recent events

I've been trying to post these photos all week long, but have had a difficult time with our internet connection! Usually I don't have too much of a problem, but this week it was verrrrry slooooow....

Anyhow! Here's just a taste of life here in the past 10 days.

On May 1st (time flies!!) it was Labor Day here in Rwanda (I heard it was Labor Day in China too, so it makes me wonder if there is some connection, only because there was a heavy influx of Chinese laborers here building roads, about 10 years ago). Anyhow. It was Labor Day, so it was a holiday, and Baraka stayed the night at my home this time (remember last time I went to her place). Then in the morning, we had a group of our ex-pat friends over for fun and french toast. Most of these ladies are working in an NGO or as teachers at an international school.



(Check out the maracuja juice, otherwise known as passionfruit juice, on the table....people drink maracuja juice here like we drink orange juice in the USA).

Another event of the past week was that Erica, my researcher buddy from Johns Hopkins working in the child survival program, left to go back to the States after being here for eight months! She laid the groundwork for a lot of the research methodology that I will be using when my own project begins, so I am thankful to her for that. And I will miss her friendship! Here's a photo of the child survival program staff, at her goodbye party (from L to R, back row: me, Erica, Melene, Eliane, Clemence; front row: Josef, Bernard, Laurent). Rose, the child survival program director, took the photo.



As a final goodbye to Erica last weekend, we took her out to dinner at a local Rwandan place. Here's a photo of our friend Natasha eating a common local dish, "ugali", which is ground-up-then-steamed cassava (manioc). It reminds me a lot of a big ball of tofu. It doesn't taste like anything and is best with salt and sauce; in that way it also reminds me of grits, only it's usually not eaten for breakfast and it's a lot stickier!



Last Tuesday, I was out in the field all day for a community health worker evaluation session....I'll post more photos soon of that trip....it was really interesting. And last night (Saturday), Kigali was one of about 100 cities all over the world who participated in "Pangaea Day," which you can look up on the net if you like. Essentially there was a simultaneous broadcast of 24 short films and performances from all over the world, in an effort to promote world peace. It was nighttime here, but I have a shot of that as well that I'll try to post soon....I think the Kigali community felt honored to be on the guest list.... :)