February

12/2: Lil bro’s birthday! Called and he didn’t answer :(. Took moto to Kamembe on the back roads and foot paths with the clinic moto driver for an hour and a half! Longest moto ride ever!!! Thought he was going to go to the main road and drop me to take a taxi bus, but he kept going on small, bumpy, dirt paths until we hit the city. My body was sore after that. Finally saw where the hospital was located in the city, went to the bank, went down to the AIDS Relief office and hung out with people and got some mail. Went to the market to buy garlic and cheese and some alcohol for the party then got in another taxibus to Nyamasheke town to stay the night at Katy’s. We made tortilla chips, guacamole and salsa for dinner.
13/2: Went down the hill to the lake (yeah, she lives walking distance from the lake), swam and saw K-topia, the island kate, katie and katy have claimed. We brought a basketball and got followed by a group of kids. It was bothering me that they were just staring, so I told them to come swim and one girl shyly came down to the waters edge and took off all her clothes and jumped in with us. We played with the basketball and soon all the kids were naked and swimming with us. A few didn’t know how to swim so we made sure they stayed where they could stand. When we got out they surrounded me and we were just talking then one was brave enough to touch me and soon they were all braiding my hair into messy, differently sized braids. It was funny. I looked like a fool, but it was nice to be interacting with the kids rather than just being stared at. I took some pictures and let them see and then they started telling me “take another of us dancing, etc.” I’ll post them as soon as I can. Off in the distance I saw a canoe coming towards us, as it got closer I realized it was kate and katy with a bunch of boys. I guess they got tired swimming back from the island and talked the boys into giving them a lift! Then Tricia got into the boat and went on a small journey around on the lake. After swimming, we went back to Katy’s and made pizza and a calzone for lunch. Emily made and brought a King’s cake for Mardi Gras and I found the baby in the cake! Went to Gisakura for a party at the hotel that evening. There were 5 of us and we all took motos to get to the main road, it looked hilarious. There are rarely cars and motos going up and down the road and then there’s this giant procession of 5 motos all banded together. While we were walking to get the motos a kid behind me was singing “Oya, wigenda” which means “no, don’t go”. It’s a real song on the radio, but I thought it was hilarious that he was following me and singing it as I was leaving. Party was fun, lots of good food and dancing. Slept on the couch.
14/2: Watched lots of smutty TV, aka E!, for HOURS! It was wonderful. Also watched some of the winter Olympics which was pretty fun and took a hot shower. I was able to use the internet for a bit and then we took a tour of the hotel. It’s almost done now and they’re just installing the furniture and decorations and its beautiful! I wanted to sneak in and take over. There's an infinity pool overlooking the forest now and the hotel lobby and sitting room is gorgeous. We walked back to Kate’s house to get our things and head home, but when I got to the town on the road I got a text saying that I left my purse at her house, so I went back and stayed the night and left in the morning. I love her site because the kids will come hold your hand and walk you to her house and give you hugs.
15/2: I walked down the hill from Kate’s to Buhinga and went to the Artisan Center to talk to the boss about letting a cooperative of women in Mwezi sell things there, but she wasn’t there, so they let me in to look around and gave me her number. Then I went home, but the moto I was on stopped about 5 minutes into my dirt road and left me there saying he had to go fix something and another moto driver came to take me because the other guys moto couldn’t be fixed.
16/2: Met with the guy in charge of cooperatives for my sector and told him my idea of getting together a group of women to sell things at the artisan center in Buhinga. He told me he was going to get together a group of women for me (women with HIV and widows). He set a date for meeting with the women the next week and we went to visit a woman who makes agaseke (woven baskets) and she showed me some of her things.
17/2: Worked with pregnant women at the clinic, taking blood pressure and testing for HIV and syphilis.
18/2: Drew lines in a book and copied things from one book to another. No one had filled out the book since the first week in November, so I had quite a few months of work to do. Really boring and tedious. A few people from AIDS Relief came to the clinic and I talked to one of them about the problems between the testing and counseling and we tried to figure out where things were going wrong. When someone tests positive they are supposed to sit and talk with a counselor and then be entered into the database. The number of people in the database hasn’t changed in a few months, yet I know for a fact that people have been testing positive. Painted my toe nails.
19/2: Took 6:30 bus into Kigali and met Adam and his friends for lunch. Went to the PC office and played on the internet and hung out with the other PCVs there. Met back up with Adam at a bar, we went to go get pizza and came back and then went to a different bar. I had given my bag to Kevin during lunch and he took it to Adam’s office for me, so we had to go to the office to grab my bag before going home and found two of the guys there drinking wine and playing computer games.
