First Weekend in Kigali

I spent the weekend at Crystal, Cassandra and Katie's apartment. I shall no longer complain about my house being too colonial... their place is very African, with no running water or furniture. Their kitchen consists of a 'sink' in which water can drain, and a hot plate which shocks you if you're not grounded (ie: wearing shoes). I found that out the hard way when I got electricuted to the extent that my arm flailed and hit Katie in the boob. After the initial shock (literally) it was actually really really funny.

Friday night we tried Sol Luna, which we found out is easier to direct people to if we tell the taxi driver "Italia Restaurant". It was the BEST pizza I have ever had. Legit Italian thin-crust amazing pizza. For about six dollars we each ordered a pizza as big as a medium one, and although we didn't think we could eat it all we most certainatly did. It was awesome. It will be my haven some days, I'm sure.

We found our way to the market on Saturday morning with the girls' landlady who ensured we got fair prices. I wrote them all down so I don't get ripped off in the future and I picked up some good fresh FOOD!!! Yay!!! We also took the Matatus (mini buses for 20 cents) to, well, past where we wanted to go, but backtracked to the Supermarket. I found some pasta, coffee, and some other goodies so that was good. Hopefully the plan will be to eat Rwandan Buffet for lunch each day, and have a small breakfast and dinner in the meantime.

Today I met David, who works with Crystal. He's a good Rwandan friend to know and showed us around town and had coffee with us at Cafe Bourbon... much like Starbucks with food. Unfortunatly we got the wrong order but hey, it was food and it tasted good. I will, however, be glad to stop eating out and spending so much money on it.

I'm nervous for my first full work week... I'm going to be working in the BLS (biomedical laboratory sciences) department on Monday and Tuesday then in nursing for the rest of the week. I'm not sure what I'll be doing for BLS and it sounds like they're waiting on some funding for a research project. They were pretty impressed that I taught SPSS so I might be helping out with that? I guess we'll see. I'll also have to get some laundry done sometime this week, but I'm going to wait until I get to move into the room with the Veranda upstairs because there's a clothesline in the room I can use. I'm excited to move upstairs and put my map of Africa up in my room!

Thanks for the emails and keep them coming. It's nice to hear from home... being here is certainatly out of my comfort zone! xox