Simply having a wonderful Christmas time

It's December! It's Advent calendar time! (thanks Mum for mine). It's Adventskranz time! (thanks Miri for the German traditions and German songs). It's Christmas music time! Yay!

Actually, with all the sun, I'm not feeling very Christmassy at the moment. I have no real concept of time, so the month could easily be July for all I know. So, with Thanksgiving out of the way, it's time to start decorating... with Inzozi Nziza being first on our list.

So on Monday, we were unable to have a meeting with RVCP so we went with Lora to Inzozi Nziza. We bought some material in red and greens and just went as Christmas-crazy as we could with very limited resources.

 

Our hard day of creativity definitely paid off!

Stockings with all the staff names on, a Merry Christmas banner, chains made from knotted fabric, a sparse Christmas tree spruced up with colourful material, bows on the backs of all the benches and snowflakes and snowmen on the windows. The Inzozi Nziza staff enjoyed our company all day, though I don't think they really knew what was going on - one of the ladies pointed at the stockings and said 'Feet!' We played Christmas music all day and was the perfect day for starting the Christmas spirit!

Thanksgiving!

My internet has been terrible lately and I haven't had the chance to post anything! Lots has happened in the past few days, but it's too much for one post so here's some pictures of our Thanksgiving celebrations.

On Thursday, Lora had the day off work and Libby and I got down to making her a Thanksgiving feast to remember. Being from the UK, Thanksgiving is somewhat a mystery...something about turkeys and potatoes and pumpkins. First we got decorating the house:

Then we prepared pumpkin. A lot of pumpkin.

Then we prepared potatoes, sweet potatoes, caramelised onions, green bean casserole with white mushroom sauce and pumpkin-and-potato-stuffed chapattis, and pumpkin cake and apple welsh cakes for dessert. 

And then we invited some US Peace Corps guys to celebrate with us and ate an insane amount of food

It was great to get to know some new people, have some great food and celebrate a new holiday! Now we can properly get ready for Christmas - the Christmas music is currently on, the joint Advent calender has been made and plans are being made for the big day (the only plans at the moment involve buying a big box of South African wine).

My life in the RVCP House

Having been in Butare for 4 weeks now, the RVCP house and the town really feel like my home. I realised that I haven't really posted any photos of the house or what we get up to in our spare time so here we are. (For those of you in the library or working, enjoy some procrastination!)

Here's our kitchen. When I first saw it my heart sank with disappointment - no oven in a kitchen? However now I have grown to love the barbeque pit, so no oven is no problem. We can cook just about everything on the barbeque....more updates on this after Thanksgiving as we have an ambitious menu planned (I swear all I talk about is food, sorry).

Party party in the living room (DJ booth in the corner on the chair). Apparently in Rwanda it isn't a celebration without Fanta, it's like the equivalent of Champagne here. 

Here's Libby asleep on the sofa, wrapped in her Pokemon duvet (I'm still jealous of the Pokemon duvet...)

Here's Libby doing some colouring in. We have done a lot of crafts since arriving here, mainly for decorating the house for Thanksgiving tomorrow (which I will blog about on Friday!) I don't think I've done this much colouring-in for years as I have done in the last 4 weeks (cue jokes about me doing a geography degree, thanks guys).

Here's the What Is In My Bed photo. Being on the top bunk and trapped in a mosquito net every night, I have a weird habit of accumulating stuff up there. English phone, Rwandan phone, iPod, watch, torch, Kobo, bite cream, aloe vera, antiseptic cream, lip balm, hair grips, at least 2 jumpers, the essential TUBBS hoody, my Ugandan blanket, Kenya Airways blanket and of course childhood soft toys. Spot which book I'm reading....

Lastly here's Miri, Lora and I having supper (I'll say it again: we make such good food).

Only a short blog post today since not much has happened over the past few days. We're embracing the true Rwandan lifestyle of relaxing and not taking everything too seriously if things don't go to plan. Buhoro Buhoro is the motto here - slowly slowly. This is something that doesn't come naturally to me, since I like being busy, but accepting the Rwandan culture and learning how to adapt is all part of a new challenge. I have actually been looking at what I could do when I return from Africa in the summer, whether I go on to do post-graduate study or progress further into the development sector with the experience I have gained here. But at the moment there are more important things to think about, like planning the Thanksgiving menu for our American friends, arranging training meetings with RVCP members and wondering just when Lucy and co. are going to send me the only English food I crave right now: crumpets.