Saturday - Valentine's Day in Rwanda

I am currently in the dark in my room at the Crested Crane Guesthouse. There has been no electricity for about an hour due to a thunder and lightening storm. It rained hard for a bit but is now just light rain. I'll try to send this to post as soon as we have power and the Internet is working.

(Notice the baby sleeping on the mother's back as she is shopping!) Today is Saturday so we had a free day. Kelli and I wanted to go into market in the center of town. We had arranged for a taxi to come and get us at 9am. There was no taxi by 9:30 so we decided to walk.

Walking, bicycle taxis, and motorcycle taxis are the normal modes of transport here. It was a lovely day with a breeze and not too hot, It took us about 50 min. to get to the market and explore. We found a car taxi to take us back to near our guesthouse but decided to stop and have lunch at a new hotel

about a 10 min.walk from where we are staying. We sat in a lovely garden and watched brilliantly colored humming birds feed on the tropical flowers and enjoyed seeing an iridescent blue lizard slither across the garden. After a week of Rwandan food we ordered a ham pizza that was delicious.

Others in the group opted for other activities, Doree and Carol stayed at the guesthouse all day and rested. The only problem with that was there was a large Rwandan wedding in the garden at the guesthouse and the music and speakers were extremely loud.(How does she balance the load?) I was thankful I was gone for most of the day. Gene and Paul went to the board meeting for the Rwandan Friends Theological College (RFTC). Ron and Carolyn Stansell and David Thomas were here for the meeting. It was fun to see Ron and Carolyn for a short visit. This evening we walked to RFTC to have dinner at 5:30 and learned it was to be at 8 pm. We were served tea, bread, and bananas and that was what we called dinner because we wanted to be back at the guesthouse before dark. I am ready to head home. I accomplished what I came to do and now feel like I am just biding time until Wed. Feb. 18 when we leave. By the way, the taxi we ordered showed up at 10:30 to get us. I understand he thought he should be paid for coming even thought he was 90 min. late. This was not Kelli and my problem as we had already arrived in town by then. - Nancy (By the way, the picture right below is of a driving school teaching parallel parking! ... and, the store is where we bought bottled water.)