Two that are gonna end up on our plates for Thanksgiving. So us students got the chance to begin the first step of this process by beheading the birds. It wasn't as bad as I would've imagined. I think becoming acquainted to the lifestyle here has made it seem a lot less inhumane and more like the way of life and survival.

The same day we had the annual Go ED cookie bake off where we had 8 entries of delicious treats. It's definitely a stretch figuring out how to alter recipes, figure out substitutions for the things they lack here and beat out everyone else with a killer recipe. I ended up last minute making up a cookie recipe of my own with another girl. We called them Crazy Crispy Caramel Drops and they ended up being quite the hit! We took first place with our random creation and now have house bragging rights.

We ended up at another national futbol game at the stadium next to our house yesterday. Tickets were less than a dollar for this world cup qualifying game with seats overlooking that overlooked the cloud filled sky and beautiful hills surrounding the stadium. The scenery felt unreal, with colors I only dream of painting. Rwanda ended up taking the cake 3 to 1 against Eritrea and it made for quite the match. My favorite part was watching the crowd go wild over each call, foul and goal. I didn't even need to know what was really going on, I just had to watch the movements of the crowd and their reactions to get the clearest picture.

Today we leave for Gitarama where we're gonna visit a pottery studio that one of the NGO's set up. Then tomorrow we're doing a program where we live one day in the life of a Rwandan in the villages. We're gonna cook, fetch water, weave and see what it really takes to live the rural life. Should be quite the treat!

The crowd after Rwanda scored their second goal.

The kids at the Center for Champions doing their favorite thing... dancing to Chris Brown!