I had a great New Year's Day! I went on a 4-hour walk with John, one of the Animators, and an exceptional one, as he wants to become a Salesian priest. What a holy guy he is. It was so great to talk to him about Patronage and hear how important it is for children to have something like it to form them in their faith.
We walked from Muhato into town, which took probably an hour, and we met up with Jean Paul, one of my students, on the way too. They had lots of questions about how we celebrate New Year's in America, and just in general, things in America. John and I also had a funny discussion about when/if I will return to Rwanda. He was really insistent that I will need to come back in 6 years after I am done with med school and residency, and that I cannot get married until after I go back to Rwanda, because it would not be good to uproot my family to come back and visit. Ha.
We waddled around on the beach for another hour or so, taking pictures and me learning more Kinyarwanda (insert DSC000748 and 751).
A few other people sort of joined our Kinyarwanda lesson, as they really like to teach me and to hear my attempt to pronounce some of the very difficult words with nasal-y sounds that I can't produce. He taught me the rest of Nibuhora ho, the song that Martha taught me the dance to. So for a good while we just walked around and sang. It was very cool. On our way back, Félicien called me to wish me happy new year, and to talk to his mom. It was great. I've never met her or anything, but he said he was with his family and can I talk to them? She was very nice and said in pretty good English, "Will you come visit me?" So I'm gonna go meet Félicien's mom someday soon. Excellent. But on the way back, it rained the whole time. We stopped twice to take shelter under an overhang. People here are so accustomed to the rain that everybody just gets out of the street and goes under an overhang. Except for those who are really determined, they keep on walking and just deal with being wet. We had an umbrella, but it was kind of small to share. But about 2 hours later, we finally arrived back at Muhato. And I was really hungry, a bit wet, and my feet hurt. So it was good to be home.
But I really had such a good time today, I'm so grateful that John invited me!
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