We have have discovered that our humble home comes with a Kinyarwanda tutor. Venant, the one guard out of the two who speaks VERY little English, has taken it upon himself to teach us the local langauge. When we return in the evenings it has become ritual for Venant to come to our back kitchen door with his notebook and pen. We make Venant some coffee and the three of us sit/stand in the kitchen using body language, sign language, and paper and pen to teach eachother language. He is a beautiful man, who from what we gather is 31 with three younger sisters. We laugh and laugh as he seems to 'forget' we don't understand him and will launch into rapidly strung together words in Kinyardwanda.
Yesterday on our way home from work, we met up with some friends in the street and talked for about 15 minutes. During this time a gathering of street children collected around us - poking and proding our pockets and bags. After we continued on our way - a young boy came running up behind me to tell me the small pocket of my bag was open...apparently one of the little ones had managed to slide open the pocket. All that was inside the pocket was gone.....so this little boy made off with a collection of feminine hygiene products and a twoonie...I hope they go to good use.
2 comments:
Did I ever tell you about the boys in Egypt who used maxipads as shin guards while playing soccer? Kids will find a use for those things.
I love sitting down to read your postings. I try not to read them daily as I enjoy sitting down and reading a few at a time...feels like a I'm reading a great novel!
Glad to hear the job and accommodations changed for the better. Don't have too much fun out there though because you're due back for September 29!
Post a Comment