Day #2 & 3 – August 8th & 9th

There was a thunder & lightening storm last night and the power went out, and the internet hasn’t been on since.  So this is a pre-typed, copy-and-pasted update that’s being sent from the CBM office.

Caleb & I both had poor sleeps on our 2nd night here.  He slept for a couple of hours early on, but then woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.  It took me forever to get to sleep, and I slept from after 3:00 till almost 9:00.  Caleb & I had a 2 AM meeting & snack break because we could see each other’s lights on!

Wednesday morning we headed over to the CBM office to have some last meetings with Colin (before he left), Gato, Andre S, and other assorted leaders.  Caleb had just fallen asleep on the couch when we had to wake him to leave, so he brought a pillow and curled up in a corner on Gato’s floor and slept until almost 12:00.  I brought my Kindle and happily read (while listening in to some of what was happening in the other room).  Colin left at 12:00, and we came home for lunch.

After lunch we headed out to try to find some of Caleb’s school supplies (he starts next Tuesday).  We went to a store called Caritas [which, Honduras Team, makes me wonder what that word means or is derived from!] and had quite an adventure trying to get stuff!  The stationary supplies were in a case behind the counter, so we had to go through one of the store ladies, and using our English, limited French, and some Indonesian (which comes out accidently), we managed to get about half of the things on the list.  It is becoming increasingly apparent that we are doing the right thing by learning Kinyarwanda, as it is quite difficult to survive using only English and everyone speaks Kinyarwanda.  After we finished there, we headed over to the Nakumatt where we had gone the previous day and finished getting what we needed at the store there (which is like a combined grocery store and Gramedia, to those who know what that is).  We came home with lightening flashing around us (and thunder a moment away!), and shortly after we arrived, the power went out.  We felt right at home!!  It came on again before bedtime (except the internet), and we all had better sleeps last night.

C & I both slept through the night, and then C slept in till 11-ish (which is very unusual for him)!  Late morning we called a guy who could potentially be a house broker, and he was available to meet us if we came right away to his restaurant, New Fiesta.  So we called Emmanuel and he was able to take us.  The broker, Abdul, took down our preferences (and budget!) and is going to look into it for us.  It seems he can also try to find a car for us, but the first priority is the house!  An interesting tidbit is that it is very difficult to buy cars here, because many of the countries that are good car markets (Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, etc) drive on the opposite side of the road, so one of the only places that they can get cars from is the Congo.

We came home for lunch, and then Mom & Dad went to the AEBR office to start our permanent Visa application stuff and then to the CBM office to use the internet.  I started working on planning out and scheduling my school year, but I couldn’t get very far without the internet to look at the specific courses & units, etc.  After they were done at the offices, Mom and Dad picked me up and we went to another grocery store called Frulep (which, to my Indonesian friends, is more like a Ligo or Kaisar) and it seems more reasonably priced and like we’ll probably be back there for shopping!  It’s interesting to see what is available, and for what price!  This place also had fresh fruit and produce.  And they had Smarties!!

Our Kinyarwanda vocabulary is growing in leaps and bounds...well at least at 2 new words a day!  We know thank-you (murakoze), good morning (mwaramutse), good afternoon (mwiriwe), good night (ijoro ryiza), God (Imana), no problem! (nacibazo!), and are getting familiar with “How are you?” (“Amakuru?) and “I’m fine” (Ni meza).  Oh, I also learned that rain is imvura.

We are home again for the night.  Bruno Soucy gets back tonight for a day and a half, and tomorrow we have a few things on the agenda.  I’ll post some pictures (I have tons!) as soon as we get our internet back!