Guava, Bunnies, ect…

While this is a travel blog and its purpose is to tell about what we are doing, it can get a bit boring to tell all the day to day stuff, not to mention impossible for us to write it all. However, there are a few day to day things that have been happening recently that I feel need some special attention due to the levels of happiness they have been inducing.

Serena has recently discovered the fruit guava at the markets and has been buying it and putting it in all sorts of yummy things. The favourite has been mushed up guava in citron Fanta. Upon first arriving at the Tyrrell’s House they asked if they should stock up on any particular flavour of Fanta. Not being a soda drinker since adolescence and with a particular dislike for Fanta I confidently said “No thank you. I will probably never have a single Fanta while I am here“. During dinner the first night Jessi tried a flavour I had never heard of before, citron. I thought I would try a sip out of curiosity and to my amazement and the necessary fulfillment of irony I loved it. Since then I have been holding back to only have one a day. So Serena comes along and starts putting crushed up guava in it and what is a girl to do. It has become the thing that comes to mind if asked what I would like for dinner and the thing I first want after the fullness of lunch wears off and definitely the first thing I want once it is served with dinner. I have a hard time even noticing the food on the table while trying to attack the drink with the ferocity of a baby tiger fighting to get its turn at dinner. Special daily event #1: Guava Fanta drinks

On the first day of arriving at the orphanage, we got the tour and were told that there were rabbits in the wood cages in the cow pen. We did not look at them just then but I made a mental note to go back and look at them later and maybe hold one if I were to be so lucky. So about a week or more passed before I went back down and what I discovered were not rabbits, but a few bunnies with 12 baby bunnies!!! They were at their ideal cuteness size and they would gather all together in a big furry pile that resembled an entirely new bunny with ears and tails sticking out everywhere. Isaac said it was like a bunny voltron, which started a whole ordeal involving art and 80’s cartoons reminiscing, a google search and a lot of laughing. Turns out there is actually a bunny voltron. We were not the first idiots to think of it, or embarrassingly, to go to the lengths to draw one up. Anyway, enough about bunny voltron, the baby bunnies are like the peanut butter to my jelly, or the soup to my salad, or the wine with my cheese, or… Ok you get the point, I love them!!! Whatever level you are thinking I love these bunnies on right now, just multiply that times ten. Basically in the words of Mort from Madagascar, “You hate them compared to how much I love them”. Special Daily Event #2: Baby Bunnies (yes, it is a daily event)

I have recently discovered the joy of the original purpose of IPods. I got my apple IPod as a birthday gift and being technologically backwards I left it in its case for almost 7 months, trying to get up the nerve to figure out what to do with it and how to use it. Upon finally doing so right before leaving on this trip, I immediately fell in love with it and all that it could do. It was like having a laptop with you in your pocket. I was excited about everything it could do and was downloading all these free apps and listening to Pandora radio on it, ect ect ect, but I never downloaded any music on it. I left on my trip in such a panic that I didn’t have time to think about it or figure out how to do it, not to mention pay for any music. So I kept a list of music that I eventually wanted to download and last week I finally got the opportunity to download it all. It has been so great to have music and I am turning into one of those angsty teenagers who has to have their ear piece in at all times with some sort of input constantly going in. However, my very favourite part of having my new music is that the 60 kids here discovered that I have music. Jessi is always saying how music attracts Africans like light attracts bugs. It is so true and so cute. As soon as the kids see I have the iPod and speaker in my hand I suddenly have a crowd following me, with more coming out of the woodworks all the time adding to the following. (this comes in handy when trying to get kids to come to English class). They love pop music and they love anything with a strong rhythm, so thanks to Omar, I have a plethora of pop music and top hits. Not that it really matters because they rarely get past Shakira’s “Waka Waka”, or the “Wavin’ Flag” song from the world cup, or Iyaz’s song “Replay”. I have spent whole afternoons with the kids jammed in around me, like the baby bunnies and bunny voltron, just listening to music. We are all so jammed in that I can barely see the IPod or move to change the songs. If the kids start shifting around too much I actually start to fall over because my upright-ness is dependent on the kids shoved in around me. They are so sad when we have to finally disband for dinner and they all leave with a grateful thank you. I love the feeling of being jammed into a ‘person-voltron’ just for the purpose of hearing music coming from a tiny crappy speaker. The first time I brought the IPod to library time and Shakira’s song came on, suddenly all the kids in the library started singing along, many dancing (cause that’s what they do in Africa), and bumps appeared all along my arms and I just wanted to hug them all as a whole body, like a hen with her chicks. Special Daily Event #3: Listening to music with the kids

