Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Birthday Day


Well, it is finally here – the big birthday!  I feel so great and have had such a wonderful month. 
Last night I was invited to Patience’s family home for dinner.  He is the young teacher I talked about whose family fled the Congo when he was a little boy.  They have seven children, Mom is a teacher and the father used to be a pharmacist in the Congo but here is not working as he has poor health.  I met them the other day after church and was honoured to be invited for dinner.
It was a traditional African meal of Urgali, meat and chapatti’s.  We also had warm milk right from one of the three cows they keep at the house.  We ate with our hands and had great conversation with some translation from Patience.  His Mom is a teacher so she speaks fairly good English and the Dad tries hard.  It was such a great evening....
Patience is a wonderful young man like Emmanuel.  He is working to help pay for his sister’s secondary school education so it is unlikely that he will have the opportunity to go to university for awhile.  I do hope he has the chance one day as he is very bright.
This morning, I opened my birthday card from Jaye and Andrew and of course had a couple of tears.  I do miss them so much.  I was greeted with birthday wishes from Cathy, Teste, Emmanuel, Pat, Georgeann and Julie.  Julie gave me money to buy Boda Boda’s (plastic sandals for the kids) at the market and Emmanuel wrote me a beautiful note and card that I shall keep forever.  We are going out for dinner tonight.  I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of these wonderful people.
I prepared some gift bags for the staff at school with peanuts, a few soaps, candy and a small amount of money to show my appreciation for all they do and for being so nice to me.  They were very happy and I got lots of hugs.  Today was the Mama and baby class – we had about 10 Mama’s and they are wonderful and so interested in my life even though their own lives are very difficult.  They have to buy their water for cooking, bathing and doing laundry and then carry it home.  This is after they work in the fields all day.  At the end of the session, they sang me Happy Birthday and all hugged and kissed me.  It was the best feeling and the best birthday. 
Thursday we are going out again for pizza – as it is my last night for Georgeann, Pat and me.  Friday we are taking a car to Kigali – they to a hotel for the weekend and me to the airport.  Emmanuel is coming too to make sure I get there safely.  I would love to put him in suitcase and take him home!  But I can’t. 
In the next few days, I will drink in as much as I can.  This has been a month of reflection and reconciliation for me.  I am starting a new chapter of my life and I could not be happier or more excited.   When people ask, “how did you spend your birthday?” – Well, I can say I spent it in “The Land of a Thousand Hills” – Rwanda – a very special country......

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