20/2: Watched Avatar in the morning on Adam’s computer, then went over to his “big brother’s” house to visit with him, his wife, baby and their cousin who came in from Holland to visit. The baby is only 2 months and is so cute. She was smiling the whole time, her name means sun (Izuba) in ikinyarwanda, but they call her izzie for short. We ate lunch and had some drinks and I played with the baby and their yellow lab, then we went back to Adam’s where a bunch of friends came over. We got some drinks and ended up playing “I’ve never”, I was too tired to go out after so I just went to bed while everyone else went to a friend’s party.
21/2: Watched Sherlock Holmes and How I Met Your Mother in the morning then went to the bar to nurse the boy’s hangovers and then went to the bar with the volleyball court. The boys played in the mud and rain, while others of us played pool (I’m really bad). We went down the road afterwards to a bar that’s like a sitting room with couches and a TV and ended up watching an HIV prevention movie from Kenya. Adam, his cousin, a friend and I went out to Chinese food and it was delicious.
22/2: Caught the bus home Monday morning and at one of the stops saw a girl out the window waving at me and yelling “muzungu”. I waved back and then realized that she was carrying a small doll and blanket with her and made me think of when I went everywhere with my doll and blanket. I got a comfortable seat next to a skinny guy, so I had my own space and the driver was fast and there was no rain when I got back to Nyamasheke, so I’ve decided that Mwezi is appreciative that I am now doing something (the cooperative) and doesn’t hate me anymore. While on the moto, the cooperative guy at the sector office came by on his moto, so he had me get off and get on his and he gave me a ride home. When I got to the last hill before my house, the kids had just gotten out of school, so they chased the moto up the hill the whole time yelling “alice” (ah-lee-say, which is the name I get called the most in my village). Meredith had come to visit so I got to hang out with her that night.
23/2: Meredith left in the morning and I was feeling under the weather, so I didn’t go into work and just did some laundry. There was some crazy sunshine rain in the afternoon. It was super sunny but raining like the dickens.
24/2: Went into the clinic early to talk to Jean de Dieu before he left for a training about starting the kitchen garden trainings with the community health workers. Helped with the pregnant ladies.
25/2: Saw a chameleon crossing the grass in the nuns yard on the way to work. Drew lines and copied things from book to book again. Rained from 4pm that night until 6am the next morning! The mud was epic. That night there was a plague of insects around the lights and getting into the house under the doors. Literally thousands everywhere! It was gross and difficult to get in and out of the door.
26/2: Next morning I woke to millions of insect wings and bodies inches deep outside the door and covering the floors in the house. Had the meeting with the women for the cooperative at the sector office. It went well, they seemed interested and excited. There are about 20 of them. Raced home after the meeting and packed quickly and caught a moto to the road and took a bus to Butare to meet Adam and friends for Gad’s birthday. They have been fixing the road and the drivers haven’t gotten used to it yet, cause we hit one bump and honestly my entire body flew about a foot in the air. My bum was off the seat, my feet were off the floor. We drank at a hotel outside on the veranda then went out dancing at a club.
27/2: Woke up and took a cold shower, with the water stopping intermittently, then went to find a bus back to Nyamasheke, only to find out that they werent going to Cyangugu that day. "Do you have a bus to Cyangugu?" "Yes, let me go ask.... No, not today." So, ended up going back to Kigali on a bus with a preacher man who got the boys into a conversation about God and religion (I tried to stay out of it). I didnt pack for an entire weekend, so I stole some of Adam's clothes and washed mine. Took a nap, watched a movie and then a bottle of Black Label showed up and I drank some. Lots of people came over to partake in the Black Label, then we went out to a bar and got a ride home from a friend.
28/2: Worst Hang Over Ever! I'm never drinking whiskey again! Slept in too late to get a bus back to Nyamasheke, so stayed another night in Kigali. Watched how I met your mother, did more laundry, went to a volleyball tournament and Adam's friends won both 1st and 2nd place! So, they got free alcohol and food. Adam and I went to eat chinese and when we got back to the bar, everyone was finishing up and we were going to the sitting room bar cause its cheaper, but it was RAINING! Adam ran, but got soaked, I got a ride in a car with the other girls. On the way home, stopped at a nice bar to use the toilet.