a few lessons.

disclaimer: mom, i'm sorry for yesterday's "lesson".


looks like i learn something new everyday.

today's lesson was that i am able to venture into the local market without rwandan accompaniment. I bought beautiful brown and green printed fabric & am getting one of the local women to sew me a skirt for 300 rwf (aproximately 80 cents).

yesterday's lesson is this. I love motor taxis.

they wait in packs beside the market. boys no older than myself, wearing oversized neon windbreakers and winter coats. Dozens of green & yellow helmets gleaning in the harsh sunlight, as they laugh & elbow eachother, rolling back & forth, reving engines. Odd religious slogans in broken english slung across the front of most bikes. They grin & surround us, i barely need to barter as they try to out do one another in terms of both cost and bravado. Little boys with inferiority complexes.

Despite being the most efficient form of transportation, (the buses are not only clausterphobic, they take upwards of two hours for an under ten minute journey,) with the roads woven in and around the hills, it feels like your quite literally soaring above the city. Walls of mud brick houses, stacked atop one-another, lining the deep valleys of Kigali.

and yes, i wear a helmet.

Tomorrow i am getting my official tour of the mwana nshuti - i am a little nervous, but mostly excited to be starting work. and tonight i'm going to a book club started by a few other westerners, individuals who work for ngos in kicukiro, and a few UN members living in the area. Should be interesting and i'm cannot wait for some new reading material.

we're hoping to post some pictures soon. but the internet is a little slow, so we will see.

in other news - there is a pineapple in my bag waiting to be eaten. so i will write more later.

much love.
l.