I'm Coming Home on the 27th!

I WILL NOW BE HOME JULY 27TH!!!!

Maddie, Greg, Epiphanie, and I looked over our schedule, and we realized we will have completed over 100 interviews by next week. We did not have anything planned the last week of our internship except to work on our report. Because we already have so much information, we have already started our report. Instead of burning money in Rwanda and writing it in Africa, we all agreed it would be best to get back home and finish it there.

Okay so for this week…

Monday we went to the Museum in Butare, went to a cultural dance performance, and went shopping. The USA group left us on Monday night. We were quite sad to see them go. They were truly an amazing group of individuals, and I feel like I learned something significant from every single one. It was so nice to have some maternal figures who let us share their food and ask us how we slept in the morning! One time we were walking in the dark home from dinner (we were in a big group) and some guy grabbed my arm. He was just asking for money. But Greg told me if anyone did that again he would beat them up. I’m sad it did not happen again… I would have liked to see a pastor beat up some one…
Everything got a lot quieter when they left. Maddie and I started back up on the interviews on Tuesday. It was sad, one day we had wayyy to many kids show up. They came without being invited because they wanted the cool dollar store gifts I brought. Wednesday we did interviews and spent an insane amount of time in the internet café. We went to a restaurant in Butare called “The Chinese Restaurant” with our favorite person, Martha, our translator. She’s so fun, and we love her. She goes to the National University near by. “The Chinese Restaurant” was quite an experience.
Today we had a great day. We learned we get to go home a little earlier. Although we love it here, we do miss our parents (who would have thought I would have ever said that). We only had 6 interviews and there were no offices available; therefore, we sat outside on desks. It was a beautiful day, and the children we interviewed were fun and open talking with us. It was very pleasant outside, and we were in such good moods the children received lots of extra gifts. After work we went to our favorite restaurant (we literally go to it every day for lunch and dinner) with Martha. After lunch we went to the market and bought Africana outfits to wear for the next week. Expect to see us in them at Duke. I plan to rock mine in Charlotte as well. Actually the patterns are bright; I can guarantee you Carly will cut them up to make headbands.

I forgot to report a few gifts: (and believe me there are more)

LUCA your gift is by far the heaviest. It is way worth the inconvenience of getting it back because its pretty freakin great. Marco got a smaller version…

Mary Kathryn and Carly got something cute that I plan on borrowing…. Katherine, I hope you like your birthday present-its becoming a tradition to buy you a certain type of foreign thing ;)

See everyone in a little over a week! Love you guys.

Jessica