Day 1

I woke up at 8.30am this morning and fell asleep again till 11am. The journey was long and tiring and since I was in great company on the plane I only slept 3 hours. So, sleeping long did me good! I have a nice comfy bed (with mosquito net, very important) which makes me happy. A shower would’ve made me even more happy, but instead I found two buckets of very cold water. This demanded some creativity and I need to improve my bucket-shower-skills, but it was definitely the quickest and coldest shower I ever had! Let’s hope the weather will be very hot so I can enjoy this cold water a bit more.

Yesterday, I couldn’t help noticing the people who were planting little flower beds. The city and streets are remarkably clean as well. Mr. S told me that once per month, they have a ‘public cleaning day’. On that day, every citizen needs to clean the space around his house and remove junk and garbage from the streets. Today is such a day and sort of a public holiday. Everyone stays at home and shops are closed most of the day.

Banana on bread
Yesterday, before I settled in, we stopped at a local shop to get me some food for today. I got a jar of nutella but I should’ve known it wasn’t going to be great stuff. So I ended up having banana on bread for breakfast and lots of water to sip on. Diet, day 1!
I will explore the Rwandese kitchen more later on. Seems like BBQ and meat on a stick is quit popular. At night, you can smell it in the air. In those little gardens, people grow beans and other veggies like spinach. I’ll have to check it out later.

Muraho!
Let me tell you more about Mr. S. He's actually a political journalist, writing for The New Times, an English newspaper here. He knows everything and everyone and he will teach me the do's and don'ts around here. The first lesson he gave me was a language lesson. So here goes;

Muraho - hello!
Amakuru? - How are you?
Ni meza - Not bad
Oya - no
Ego - yes

Mr. S. will come and pick me up later today. For now, I’m going to read my book ‘Machete Season’ and rest some more. This is Africa…

Saturday 26FEB – Gitarama 27 degrees