A New World!

 (Pictures are mostly by other people – my camera was stolen last month)

Hello my dears! Apologies for the long absence. My life has been full of too many transitions of late to document properly, but things are slowing down at last.

At the end of our program we went to the beautiful lake Kivu, hidden in rolling green mountains. It was a fabulous adventure of swimming in the clear water, and took a boat to a mysterious island full of cows and 5 million bats, which we climbed to the top of.

 High on the mountain-island 

Making new friends everywhere. 

The cloud of Bats we hiked through! 

Bats closer up

Now that my study abroad program is over I have moved to a new house for the summer, where I am staying with Kevin and Lizzie, two students from my program who are also staying through the summer. It has been a week of goodbyes at our house, as people have lingered in our house after the program and before their flights to America. We have had between 5 and 7 people in our tiny three-bedroom house, and we have big family breakfasts and dinners together every day. But by Friday everyone but the three of us will be gone, and it will be time to settle in to the summer for real!

Our house is  in the same complex as a brilliant artist’s studio called Ivuka! It is a jumble of bright colors and sculptures and paintings, which overflows into our bright orange house. There are dance practices outside our house every few days, and our concrete ‘yard’ overflows with the half-wild children who play in the streets by our house and come to play soccer with us and tie knots in my hair and snuggle.

In front of the painting in our living room

The art studio across from us 

Our house is the orange one!

The art studio 

I will spend my summer here in Kigali, and leave in late July for Europe and then home. I am doing research on forced repatriation of Rwandan refugees from neighboring Uganda. It’s a project I am very excited about, and I hope it will serve as a basis from my senior project. It will be a good summer! 

Playing with the babies -- Perfect and Bonett