Caleb's Log v.3 (from Wed 1/9)

Hello Everyone!

Last night for you all and this morning for me, I had my first 3:00am City Council meeting.  It was fine.  I failed to go to bed early, woke up at 2:30 to get ready and went back to sleep from 6:00-7:30am.  Got the kids off to school and dropped Katie off at her OFFICE.  She's got a desk at Lambert's office, who is one of her colleagues on the Bridges to Prosperity project.  It's really fun to see Katie getting to engage with local researchers and you can tell that she'll be in the field in no time.

I drove from her office to the Kigali Golf Course.  That's right!!! I'm gonna be a golfer.  I got a membership this morning and now I get unlimited golf for the rest of my trip.  The idea is to go every Wednesday morning after my council meeting ends to get out, exercise, decompress, reward myself, meet new people, and really just have a selfish moment.  I haven't golfed yet, but it will definitely be a story.  I'll save that all for another day.

I'm going to use the rest of today's post/journal entry/email to talk about my girls.  

As you all clearly understand, this is a huge adjustment for them.  They miss their friends and their pets.  They miss their cousins and their comfy home.  They miss their normal food and their daily rhythm.  

However, they are absolutely amazing.  They have great attitudes about almost everything, including the 25 minute walk up and down hills on dirt and mud roads at 7:30 in the morning. And, on THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, they walked home alone, just the three of them.  They got a little lost, but backtracked, figured it out, and got home.  They've all made some friends and seem to have someone to lunch with.  Alexa is already planning her birthday party with an extensive guest list of classmates whose names she does not know.

I'm just blown away by how seamlessly they seem to have adjusted and engaged in this community.  Of course, there will be struggles in the future and breakdowns are bound to happen.

They are just remarkable 3 days into school and 5 days into our trip.  They are kind to each other and to their awful parents and they seem to be having a great time.  Alexa is signed up for after school gymnastics and Athena is signed up for football and band, I think.  Mazie's electives aren't available yet, but we're planning on football and cooking.

Enough for now.  I'm gonna go back to that bank and hang out with my friends for a few hours.

Caleb

We did it.

It's Thursday morning and I'm sitting at Question Coffee, up the hill from our house.  The kids are at school.  (Caleb and I were planning to walk them there, but when we came outside they had already left.  Watched them walk up the hill across the valley from our house.)  Caleb is playing golf.  It's 11:48 pm back home.  No one needs anything from me right now.  It is a very strange feeling, especially after months and months of planning to make this happen and a hectic last week of travel and settling in.  It's... done.  We're here.  What next?

Green Hills Academy

 

The kids started school at Green Hills Academy yesterday. To start the day they each had to take a written assessment which took about an hour.  They handled it well - Lexi reported that she wrote a whole page about mac & cheese (in response to a prompt asking about her favorite food), and Athena wrote a journal entry about an imaginary hot air balloon ride. After that was done, we went over to get the much-anticipated uniforms. There are a few different options (trousers, skirts, shirts, sweaters, gym clothes - Athena apparently got instructions about when to wear which outfits, but Mazie thinks it's kinda whatever you want and wore her gym outfit on day 2).  

 

The campus is huge and beautiful.  Lexi is in the Primary School, Athena is in the Middle School, and Mazie is in the High School. Lots of big trees and even a swimming pool!  

The kids all seemed pretty happy after day one. Lexi reported that she played with multiple new friends at break time. Athena said she had a swarm of kids showing her around all day. Mazie was a little less effusive but said she talked to other kids and it was fine. All in all, a successful start to the school experience.

Lexi with her teacher, Ms. Loice

An Update about Trees

Before we left home, we had friends and family give us "curious questions" about Rwanda and our trip. Our goal is to answer as many of these as we can while we're here. Today on the way to school, we saw some trees that made Lexi think of her friend Calvin, so we made this video for Calvin AND also to answer her friend Teddy's tree-related question ("Are there palm trees?"). 

Caleb's Log v2

What a crazy 24 hours. 

Monday is nearly over for us and it was a big day.  We all slept pretty well, which is a huge part of the solution.  In the morning I decided to stub my toe on the bed post so hard that I broke my second toe on my left foot (maybe my 4th toe...which reminds me of the "which side of the bed do you sleep on" test).  This is not ideal when you spend most of the day walking.  With that injury behind us we all walked the 25 minute path to school.  All 3 girls are attending the same school, Green Hills Academy, but they're in different buildings, since they are grade 2, grade 6, and grade 9.  (yes, that's how they say it)  They got their uniforms, which are adorable, and headed off to classes.  The campus is enormous and there are so many kids there.  It feels like a perfect combination of preschool and college.  

I headed off to the Bank of Kigali to set up a local bank account so that I could pay for larger items and move money from the US without paying an arm and a toe.  The experience that I had in the branch was mind numbing.  After 3 hours, I left without a bank account, but a lot of fond memories of a culture I don't yet understand.  There is always a military presence, which brings a sense of organization and rules, but there are also no rules.  Imagine working with a teller and having someone walk up behind them and hand them a piece of paper.  They stop helping you to deal with the information on the paper.  5 minutes later, you realize that the guy behind the teller doesn't work at the bank.  Then someone walks up to you and asks you some questions about why you're here and then jokes with the teller and starts doing a deposit while you watch.  Then the teller works for an hour without speaking to you.  Now imagine that all of this is happening in a foreign language while you're standing for 3 hours on a toe that hates you for being your current weight.

