And then there were three...

Today Michel, Lorraine, and Pauline left. I was very sad to see them go, and I will dearly miss their company, their conversation, and all the laughter they brought! So, there were only three of us here today: me, Sr. Charlotte, and Sr. Iwona. Immaculée, a former student who has been picking up some part-time work around the mission, has been cooking lunch for us and eating with us, so it was nice to eat with her today too. Sr. Charlotte and I bonded quite a bit today. She's so young, can't be more than 27 or 28 years old, so we find lots of the same things to be humorous, thus we get along quite well! We worked together for a few hours preparing arts and crafts for the Patronage. We basically looked through boxes in this warehouse to see what kinds of craft supplies we could find. We found a bag of bean bags, and we made two towers of Styrofoam pieces that were packaging parts for printer cartridges, and decided that these towers could provide for a nice game in which the bean bags are used to knock down the opposing team's tower. And we found plenty of crayons and paper, but not the cardstock kind, which is unfortunately what we were in search of. So then we decided we'd look for materials with which the children can make hats for Christmas. Sr. Charlotte found a box filled with empty cookie boxes. These cookie boxes fit nicely on top of the head, so we'll just decorate them and boom there you go! I love this – being creative with random scraps (Styrofoam and cardboard cookie boxes, stuff you'd normally throw away. Yes, much creative potential lies within). Kids certainly don't need fancy pre-cut foam crafts…you can make so much with what you have right here!
Then Sr. Iwona put me to work making a folder of digital pictures showing the chronology of how the mission in Gisenyi came to be. She showed me lots of these pictures yesterday, and it was quite enjoyable to look at the very early stages. This mission was only built in 2003, and the church right next door was just completed in August 2009. I'm in the midst of brand new goodness! So I looked through photos for quite a long time, and then Sr. Iwona had me use my digital camera to take pictures of non-digital pictures. It worked surprisingly well, quality's not as bad as you'd expect! It was pouring rain too, just like yesterday. It was really nice having all 3 of us working in the library for a few hours today, I felt very at home. I'm feeling more and more comfortable and at ease here, and I think having the smaller group today helped a lot.
Fr. Valence and Fr. Antoine came by at 5pm today for our first English "lesson." I had a lot of fun with Sr. Iwona right before they got here – they were late, so we were just hanging out outside waiting for them so we could unlock the gate to let them in. So we went under the huge gazebo in the middle of the yard and twirled around. Delightful!
I had such a great time "tutoring" the priests! I say "tutoring" because it was really just a conversation hour. They asked me things about life in the U.S. – what is the educational system like, healthcare, the Church – and then they'd tell me about how it’s different in Rwanda. I learned a lot! They were so grateful and very eager about the next seven months – they say they’re going to be fluent by then, and honestly they probably will be! They said they really benefit from just the listening and speaking practice, and they're recruiting other priests (and I guess some Sisters) from the area, so it’s very possible that this could turn into a large class! And we're aiming at making this a more structured class, not just a conversation hour, even though that is extremely beneficial. So I'm gonna plan a few things out for tomorrow. Oh yes, they want to come back tomorrow! Not sure if this is going to be a daily thing for the next 7 months, but I'm down with it if it is. It was tons of fun and very rewarding knowing that I can help them so much by just talking. Talking slowly and clearly, that is.