Final Days

Saturday was a perfect weekend day (beyond starting with wireless out across the whole city). Natasha took Aileen, Liz and I to ABC (African Bagel Company) for bagels and it was owned by and frequented by muzngus galore! It is a very different version of African expat reality. The people there were locals, but not just the 20 something youngsters like myself, there were also entire families of blonde headed kids running about in the grassy area. They also had a quilting co-op on the premises (apparently only happens once a month) and donuts since it was a Saturday. The place was nicely enclosed so that it was fine for the kids to run and play without much supervision (which must be 24/7 otherwise here), and a bit further from where we lived than I had expected. The bagels were good, but I am looking forward to my Bodo’s bagels again back in Charlottesville! It was also nice to get some real butter for a change (the just have a soft butter mostly). The rest of the afternoon was spent hunting for wireless beginning my own packing process and mostly being overly warm. The weather since returning to Kigali has been surprisingly overcast, but very warm overall. That afternoon at Bourbon Café the wind picked-up and made our tea tend to thicken on top and we actually got chilly enough we regretted putting on sunscreen rather than sweaters!

After heading home for sweaters and showers, we ate dinner near the house at Mr. Chips who is well known among the expats for its garlic mayo to eat the chips (French fries) with. We all enjoyed the early dinner and continued our packing afterwards. The evening consisted of some rather dull work of typing up to do lists of people, knowledge and things we need to get to the new staff before we rotate out and hit the books back at school! The more we can leave in their hands with solid directions, the better!

Sunday was utterly lazy, blogging and making pasta at home for lunch our only real outing was tea in the afternoon. I went through the Uganda guidebook with Liz to tell her about Kampala and Mbale since that will become her ‘hub’, and I figured learning how to get to and from Rwanda would also be of interest to her! Sasha will go with her initially, but once she is on her own, hopefully some of the chicken scratch will become clearer and help her not feel too overwhelmed with how large Kampala is! Mbale is manageable, and she will get that down relatively quickly, but Kampala is another story of intimidation. Then for Natasha's last dinner with us, we went to Special Michopo for some goat and potatoes deliciousness!

The rest of the week has been a bit slow. Mostly this is because Natasha left on Monday, but also because after leaving Musanze there hasn’t been a lot that I have needed to do. After my wrap-up meetings, Natasha took the team (Aileen, Liz and I) to Cocoki sewing co-op where we saw many of the ladies at work and bought a thing or two from them. I headed into town afterwards to exchange some money for the remaining days and then went back home to eat Mama Jean’s for lunch with Natasha for her last meal. An 8 o’clock flight is not particularly conducive to eating dinner, so the late lunch served as both for Natasha. She left about 5:30, and that left just one last intern- me. I did some work as follow-up to my morning operational meetings and spent the rest of the evening laying low and eating left-over pesto pasta (which luckily isn’t too hard to reheat in a skillet)! I think with all the long drawn-out goodbyes, people are tired of them and ready to settle back in, but I’m feel a bit in limbo- I seem to be done here and not ready for there (aka school to start up again).

Tuesday morning was full of the last of my passion fruit, so it was of course a market day. Prior to the market, I went to MTN center (view below) with Aileen to do some follow-up work and try to get a handle on textbooks for the fall, but that was to no avaiIe. Only one of the professors had even posted their syllabus. Guess it will have to wait until I get back, but that means they best not expect us to get any reading done until the second week of September! We did lunch there and planned out cooking dinner at home.

Since I was going to the Kimironko market eitherway for my dress and fruit, it was the perfect time to pick-up anything we might need for it. I wanted to say goodbye to Josephine, and pick up my dress from the new seamstress Chantal before braving the fruit and veggie section of the market, and it was a wonderful start to the afternoon. The seamstress was truly very good and got all of my proportions right! The dress fit like a glove, and literally needed no adjustments (which is not usually the case). She finished it up with buttons and made a little headband out of some of the extra fabric, which was just so sweet! The extra sewing time gave me a chance to get a photo with Josephine and be flirted-up by a young guy hanging around! It was pretty funny to see him shy away, but come back just in time to butt into some of our pictures. 

After Josephine’s goodbye, I headed to get the ingredients for dinner. Meddy was planning to come visit, and so I thought Aileen and I could cook up some ‘Mexican’ food for him. We ended up with a chicken, onion, tomato and pepper sauté with taco seasoning, guacamole (with lemon since there were no limes), and some rice (that I almost burnt in the pot). Meddy came in just about the time that things finished cooking, but about half an hour late since my phone hadn’t been ringing for me to give him directions. Even those only got him nearby, but luckily by then Aileen was helping out with the cooking so I was able to duck out (barefoot mind you) to go find him at Flash Radio just down the street. It was of course great to see him, and I was sorry we didn’t get to see more of each other this summer, but such is time. 

He’s planning to come to my final dinner as well, so I didn’t mind him having his friend Ben over as well (luckily there were leftovers!). About halfway through the evening, but after we’d finished dinner, Sasha got home with some blue cheese (something neither Rwandan had tried before), and offered them some on a radish (again something they didn’t seem to know what it was). They tried it, but oh was Meddy’s face a funny one! He would have spit it out if he could have, but anyone who has had it before knows that it is not an easy taste to get rid of! There was some fruit ‘parfait’ (strawberry yogurt, banana, pineapple and passion fruit) on the table and both boys dove back in after the taste of blue cheese. I think it helped a bit, but they still can’t believe Americans would eat such a thing! Overall, it was a relaxing evening and I was glad not to be saying good-bye quite yet, even if it was going to be my last night tucking myself in with a bednet!!