Primus and toilets

After day two in Rwanda, I honestly feel like we've been here for weeks. I feel much more comfortable here than I imagined, although of course we get plenty of people staring and saying hello, but slowly getting used to that. Yesterday we met a few more vvolunteers and went around town with them. One of the guys whose been here for a while took us on a really long walk around the city, through shops and across to the other side of the city to get a better idea of where everything was. I bought a purse (my ugly day pack I brought along from home just wasn't cutting it anymore), and had to shop around before I found someone that would go down in price. First they started at 25,000 RWF, which is about $40 (and it was a made in china bag), so had to pass by that one. Ended up getting a nice, cheap black one that even fits my laptop for 10,000 RWF or about $16...and it even had the word 'delight' imprinted in the side...pretty fancy. Anyway, we ended up at this awesome cafe thats literally in the middle of the woods/rainforest/jungle, has private bungalows, couches in the grass, and seems to be built into the land. They had the most delicious smoothies (mango, pineapple, coconut, and passion fruit) that were so huge they ended up being our lunch. It was a very relaxing afternoon, and luckily they had wireless internet (although very slow) but enought to get our first blog entries posted. We met another American guy there who works for the Red Cross as a geographer, studying rainfall and predicting floods all over East Africa...pretty cool, and he had been here for about a year with no plans to leave. Last night, we found this little bar across the road from our hotel where we had our first Primus (Rwandan made beer) that is semi-comparable to Budweiser, and they came in these magnum bottles, so we just chilled out there and enjoyed for a while. Our waiter, Moses, spoke pretty good english and taught us how to say Cheers in Kinyarwanda (local language) and a few other useful phrases that we've already forgotten. Unfortunately we had to 'break the seal' after the Primus, and went to use the worst smelling toilet in the world, one where a bucket of water is used to flush. Words cannot describe this smell, but Amy and I shared my scarf to breathe through while we tried as quickly as possible to get out of there. As we were about to leave after the traumatizing bathroom incident, a nice older man sat down next to use and encouraged us to stay with another beer. We were going to head home but decided, why not. He also spoke english pretty well, but french even better, so luckily a fair amount of my french from high school (Thanks Ms. Jones) came back to me. Ended up that he is a major in the Rwandan military, and introduced himself as "Major Innocent", and was at the bar because another member of the miltary is the owner. He told us some crazy stories about his travels while working with the President Paul Kagame, how he went to Australia (closest he got to NZ, sorry kiwi's), how he's been to America and met Hillary Clinton when she visited here. After telling us about some current military activies in neighboring countries, he assured us that Rwanda is the safest place to be. We're not positive that he was legitimate, but made for a really interesting evening! After peanut butter sandwiches for dinner, we were asleep by 9pm, and cozy as can be under our mosquito nets.
xo Cait