October :)

Does not seem like October already… Normally in America once you get to October everyone just starts talking about January!! People start going on vacation and leaving early from work for many various reasons and the Christmas music starts :) I love it but I know many of you don’t enjoy it to the same extent I do!!

To help me feel like it’s getting to the end of the year I have been listening to lots of Christmas music and attempting to bake :) No one here cares about the music because most everyone can’t understand it so it’s just the strange American listening to more strange music!! The baking however… This is pretty tricky being in Rwanda but I am finding ways!!! The first thing I did was visit the bakery in my village!!! It’s not a normal bakery that you might think of in America… but it’s a bakery none the less!!! They make 2 kinds of dough and 4ish designs of rolls from the dough!! They showed me how to use the big mixer and how they roll out the different kinds of breads and where they bake them!!  It was so fun and they want me to go back… so I probably will :)

Then I went home and made some banana bread!! O my lanta… it was so good!!! I loved lighting the oven and watching bunches of cockroaches come crawling out :/ hahaha but the bread was still delicious!!! I didn’t have all the normal ingredients so I made some up or left some out… but I’d say it was the best banana bread I’ve ever had!!!!!

Another morning this month I went and visited these girls that live with Catholic sisters. They learn to cook and make clothes and garden!!! They were playing basketball outside my office one day and started talking to me :) They invited me to visit them and we had so much fun!!! They have cows and chickens and turkeys and rabbits and the most amazing garden!!!! They don’t know much English at all so I offered to teach them and they got super excited!!!! They said they want me to come back next week and teach them… I will go and I hope they still want to learn :) Teaching English has become my new favorite hobby!!!! While I was there they showed me all around their garden and invited me to help them sometime!!! Then they showed me all the animals and wanted me to take pictures of them :) Then they showed me all their sewing machines!!!! They have like 20 of them and they all make clothes and other things!!!! The girls are right behind the bakery so I got to see those guys again which was awesome as well!!! It was a pretty good morning :)

My project is coming along and I am excited to finally be making progress on it!!! At the moment I am waiting to hear from my boss what she thinks and how she would like me to continue… but So far she has said only good things and I am excited to hear more!!!! Maybe I should explain a little about my project so it makes more sense!!!! I am designing, testing and training people in TIP’s Education Style!!! I have been researching teaching and learning styles and what works best. Then I have been observing many of the Health Centers to see what they currently do and try to learn why they do it that way and how they might be able to implement something new!!! It’s fun and I like all the traveling around and visiting with moms from this area of Rwanda!!! The best part is that they all bring their awesome, cute, little, sweet, adorable babies with them and I have been a little photo happy :) hahaha but I think the moms love seeing the white American want pictures of their baby!!