I know I have already talked about this but every morning so far, without fail, I have gotten up to an already baked breakfast by Serena. For example, we have had homemade cinnamon rolls, french toast, eggs and toast, homemade rolls, the most amazing zucchini bread and pancakes, just to name a few of the things she makes for us regularly. This woman is a super woman. I don’t know how she does it, but every morning she does. She cooks for 5 of us and her 4 year old son and it is always delicious. The other day I woke up later than the others and when I came into the kitchen I saw that she had left me a note in the cinnamon roll dish that said “Good Morning Danielle” with the last two cinnamon rolls waiting for me. So, without too much ado, this definitely makes my special daily events list. Special Daily Event #4: Serena’s Breakfasts (and cooking in general)

Update: Life in Rwanda

Life in Rwanda is good! It is so good that we have fallen into a blissful routine and have forgotten anyone else exists in the world. Jessi got a call from a friend at 4:30am yesterday to inform her that the world did not end, because out here in Africa, we would never know. We live on site at the Victory Family Home of Champions, or in other words, an orphanage. We walk to the market down the road for produce and drive 30 mins to Kigali once a week to do shopping and otherwise we spend all our time at the orphanage. We are staying with a lovely family from the Fort Collins/Loveland area who are in charge of the place along with a Polish girl who is volunteering. From all the conversations about favourite restaurants and fast food to the stupid sarcastic jokes that Africans seem to never think are funny, and yes all the way to having Velveeta cheese pasta with sausage, we couldn’t feel more at home.

Henry, their four year old son, entertains us constantly. He entertains us at dinner with his not yet adult like manners, often involving boy-like sounds from below the table, although we hide our laughter for the sake of child rearing effectiveness. He entertains us when we hear him switch to Rwandan pigeon English the moment he steps outside to play with his Rwandan peers (i.e. Me I am a going to go…), accent and all, despite being capable of speaking like a typical 4 year old American boy, if not more than capable with comments such as “Boo Yaa” and "Do it like a man".

Isaac, father and husband, is just plain a riot. He is funny. What more can I say. I spend most of my time at the house laughing at either Henry, Isaac’s response to Henry or Isaac talking about anything, cause like I just said, he’s funny. He does falconry back at home and he likes people, meat, trucks and yeah, video games when there’s a spare moment. He’s a good and hard-working man and does an amazing job here at the orphanage. I have a hard time imagining someone better to run the place.

Serena, mother and wife, is a kitchen gem. She is constantly whipping up amazing yeasty, doughy creations in the morning for breakfast, often served with an apology for the imperfections which never exist (typical kitchen-eer response). At dinner time the story is similar with yummy entrees, complete with homemade french fries or, I say no lie, homemade potato chips. Did I mention life is good? Serena is the nicest thing and if she isn’t making yummy things in the kitchen or spending time with the kids, she is in the fields hoeing with the workers, or in the kitchen chopping veggies with the mamas. My heart is constantly grabbing towards Serena.

Wiola, from Poland, is the easiest person to get along with and is just generally a pleasure. She is always ready to help out and has good ideas for the kids ready to implement. She is mild mannered with a strong heart towards the children. She inspires me with her steadiness and calmness. She is just a joy to be around. Well, there you have it. That is the cast of the whities.

As far as the kids go, there are 60. Each one with a new and endearing personality that is exciting to see and get to know. Many of the young ones love to run up to us and attach themselves onto us in some way or other, whether it be by the hand, pant leg, or crawling up on our backs, often 3-4 at a time, until all attaching possibilities are exhausted, and we are transformed into a walking jungle gym of children. They are happily entertained just by investigating everything about us, for the entire afternoon. The older ones are usually interested in anything that revolves around a ball. Daily we teach an informal English class in the morning, plan an activity for the afternoon followed by monitoring library time and then do family time in the evening (only twice a week).


Having 60 kids proves to be difficult in many ways, but the chaos is sometimes just part of the joy. The other times… well….


