New Year Celebrations

So we brought 2014 in Rwandese style...

Miri, Richard, me, Paci, Libby and Celestin

Eating, drinking, partying and dancing!

We made pizza, brought the chickens out to dance, shouted an impromptu countdown at midnight at our favourite bar Grazia, danced until 4am, slept until 12pm and had to have a plate of carbs and sweet tea at Shekina to ease our hangovers. 

Probably one of the best New Years I have celebrated! Now for writing some New Years resolutions - and we are each writing a letter to one another to open this time next year so we can remember our African New Year. Happy 2014!

Christmas Festivities

The past week has been a whirlwind of festive spirit, dancing, beer and chasing chickens...

I woke up on Christmas morning to the greatest gift Libby could have possibly bought me: a chicken! We are now the proud owners of Uwamahoro Claudine and Kyogomishu Denise.

Meet Kyogomishu Denise and Uwamahoro Claudine

The chickens, although originally quite shy, now wreck havoc in the garden. They spend a lot of time next door, making a mess and eating the neighbour's food. However, we were paid back over the past couple of days by Claudine laying 2 eggs! (which were fried and put on a pizza for our New Years celebrations – more on that later!)

Our Christmas Day was quiet and filled with chocolate and gifts from each other and home. Miri bought me some flip-flops that all of the Rwandan girls wear so that I can become a better Rwandan.... I bought Miri a Catholic hymn book so we can sing along in Church and learn the responses, and I bought Libby a Rwandan football shirt and a Rwandan flag belt. (I originally wanted to get her an MTN or Tigo t-shirt, but after asking in every shop in Butare and even visiting the MTN and Tigo centres and getting both funny looks and outright laughter, I had to give up). The little girl next door (the family have just moved in) hung out with us and we gave her Welsh cakes and a Christmas hat. 

On Christmas Eve Miri cooked us Kartoffelpuffer – a typically German dish of potato pancakes with apple sauce and vegetable soup with mulled wine and Welsh cakes. We visited the Christmas Mass at the Cathedral which was the most wonderful service – the Cathedral was decorated and the choir sang Gloria in Excelsis Deo so we joined in for the choruses. I felt really Christmassy for the first time!

Tomorrow I promise to do a post on our New Years Celebrations! 

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).