Sunday afternoon in the sun

Just a quick round of what has happened over the past couple of days. I'm sitting out in the sun after spending the morning at Church. Miri and I normally go to the Catholic service at Butare Cathedral -

- but this morning we went to Leonard's church. Leonard runs LLCCM, the orphanage initiative where Miri works. He's one of the nicest people I've met in Butare, even though he doesn't speak great English and I don't speak great French! His Church is in Toomba, a 40 minute walk from our house, just outside of Butare.

His Church is Protestant, so there was a lot of 'Hallelujah! Amen!'s again and lots of dancing and music. We had to do a little speech (Rwandans LOVE giving/receiving speeches), I used my very limited Kinyarwanda to explain who I was, where I'd come from and why I was in Rwanda. Everyone was incredibly friendly but it didn't feel like we were guests of honour or anything, which can sometimes make me feel really uncomfortable here. It's nice to blend in as much as possible and try and get people to look past our white skin! (which sadly is still very white, the last few days have been cloudy and cold so the tan has retreated)

After the three and a half hour service we were invited by Leonard to have lunch with him and his family. His family are wonderful - the children in particular were lovely and so well-behaved (especially after what seemed like the world's longest Church service - even I was fidgety!) The food was great and Miri and I were invited to the dowry ceremony of a niece of Leonard's. This tradition is where the dowry from the grooms family is negotiated before the marriage. This is normally how many cows the groom has to pay to the brides family in order to marry her. I think this ceremony is called a Dot but I could be wrong (this is what it sounds like when I was invited!). The Dot is next Sunday afternoon and should be a great insight into the traditions of Rwandan marriage. Marriage is seen as one of the most basic social institutions in Rwanda and the family traditions hold much respect.

Yesterday, Miri and I set off to the market to buy fabric and visit the tailor. I had a piece of the red fabric we used to decorate Inzozi Nziza and so I asked our tailor to make a skirt from this fabric for Christmas. It'll be ready on Tuesday which is excited! Miri also bought some material so she could have a dress made for her cousin back home and have one in the same pattern made for her. I bought some other material which I'd had my eye on for some weeks - 

We stopped off for amandazi and milk and then came back to the house in time for Hyacinthe to make us ubugali (a sticky dough made from cassava flour and water) and peanut sauce -

Hope you like our Christmassy living room! (not pictured: paper chains made from beer labels...)