Musanze, Murals, and Baguettes

     Alright, alright, I know it's not really alliteration like I prefer in the title, but I'm too tired to think of alliteration right now. It's hard to leave your blog for a few days, travel to a completely different part of the continent, then come back and write about all of it, on top of being clever. But, just to humor you all, I will try. 
     So far, we've spent two days in Rwanda. Our plane rides were... Interesting... They went rather smoothly for the most part until we almost died on the last one. When we were landing in Uganda, I guess we landed at sort of an angle, and when the plane hit the ground, we sort of did a bounce-and-lean-dangerously-to-the-right thing. The one side of the plane lifted off the ground and we must have been tilting at a forty-five degree angle. Then we leaned to the left as the pilot tried to right the plane too quickly. It was fine in the end though and we got to the Rwanda airport at one in the morning without any trouble. 
     We went to the Reeves' house to get a bit of sleep, and in the morning we woke up to chilly weather. We ran some errands and ate at a cafe and some amazing burritos and got to Musanze yesterday evening. The car ride up here was beautiful if not a bit swervy. We saw several of the volcanos (which just looked like mountains in the fog, yes, FOG) and lots of hills. They say Rwanda is the Land of A Thousand Hills, and somewhere else claimed they were Land of A Thousand And One Hills (which I find rather unnecessary) so we decided to call Rwanda 'Land Of One More Hill Than Any Other Country In the World Thank You Very Much.' 
     Last night with the Millers and Jessica, one of their interns, we had lovely soup and did a Just Dance 3 party, which was ever so amusing. I was also introduced to Duck Dynasty, which I found rather fascinating, yet it made me reminisce strongly of places I lived and I tended to laugh out loud a lot. 
     This morning we went to a hospital to paint a mural there. We had a lion stencil, a giraffe stencil, a monkey, and a lovely elephant, courtesy of Cassie. We put the three animals central on the wall then did a tree on either side with a monkey hanging respectively. It turned out rather well, though we haven't finished the words or the leaves on the tree. The words underneath say something or other that I don't know what it means. I asked Abby, but she didn't know, so instead we drew on each other with graphite pencil as an alternative. 
     We also have BIG PLANS for the Fourth of July! Abby and I spent almost two hours at the market both looking for red, white, and blue plaid shirts to wear. Finally we found some, and if I do say so myself, they are perfectly awesome. I also got another shirt because in my insistence upon bringing a ton of books I didn't leave too much room for clothes. Oops. Well, now I have two more shirts. And besides, I'm usually wearing a sweater anyway! 
     The weather here has been perfect! It reminds me of England in September. In the sun, it's hot but when you step in the shade it drops about ten degrees, so you feel like wearing a jacket in the shade then shorts in the sun. But at night and in the evenings, I have been getting the whole runny nose and numb fingers bit. Of course, it's only in the high sixties, which is not cold for a lot of people, but for all I know it could start snowing any moment. 
     I've also split an entire two-foot baguette with Jessica, who is the only person cool enough to just agree to buy a loaf of bread with me and eat it then and there. It was absolutely lovely. Abby and I have also spent time comparing scarves and hiding from the siblings at the appropriate moments. This afternoon though, Anna Marie and Asher made us a 'Banana split' with no ice cream or whipped cream or chocolate, and with strawberries, Craisins, and chocolate-covered almonds. So, they made us little bowls with bananas, strawberries, Craisins and chocolate almonds. I was surprised, in Kigali we got two large bags of strawberries off the street, and they are AMAZING! Though much smaller than in America. I have also managed to trip over my won feet in three different countries in two days now! That's my personal record, I'm pretty sure. More to come on Fourth of July, and other things that should probably be much fun!

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