We got back from our site visit. We stayed in an empty convent surrounded by flowers and vegetable gardens. We saw our school. It has 1,300 children who come every day. The head mistress and master both talked to us and expressed great delight that the children and teachers would have a native English speaker. I’m currently trying to upload some pictures in a small format, but they are still taking a long time. I’ll try and make them smaller before I upload them. The ride to Nyongo was 4 hours there and 7 hours back due to road construction. We are very close to Lake Kivu and can get there in 10 minutes on the squeeze bus. The top of the lake is right on the Congo border. We saw some fancy hotels and took a lovely walk along the lake border.
Every day we wandered down to a small restaurant right at the bus pull in area and had brochettes (grilled goat on a stick) and omlettes with fried potatoes cooked right inside. We spent a long time talking with the waiter after each meal trying to communicate what we would have when we came again and what time we would show up. The time here is not 1:00 etc as we know it in the U.S. It’s Swahili so 12:00 is called saa site. 1:00 is saa saba….I have a clock drawn in my hand made dictionary and point to it a lot. The ink is beginning to run.
We walked up the road with our two counterparts several days in a row. It was always much farther than I thought. My feet are really tan. One day our trip was to the market. It was huge with stall after stall of beautiful intenge cloth all dyed and colorful. Lots of fruits. Another day Nelson and I walked through the market and beyond…up a cobble street. We were led by our two counterparts to price furniture. We ended at a wood working shop where Nelson surround three deep by onlookers drew the furniture we wanted to be made. The hard moment came when we had to explain that we were there not to buy but to get prices. After all the work he put in to pricing what we needed, The man took it very well.
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