Our second, first day of school

I am currently wrapped up in a blanket on my bed, listening to "Wild Child" by Enya, and eating a delicious peanut butter cookie that Cassie and Ryan just made. I feel completely relaxed and at home. Hard to believe a month and a half ago I felt uncomfortable and homesick. This is my new life and I am loving it. :D ... Now for the reason you came, my daily blog. enjoy:

It was our second first day of school. I was really enjoying not having classes or stressing about homework. I got up at 7:15, showered, and then was ready to eat at 7:40. We started walking towards the bus stop (ten minutes up the road). Vestine surprised us by meeting us on our road with a bus she had hired to take us on our first morning. We drove to class which is at the Food for the Hungry office in Kigali. Our classroom is in a warehouse looking room that is filled with chairs. Our professor, Pastor Anastase {?}, arrived. I was the first to shake his hand, and was sure to touch my lower arm near my elbow while we shook as a sign that I respect him. He went over our class schedule. The class is Issues of Peace-building. We are going to be going to a lot of genocide museums and other field trips. I am especially excited because he is going to get us access to attend a trial for participants in the genocide. The government set thousands of genocide participants free from jail, to be tried by their neighbors in their village community courts. We will get to watch them tried by their neighbors who witnessed their actions. Should be really interesting. We will also have many guest speakers. My group is doing our class project on the response of NGOs before, during and after the genocide. I can't wait to get into the course material.

Our professor finished class two hours early so we hit the streets to explore. I started getting really hungry - never a good thing for me. We were standing on the sidewalk talking when some nice men walked up and asked if we needed help finding our way. We asked where the nearest market could be found and then walked back to find a snack. Then Vestine caught up with us and said our morning class was moved to the house so we could go home. We went home and had lunch and hung around until our next class.

Our Social Context for Development teacher is the country director for Rwanda. His name is Dwight Jackson, and he is from the US. I am really excited for his class. He has first had experience with NGOs, so I know we will learn a lot. He told us "don't let anything become the 'final truth' for you when learning the history of Rwanda". Everyone will have a different perspective that has elements of truth, but nothing should be taken as the final truth in our heads. He cautioned us not to state our opinions about the ways things are done in Rwanda, but to frame everything as a question. We can still make a point, but framing it as a question will be less rude. We really shouldn't make judgments anyways, since we don't know anything about life in Rwanda yet. This class looks like it is also going to be really cool.

After class I relaxed and talked to some friends online. It was nice. the weather here is perfect. Today was sunny but it was breezy which cooled everything off very nicely, like a summer night. I did some laundry and hung it out to dry. We spent a few hours watching season 5 of The Office before dinner. Dinner was a masterpiece. Ida, our cook, started preparing it yesterday. We had chicken curry, but with a twist. First the rice and the curry go on your plate, then you load it with diced banana, mango, pineapple, raisins, nuts, tomatoes, onions and shaved coconut. Aryn described it as making "Mt. Kilimanjaro" on your plate. They tastes were delicious.

One thing I love about Africa is the way people relate physically to each other. I love the way we shake hands; really gripping the others hand and putting meaning into the eye contact. Another example was today with Ida. I asked her if she thought it would rain because my clothes were outside drying. She grabbed my hand and walked me outside to the clothes line. Then she explained to me how i hadn't put clothes pin on my clothes so they kept blowing off the line. Even as she was semi-scolding me, she was holding my hand. I think this is just a really loving culture.

Alright, that's enough about today. Time for some rest