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! 

Jacqueline's Wedding

So, as I wrote about in The Cow Ceremony, I was invited to the wedding celebrations of Jacqueline, Leonard's niece, and Clement. First, on Sunday, there was the registration ceremony, then the Dot (the dowry ceremony), and on Boxing Day there was the Church service and the receptions (yes - multiple receptions).

The Church service and receptions were held in Kigali, where Clement is from and where the couple will be living. This meant another early start and an adrenaline-filled two-hour bus journey. Luckily Miri and I got to wear imikenyero again, this time in a garish shade of orange... (Libby when we got home: Is is Halloween?!)

The Church service was wonderful, and Jacqueline looked so beautiful.

(Sorry about the picture quality, my camera was doing weird things...)

The service lasted about 2 hours, and after that we went to some gardens where the wedding photos were taken.

Then we traveled to a reception venue - much like the photo taking session, we had no idea what was really going on til we got there. The reception featured a band, cake, dancing and many many many speeches (did I tell you that Rwandans LOVE speeches?!) By this time we were really hungry as we hadn't eaten since breakfast at 7.30am, and the reception went on until 6.30pm.

 (Again bad picture quality. Not my fault - some random guy picked up my camera and started taking photos for me.)

We were then taken to Jacqueline's and Clement's new house, where we had food. By this time Miri and I were on the verge of fainting, especially in the heat and the fact I had to carry and present 5kg of carrots as a gift to the new couple (I had visions of tripping over my dress and throwing carrots everywhere. So much orange!)

There were more speeches, and at last the bride started crying, so we could go home. There's a tradition in Rwanda that the guests must stay and sing until the bride cries, and then the wedding is over. I think Jacqueline may have been pretending to cry as it was so late and everyone was so tired, but either way I was glad that we could begin our journey back to Butare. The 11pm bus journey back was actually terrible as Rwandans love extremely loud music on small minibuses, and unfortunately I was right next to the only speaker - my request to turn down the music slightly was met with laughter!

Although it was such a long day, with minimal food and water, the ceremonies were really interesting and the Church service in particular was really nice. Jacqueline and Clement are a wonderful couple and I was really honoured to be a guest at all of their wedding ceremonies!

Try explaining snowmen to people who have no concept of snow...

Noheli Nziza!

Here's a round-up of our Rwandan Christmas so far! 

On Monday, it was Christmas at LLCCM. All of the LLCCM-sponsored children came for a morning of worship, Christmas songs and celebrations. However, before they arrived, we got stuck in with preparing the lunch...

Chopping cabbages and tomatoes Rwandese-style! 

The children arrived and we firstly began by explaining some of the Christmas decorations.

 

Describing 'snowmen' to a group of Rwandese children was pretty difficult since none of them had ever encountered the concept of snow before. And explaining that Father Christmas has a sleigh pulled by flying reindeers was met with both laughter and confusion...especially when I had to describe a reindeer. 'It's a like a cow...with big horns...' Cue hysterical laughter from all the children! 

We then taught them Silent Night...in three different languages. Firstly, the Kinyarwanda version (after struggling to stick the lyrics on the wall).

 

Then the English and German versions. 

The children absolutely loved singing the song in different languages and picked up the words surprisingly quickly. I still can't get my head around the Kinyarwanda words! 

We danced, ate rice and beans, cultivated cabbages for each child to take to home, took photos and generally had a day of celebration. Happy Christmas LLCCM!