A Time for Work and a Time for... Play!

Kevin and I have shared a lot about what we are doing work-wise, but I'm not sure we've shared a lot about how much we've been enjoying the Rwandan culture. In particular, because things are so much less expensive here, we can go on some pretty fantastic dates. Just as an example, let me share about our weekend:

Friday Night: Thanks to one of Kevin's coworkers, we learned about Marine Movie Night. (I kid you not, it is exactly what it sounds like.) We spent an evening at the US Embassy, watching the moving 'Safehouse' and eating fast food and popcorn. In all the night was less than $20 bucks, but everyone there spoke English and we met some really fascinating people. In a place like that, everyone is in Rwanda for a purpose, and for most of them, they have a really neat story. We met two other law students. One is working on a project for the Supreme Court that Kevin tangentially worked on as well. We met a photographer who teaches at a local university. I cannot express how nice it was to talk American and watch a movie together. Great evening!

Saturday Night: We're on an email list called Kigali Life. It shares all kinds of fun activities. Well last week it told us about the perfect Saturday night date. We went to a restaurant called Heaven. They had live painting by some local Rwandan artists, and a modern art exhibit by a local gallery. The food was truly the best I've eaten in Rwanda. We sat outside, under a thatched roof, and watched some painters for 2 hours while we ate. It was delightful!

Sunday Afternoon: After going to church and having lunch with some new and hilarious friends, we went to a national soccer game - Rwanda v. Benin. It was a qualifier for the World Cup and the Africa Cup. The environment was fantastic! There were people painted all crazy colors and there was even one Benin fan nearby inciting trouble. Rwanda played so much better than anyone anticipated, but they squandered a good opportunity in the last minute. Even still the game ended with a tie (1-1). Trust me when I say that Benin had no right scoring a goal in that game! It was a blast and you really can't beat it when the tickets were less than $5... for both of us.

Monday Evening: Tonight, we're planning on going out to our favorite place - Sol e Luna. It's a pizza place about a 5 minute walk from our apartment. You sit outside and have a beautiful view of the city. Not only that, but on Monday nights, they have trivia night, which is very popular with ex-pats and is done exclusively in English. Last time we went, no one told us to join a team, so it was Kevin and I versus teams of 8 people. We fixed that this time. We're bringing some friends, so it should be a great time. It'll cost $20 and it'll be totally worth it!

We'll settle in the rest of the week, but this weekend we were invited to go to the Kwita Izina, a very special ceremony where they publicly name all the baby gorillas that were born in the past year.  Expect pictures and a great blog post. From what I hear, it's a bucket list type event.

We have just 10 days left in Rwanda, and while I can hardly believe it's almost over, we have truly gotten the most out of every single day. What a blessing to travel with my best friend! Thank you for your support and your prayers. Our relationship has grown in ways we didn't expect. God is revealing who we are individually and as a couple and is providing a lot of guidance for the future.

Fear and Trembling

So… I woke up yesterday morning and found myself unexplainably locked in my bedroom. I had the key, but it would not open the door. Kevin left about an hour before for an early morning at court. I called Kevin to find out if he had locked it from the outside, but there isn’t a key on the outside, so that was impossible. I banged, I knocked. Nothing.

At this point, all manner of unsightly things were running through my head – maybe someone is in our apartment stealing all our stuff and locked me in so I couldn’t stop them. Maybe the housekeeper turned on us. Maybe… maybe… maybe. It was terrifying.

Forty-five minutes later, the housekeeper comes in and hears me knocking from the bedroom. She speaks no English, so I’m not sure how we communicated. I would shake the door trying to get out. At one point, she put her hand under the door to get the key. When she finally tried it three or four times herself, she finally understood that it wasn’t my fault that I was stuck.

In fact, the door was broken. Bona fide broken. There as a screw stuck where the lock would generally go. In all my shaking, I almost broke it. You can see the notch I took out of the door jam.

So I hear the housekeeper shout some phrase in Kinyarwanda and a maintenance guy comes and tries to get me out. Another phrase, and another employee. At this point, Kevin finally got home from court. He asked if they could get me out the side door (which was locked, but I didn’t have the key in the bedroom) and I was finally released.

I don’t know why I got so shaken up about it. It was alarming and I was still half sleeping and my husband was 30 minutes away and I didn’t have any friends I felt totally comfortable to call over to help. That’s all part of it.

Anyway, I cancelled my afternoon appointment and I am working from home. My insides are tense. I’ll go out tonight for the BDC, but until then, I think a little relaxing is in order.

Everyone I’ve told is like “Yeah that happened to me once!” I don’t know if this is just an Africa thing, or if it happens everywhere and people don’t talk about it. Strange….

Regardless, if the first time I've been afraid is stuck in my own bedroom, I think we're in a nice place.

When Work Feels Worthwhile

You work so hard for so long and sometimes you just don't know what God is doing on the other end. This week was NOT like that.

For the past week, Paul McConnell has been visiting Rwanda from Australia. He is the president of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce in Australia. He is an incredible business success, but according to his testimony, he has failed as many times as he has succeeded, just on a smaller scale.

He has truly encouraged the entrepreneurs in the cohort.

Thursday he finished facilitating the night with a little bit of time left and opened up the floor for comments and suggestions, after all, this was his first time facilitating solo. The Rwandan people are very polite and will hardly ever tell you if you’re not doing something well.  Regardless, after some customary niceties, Jacques raised his hand.

I’ll do my best to recount exactly what he said because it was so powerful.

“Thank you for changing our mind about Christians. Everyone says that if you do business, you are on the road to hell, but you are a Christian and you do business. You can walk the road to heaven too. You have told us that it’s about how we do business. Thank you.”

That’s when you can look at your work and say “Thank God for days like today.”

Why I Love My Husband (especially today)!

Hello World!

Today is Kevin and I's one year anniversary and felt like it needed to be commemorated with a blog post. Since we're 3,000 miles away from normal life, I struggled with the right anniversary present (plus cards here are super inflated. It's like $10 for a card!) so I decided to create the...

Top Ten Reasons I Love My Husband

10. You always love my cooking... even when we only have 2 stove-top burners.

9. We share a twisted brain when it comes to all the tv and movies we like (Let's see... in our first year married, we rewatched Firefly, watched the entirety of Frasier, Psych, and How I Met Your Mother, Sherlock, Castle, and Game of Thrones, not to mention movies labeled by Neflix as "Adventurous comedies for ages 11-12" and "Legal Thriller")

8. You celebrate in my success. That would be why you spent 5 hours with me brainstorming date ideas for the business yesterday.

7. I relish to celebrate in your success. That's why I squeal every time you tell me about your grades, or class rank, or how impressed everyone else is with you.

6. You've set good priorities. I never once felt neglected, forgotten, or unimportant as a 1L wife. That's not a miracle, it was a choice that you made and I love you for it!

5. You have big dreams and I like being a part of them.

4. You impress me. Not just with law school, with everything.

3. You grow me. You stretch me. I'm a better person for having known you and a much better person for having become more like you.

2. You're my best friend and always will be.

1. You point me to Jesus... every day.