Elections!

SPREAD got an intern, Ryan, from Texas A&M for a month. He’s pretty cool and now I have someone to hang out with again. Had a 4-day weekend this weekend (6/8-10/8) due to the presidential elections. Friday, I had a half-day at work then went home and pretty much stayed there. Saturday, I woke up, did some laundry and then Ryan came over and we went out around town. Went and watched Eclipse in the cinema (which was pretty apparent it was a pirated copy), then walked over to the theater because earlier in the day a Rwandese friend of mine told me she was putting on a play at 7 that evening, so we went and met her outside and she told us it was going to start late. Walked in and sat down and then picked up one of the few programs scattered on seats (1 to every 10 or so) and realized it was in French, so went back to the cinema and watched the new Alice and Wonderland, then went home to bed. Sunday, Ryan and I were going to meet at the market and get food to cook dinner, but it was closed (he’s tired of hotel food). We ended up going over to Abdoul’s house and since it was elections the next day, his houseboy left to go to his hometown to vote, so we ended up making the dinner. Abdoul and I peeled and cut up a million potatoes to make fries and we started the fire and then his sister took over after our batch of frites weren’t too good (they were pretty soggy and not at all crispy, but still tasted fine). We had fries, rice, beans, avocado and tea with an apple for desert with Abdoul and his family and two friends. We watched Hitch and Enemy of the State from a disc of all Will Smith movies (they sell DVD’s here with about 5-6 movies on them).
Monday, while I was lying on the couch reading, Ryan banged on my gate. I wasn't too keen on walking around and disrupting the election process, but he said that not much was going on, he didn't see many people walking around in town, and besides everything was closed until the afternoon. We played checkers at my place and afterwards went out to the video store and rented ‘Thank You For Smoking’ only to take it back and find out that it’s a French copy. We returned to the shop and exchanged it for ‘True Blood’ (after making sure it was in English). It’s a pretty good show so far. Only watched 2 episodes. I stopped in one of the bars to see if there was any news about the elections yet, but it was all in Kinyarwanda and there was no data being shown, so I just moved on. Got a text from Adam though telling me that PK won by a landslide (to be expected).
Tuesday was a holiday because of the elections Monday, so no work. My cleaning lady came and cleaned the floors and did laundry and I went into the office for a bit. Afterwards, I went jean shopping and got a new pair I really like! On my way home, I saw two women standing and staring into a tree. So, as I got closer I stared into the tree too and saw a group of monkeys and a boy throwing rocks at them. Two jumped across the road into the field and one ran up my steps, jumped up onto my wall and then onto my roof. I was kind of scared to go into my house and turned to the ladies when I saw he was headed into my house and told them “crap! That’s my house!” (eh! n’inzu yanjye!!) They just laughed and I got into my gate with no problem, then went and got my camera and took some pictures of the guy. He stayed on the roof for a bit, then came back down onto my wall and finally jumped into my mango tree and off to find the others. My cleaning lady and I were laughing about it together.
Wednesday, went into work, found my boss, she told me another family member died (that’s 3 in the 2 months I’ve been here!) and left. So here I am, yet again, alone in my office with nothing to do.