I went home and attempted to watch the Sunday Bronco game.  I made it to half time (no spoilers please) but had to give up after our 4th power outage.  (don't know if that's a normal thing during the day...hope not)  

Then....we got our rental car!  So excited to have some more independence to get groceries, drinking water, and tour the large city.

Driving....I'm going to save my stories about driving for v.3.  It's so great!

I had my first City of Louisville Zoom today from my bed with a computer on top of a laundry basket on top of an end table, with a fan blowing my hair ever so gently.

Oh, I forgot to tell you all about how much better I slept....like the details.  We got the mosquito repellent stuff turned on and a fan running all night.  I was so happy and comfortable.  It was a total 180 from Saturday night.  I'm looking forward to sleeping tonight.

We're home now and the girls are snuggled up on the couch watching Wednesday on Netflix (see, we're totally still in the US).  

That's it.

Caleb

I'll figure out how to send pictures...here are a few.  https://photos.app.goo.gl/od1pJGGDiQvnnVid8

Rwanda Arrival (Caleb's Log v1)

Our family made it safely to Rwanda.  We flew to NYC on Thursday night and then flew 13.5 hours from NYC to Nairobi, Kenya on Friday.  We left around 1pm on Friday and arrived around 12pm Saturday, due to the 9 hour time change.  Quick turnaround and we were off to Kigali, Rwanda for a 1 hour flight and a 1 hour time change, so we got in around 1:00pm local time.

We had three wonderful gentlemen pick us up from the airport with a pickup truck and a van.  5 people and 16 bags is no joke.  They took us to our home and we barely made it, due to the dirt road being severely washed out.  We met our security guard/gardener/cleaner, Ephrem who is (I'm just guessing) 15 years old and lives in a small shed-like building next to our house. Apparently his uncle lives nearby, but he doesn't speak any English and we don't speak Kinyarwanda, so....unknown.

The first night was rough with hot, muggy temperatures.  I tried to sleep without blankets or sheets, but then got eaten by mosquitoes.  Considering the real risk of Malaria, a mosquito bite here is a little unsettling.  (we're on medication, so don't worry)  

Lexi and Athena are having a blast, playing tag, doing cartwheels, playing Mario Kart on their new switch, etc, etc.  Mazie is miserable, crying and pouting and staying in her room.  (tables have really turned, as Mazie was the most enthusiastic en route)  

Day 2 is going much better.  

Sunday morning we made breakfast in our little kitchen. Met the host, Thibault, who taught us how to get hot water in the shower, operate the stove, turn on the mosquito repellent things, and access water.  (4 really important things)

We walked to Question Coffee and met 48 employees and 2 security guards at this little coffee shop that loved that we were there.  It proudly supports women coffee farmers and the pastries and coffee were AMAZING.  I'll be working from there a lot.  

We walked to a grocery store (with 35 employees and 2 security guards in a 500sqft space) and got lots of great stuff for the house before walking home.

Internet is super fast and we've mostly unpacked.  

Mustard doesn't seem to exist here.

Cheerios aren't a thing, but lots of other brands are.

A bottle of wine was $18, but the corkscrew was $25.

This is one of those countries where people are hired for the sake of hiring people.  They have a person sitting at the produce section (6 feet long) to write down the things you grabbed and create a paper receipt for the check out. (they double check the work at the register) There were 3 people managing the checkout at the grocery store, while the security guard watched over them.  

There is a security guard at the entrance of the coffee shop drive-through, whose job seems to be to ALLOW people to come in to get coffee.  There is another guard for the other part of the parking lot whose job seems to be to move the cone he put in the way whenever someone wants to go by.  

Oh, motorcycle taxis!!!  They're like ants on the road.  Hundreds of them weaving through traffic with a passenger chillin on the back.

Mazie has hardly cried at all today.

Lexi has done 736 cartwheels and has played soccer in the front yard (4 feet x 30 feet).  

Ephrem cuts the grass by hand with a machete.  (he holds the grass up with his left hand while slicing underneath with his right hand)  I'm hoping he never loses a finger while we're here.

The kids have their first day of school tomorrow.  We'll make the 20 minute walk early enough for them to get their uniforms before the other students arrive.

So curious to see how the kids feel about day 1.  

We miss our pets.

We miss our friends and family.

I miss you all.

If I'm being honest, this has been a rough start and I've had more feelings of "WTF am I doing here" than, "this is really cool."

I think that will change over time.  :)

And we're off!

Waiting to board our Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi, then on to Kigali! Hard to believe we're finally at this point after months of planning. 

We flew from Denver to New York yesterday & stayed here overnight. 

Yummy dinner & breakfast in Queens, then lugged our 16 bags back here this morning.

Feeling excited and grateful to my crew for going along with this wild scheme. Also incredibly grateful to our amazing family & friends who helped us get out of town. We absolutely could not have done this without you and we're excited to share our adventures with all of you!