But truly, we really love these kids. They make your heart melt. When I see one of the older boys grab hands with two younger kids on the walk home from school, when I see a shy boy in the back of the library reading his little heart out who has an exceptional skill for English despite his mild speech impediment, when I see the rascal look of a very young girl experimenting with markers during art time, when I see a toddler burst through the door and start dancing full body to the music that just started playing, when I see a youngster, no older than 5 suddenly sing part of the lyrics to Shakira’s hit song “Waka Waka” during library time, when I see a kid who is too-cool sneak a sweet gesture to a younger kid…They make your heart melt.






To give a sense of the setting, the country side here is just amazing. It is possibly one of the most beautiful places I have seen. It is rolling hills all around, cut up by farming squares and terraces that geometrize the land. It is dotted with banana tree clusters reminding you that it is tropical. The weather is mild, given that we are in the rainy season. We are often hit with hard and generally short rains that make you think the roof is going to collapse, which I am sure many do. Other times the rain goes on for hours and hours and all through the night. The stairs are transformed into rivers and the land all around is in danger of losing its position, to be transported throughout the land as the forced life of a nomad. As Isaac says, “The largest export from Rwanda is soil, and nobody’s paying for it.”

Kigali

Staying with the Tyrrell’s has its many benefits, one being that we get to go on the occasional excursion. The excursion on offer was Bat Island. Yup, Bat Island… heck yes, sign me up. The drive to get there was easily and quickly moved to the number one spot on my most-beautiful-drives-in-the-universe list. It took two hours to get there and it was literally so beautiful that I just gave up taking pictures and succumbed to gluing my face to the window and recapturing my breath after passing every mist filled vista. Upon arriving at the resort located on an outcrop of Lake Kivu which surrounded the resort on three sides with its clear teal waters, I was maxed out with my amazement threshold. Within seconds I decided this is the ideal honeymoon/romance destination. I then learned that it is roughly $30/night to stay there. OMG I love third world countries!! Ok, I know I’m being ridiculous, but basically if you are looking for a rad honeymoon, put this on your list. The only fortune spent will be your flight, and it will be that.






We departed the resort in a motorboat heading towards Bat Island. We could see the Democratic Republic of Congo from the boat, probably one of the most violent and dangerous places on earth, but we were safe on our side of the waters. We wore our oversized life vests unlatched and draping… because it’s Africa. The water was warm and so beautifully green/teal. Once on Bat Island, the first native to greet us was a cow. Apparently the cow herders swim them over to the island to graze. Anyway, he was illuminated by light and it looked like a divine cow apparition. Once on land one of the guides/boat guys promptly swooped Henry up on his shoulders and we proceeded to follow him up the incline towards where the bats hung out in the trees. Suddenly the sky became flooded with chirps and fluttering wings. It was quite a sight to see. We wanted to see more, so we hiked up to the trees and we were able to catch a close up glimpse of the bats while hanging in the trees just before they woke up and flew off. It was awesome. The little critters were actually really cute. They had yellow fur and light colored wings with little mouse faces. Well, I know not everyone has the same definition of cute, but
it made my list.













We hiked back down and excited by the beauty and not wanting the outing to end, we paid the boat guys a little extra to take us to “Peace Island”. I laughed at the cheesiness of the name, even after we pulled up in the boat and saw a tiny rickety beach. Once I got out and sat down however, I decided the name was perfect for the Island. There was a small sandy beach with shaded seating and a menu waiting on the table. We ordered Fantas and french fries and sat in the sun and sand. It was simple and perfect.





The boat guys decided to go for a swim, wearing whatever shorts they happened to be wearing at the moment, one of which was wearing white shorts, making us laugh and wonder about his reasoning every time he got out of the water, carefully holding his shorts away from his body. The other guys on the beach were playing a game with a ball and at one point the ball went out in the water. The antics that took place next entertained us for the rest of the time on the island even after we started to leave on the boat. It seemed to me that they did not know how to swim, so they all put on life vests and decided to jump in the water and hope the water would take them to the ball. Meanwhile the ball was getting further and further away, at quite a distance I must say. In order to not drag out the details, between 4 guys in life vests, one guy on a surfboard with a paddle and a boat, the ball was still not retrieved until well after we left. We could see them with the ball trying to make their way back to Peace Island on our way home. Well, that concluded our trip. We arrived back at the resort, loaded up in the car and headed home, none disappointed.

We are here for yet another three weeks, due to having to cancel our Uganda portion of the trip because of the political violence and possible instability. We are of course sad to miss out on a visit to another country, but we couldn’t be happier here. Oh the happy misfortunes.