Went to business expo last week with one of my colleagues. There were mattresses, plastic jewelry, traditional medicines, Kenyan products (jewelry, clothes and sandals), foods, biofuels, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (aka yams, which I just designed a new program for that we’re going to implement with the community health workers), beer and wine, etc.
Visited my boss, Jeanne, at home, watched Cartoon Network with her kids, ate, drink wine, husband is impressed with my vegetarianism, says it takes a lot of restraint.
Petrol truck turned over on the main road, so sad, everyone running with buckets to clean up water in fields. Turned over into the river and the community had diverted water from the river for their fields, so it spread like wildfire into all their crops! Felt so sad to see everyone terrified that their crop was going to be destroyed.
Watched the Holland game alone, American girls sitting at another table didn’t talk to me. We got back late from the field and the game started at 4:30, so had to immediately run to the restaurant to watch the game and I was starving because I forgot my breakfast that morning and it was the first time I ate that day.
Went off-roading in Nyamagabe (Gikongoro), needed a sports bra, but there were beautiful views, could see everything we were so high up! World Vision went down one of the roads about ¾ of the way we traveled and built a primary school and health center. Didn’t end up finding anyone that we were looking for (went out into the field to watch the community health workers in action). Bought amakara (coals) because we saw smoke and its cheaper to buy it from the source and we stopped to get tomatoes because they’re cheaper in the village.
Almost got ran over by cows. Walking by two and Imogen grabs my arm and tells me one is running at us. I just started running and she stood there almost frozen, thinking if she ran it would chase after her.
Saw VCT (voluntary counselling and testing) at a washing station and the theatre group perform. Had the lady from the radio come and she recorded them doing the skit and then interviewed them afterwards. Wanted to interview me, but I refused. Helped out a bit with the VCT, writing on tubes, etc. all the “skills” I learned working at the HC in Mwezi. My boss was taking out her twists and saving the hair and took a piece of mine and twisted it with her used hair. Haha, wasn’t gross though, kinda funny. I wish more women would wear their hair natural. When she took the fake hair out, hers was still in the same shape as the twists and down to her shoulders and looked really cute! I don’t know if she’d be able to do it like that though without having the fake hair to twist it around.
Went to Kigali, met mama Adam, she's very nice but I was so nervous. Watched the football matches, happy Holland won! Adam went to a Dutch embassy party to watch the game with other Dutch people and then met up with us later. Went out dancing, took Imogen around town to see Kigali. Monday, we went to run errands, change Imogen’s flight, register for the conference, etc. Ethiopian Airlines’ system went down, so we didn’t get to do that, then we went to the hotel to check in and signed in under our friend’s name and got a card to her room and just hung out in the lap of luxury! It was so nice. I was in heaven! Just laid on the bed watching TV, enjoying the air conditioning and using the fast internet. We didn’t want to leave. Tuesday and Wednesday, had a conference on child and maternal health. While walking to the hotel Tuesday morning, I ran into a piece of steel rebar sticking up from the sidewalk and cut my toe open, so we went into the hotel and got a bandaid and then up to our friend’s room to clean it in the tub. The conference was good, lots of interesting information, but a few annoyingly bad presentations. After the conference every day, we would go up to Marine’s room and wait for her to get back from work and then go out to dinner or what not. Monday evening, we went out to trivia night at one of the restaurants. The girls and I decided we wanted to eat there first, so we went early (trivia didn’t start until 8) and had pizza and drinks. Then the boys showed up and we WON! I totally didn’t expect us to win because we didn’t get many answers correct, but we got a few obscure ones (Adam answered something about an economist author). I kind of contributed, but I think that every question I answered someone else had the answer also. If you win, then your food and drinks for the night are free! So, we stayed until everyone left ordering drinks and the boys got pizzas also. Wednesday evening, after the conference finished, we went out to watch the Spain Germany game and then ended up at karaoke at the bar across from the one we watched the game at. It was pretty fun, and since it was a Wednesday, we ended up closing the bar. They finished cleaning and were just sitting waiting for us to leave. Came back to Butare Thursday and met up with a guy from Mwezi who was in town for the preparation of the health clinic’s imihigo. Nyamasheke won the award for best district in Rwanda this past year! I’d like to pretend that I had something to do with that, haha.
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