Christmas break

(Note- This blog was written about a week and a half ago, but it's taken this long to upload the pictures! )

Dec 19- Last day of school, my kindergarteners had their first ever class party! This was a pretty big deal. We have yet to really celebrate any holidays at school, halloween and Thanksgiving are American holidays (my kids are from 9 different countries). So finally we were able to have a class party and celebrate Christmas! I had some wonderful moms come in and lead crafts, play games, read stories, sing songs, serve food, and we ended the day with a movie. Exhausting day, but the kids had a blast! I can't tell you how many times I heard them say things like "this is the best day ever!" or "this is the best party of my life!"
It's funny the things you forget about that are so exciting the first time. This is the best part of teaching kindergarten.

Dec 21- Acts 20:35 tells us it's a greater blessing to give than it is to receive. While I may not have much money to give, over Christmas break, I was rich in time to give and I was blessed with some great opportunities to spend my time serving. Today I went to work with my dear friend, Torey. Torey works at a home for street boys. We went out to the home and visited with the boys who were still there for Christmas. The ones who had family members to be with, went home for Christmas, but there were still about 6 older boys who remained in the home for the holiday. After they had finished their morning chores, Torey gathered the boys together and told explained to them that was almost Christmas, and at Christmas time, families get together and give each other gifts. She told them that they were a family and they wanted to get them each a new pair of shoes for Christmas. So they were going to go down to the market and each boy could pick out a new pair of shoes that they liked. What a blessing it was for me to take these boys and help them find shoes that fit them and ones they liked. It was incredibly humbling to see the joy these young men had just from getting a new pair of shoes- something so simple and regular to americans, but so rare and special to these boys!
This afternoon, Torey and I were blessed with a chance to serve a wonderful family in our community. This family has 6 kids- 2 teenage girls, 2 boys ages 5 and 6, and 2 Rwandan babies whom they are currently fostering, a 11 month old girl, and a 7 month old boy. The parents took the older girls Christmas shopping while we spent the afternoon with the boys and the babies. I'm thankful there were 2 of us to keep up with the energy of these spunky and precious boys and the sweet babies.







Dec 25- Christmas day! Quite a bit different in Africa, than it is in America. Christmas here means going to church, being excited and full of joy for the birth of our savior, and maybe sharing a special meal with family and friends, and MAYBE exchanging gifts. Of course there were gifts exchanged from western families, but I learned from many Rwandans that giving or receiving gifts was definitely not expected on Christmas day. "Why would I need someone to give me things to celebrate Jesus's birth, it's His birthday, not mine."
I spent the day attending church and sharing meals with friends from school. It was a difficult day to be away from my family, but extremely interesting and humbling to see how others celebrated it.




Dec 26- Jan 1 - Trip to Uganda!
This week I traveled around Uganda with a few teacher friends from school. We left early on the 26th and took a 15 hour bus trip to Jinja. We spent a few days there, relaxing, enjoying the beautiful area, watching monkeys swing around on the trees at our hostel, oh and rafting grade 5 rapids down the Nile River! I'm going to try to post some pictures of this, but you can take my word for it when I say it was simply awesome. :)
Next we traveled down to Kampala- the capital of Uganda. They had a movie theater and a mall! It was almost like being in the states again. After spending some time there, we took a 7 hour extremely bumpy bus trip to Lake Bunyonyi. My roommate, Jodi and I sat in the back row of the bus and literally bounced up and down the entire ride. I wondered if this is how babies feel when you're hold them and bouncing them up and down... I suppose it was kind of soothing, but also a little nauseating... maybe this is why babies spit up all the time.
Anyway, something fun about taking bus rides through Uganda is what happens with the bus stops (which for some reason happens quite often). When the bus pulls over for even just a minute, it gets bombarded by people holding up fruit, corn, chapattis (similar to tortillas), and brochettes (meat kabobs). They make this food and then try to sell it to passer-byers. You can just lean out your window and buy a banana without even leaving your bus seat. It really brings a new meaning to "fast food."
Uganda was a beautiful country to visit! It was really fun to travel, but I was ready to be back in Kigali. For one thing, I was ready to get home and take a shower. Due to a lack of warm water and towel, I had only taken one shower during my trip/ I know- gross, but hey, I live in Africa! But it gets worse, we came home to find that the water was out at our house (for various reasons, this just happens sometimes). I was able to take one bucket shower the next day at my dear friend Kerry's house, but even they were having water problems. Well after a lot of strange issues with our tank, phone calls to the landlord, and workers in our yard, we now have running water again. Wahoo- I have taken 3 showers now in the course of 2 weeks.

This is Africa, folks. ...and I wouldn't trade my experiences here for anything.

I'm the one in front in the pink helmet :)