Kristen was able to track down 3 Christmas trees in Kigali, but only after 6 hours of searching.
It was the biggest tree in all of Kigali and our guard Evariste (more about him below) always looked over at us with a bemused expression on his face each time we added a little bit more decorations: first lights, then ornaments, then candy canes out of the package.
The stockings were hung with care, but the weight proved too strong from the ribbon we taped to the wall. This picture is from the first day.
One of the best things we were blessed to do was spread some Christmas cheer to those around us, thanks to many members of our family. After hearing of their generosity to us, we immediately began planning fun things to do with their gift. Our thoughts immediately turned to the people here who support and ease our life. First gift was given to Irene, a sweet girl who works in our house a few days a week to help Kristen with cleaning the all-tile floors, the constant dishes, and the laundry machine that holds only 8 items of clothing for a house of 7 people that can only be hung on the line during strategic times to avoid the daily rain (no dryers here). We recently found out she was sleeping on a thin mattress directly on the floor and so decided to buy her a bed and a thicker mattress. With another family, the gift also included bedding and a mosquito net. This Christmas gift also coincided with her birthday, so everyone together gave her a surprise party and made cupcakes. Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures, but she was very thankful and appreciative for her new furnishings.
The next gift was given to Afrika (yes, that's his real name) and his 3 year old son Jhovan. Afrika drives the car for us during the week since neither Kristen or Erin know how or want to know how to drive stick shift in the land of a thousand hills and with people walking on the sidewalks in the most densely populated country in Africa. Public transportation is interesting - a "bus" that looks like the old VW bus from Little Miss Sunshine carries 19 people in it (not exaggerating) and does not leave the station of origin before it's full. But there aren't things like timetables or map routes that make it easy to understand how to get one or where it's going. If it happens to be labeled with a destination in paint, that does not necessarily mean the bus is really going there. There isn't a subway system like France. Many of the roads are not paved nor lighted. And, with 7 busy people in the family, trips to school, business meetings, and the grocery store occur multiple times a day. It's helpful to have someone who speaks Kinyarwanda with us, but like many other occupations, it's nice to be able to tangibly support people here by providing an income. Afrika was only 14 years old when he was orphaned here in Kigali in 1994 and he is working hard to be a good father for his son. Jhovan's mom died before he was even 1 year old. We decided that even 3 year old boys in Rwanda might like a little Christmas party and some presents. We invited him over and after just some play time, we brought out the Christmas cookies to have a little decorating party. You can see by his expression that the whole experience was quite new to him. He did warm up after tasting the frosting. :)
Irene was here that day and she couldn't take her eyes off the cookies, so we suggested she decorate some to take home too. She spent at least 15 minutes carefully decorating each of her cookies, using the sprinkles very artfully.
After the cookie party, it was time for the opening of the gifts. The first treasure was Lego Duplo blocks which he had never seen before, but quickly figured out they could build neat things.
Turning to the next present....
A soccer ball of his very own! He was so thrilled and was just glowing with joy.
Afrika told us that he went home and showed all his friends his new presents. He said he plays with the legos every morning and the ball all day long, but he won't let any other people touch it. He is only 3. :)
Our last gift was to our beloved guard/gardener Evariste. (Every house here has a gate encircling the property and a guard.)The plants are flourishing under his care and the daily rain. He lets us practice our Kinyarwanda with him and also speaks French with Greg. But he is not a man of many words and so we mainly exchange smiles and waves. He lives on the property with us in his own little guard house and goes back to his family on the weekends. He has very impressively stoppped Levi's motorcycle from crashing down the hill and once cut off part of the bumper on the silver beast of a car with his machete because it had lost its emergency brake once again and rolled into something.We have yet to get a picture of him or with him because we are afraid he will be too embarrassed by the whole experience since he has generally a pretty shy demeanor. We presented him with a decorated envelope of cash for him and his family and gave him extra days off on both holiday weekends (which is a concept unheard of here). His wife and 4 kids live on the family farm outside the city and he gets dressed in his best clothes to go out to them. He was very thankful and came back to us sharing the most we've ever heard him speak.
Our own house too was very blessed. Stockings are always the highlight of the Christmas morning giftings and this year did not disappoint. Before we left, our (Kristen and me) mom and sister sent over stocking stuffers they shopped for us. Here are the stockings in their next setting after the ribbon fell too many times to re-stick.
Thanks to Cindy, our families, and the postal service between the USA and Rwanda, we had many wonderful gifts to open on Christmas day. This is our tree Christmas Eve. Greg and Kristen were able to find some gifts for their kids, most comically being Ava's joy at finding a bottle of Heinz ketchup in her stocking.
Kristen and I with our stocking gifts. Not ketchup for us and that was just fine. :)
As mentioned early, Levi's mom Cindy was out here from Dec 22 until today. We got to see a lot of John and Robin, as well as show her our life in Kigali. Together, we visited the local orphanage twice and were inspired by Cindy's example to create games on the spot with only a few blades of grass. A major highlight was our time in Akagera Park, where we saw amazing animals. (We'll post about that soon.)
We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year celebration! Thank you for your love and support. I figure if you're reading this that you also got our Christmas photo, but just in case, here we are.
This was taken at our house and you could see the school in the top right, but the flash didn't work as well as we hoped.
Happy 2010!
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