Christmas!!

First Christmas without my family... pretty strange :/ but thanks to Ariel and Jackson I was not alone the whole day!!

I was staying in Kigali at the Austin's house again while they were gone visiting America!! It was the kindest thing they have done to let me stay while they were not there!!!

Ariel and I stayed there for a couple days and enjoyed cooking American tasting food and swimming :)

Christmas day we slept in till pretty late and then woke up and watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas!! Half way through we got the ice cream and brownies left over from the night before and enjoyed them while watching the movie!! We played cards for a while and finally got hungry!! We made egg, avocado, cucumber, tomato sandwiches :) So delicious!!!

After eating way too much I fell asleep again and Ariel cleaned up the kitchen!!! Not sure how I slept through that... but it was amazingly kind of her to help!!!

Eventually Ariel had to leave to hangout with her counterparts family... I was sad and not sure what I would do the rest of the day :/ but I knew she needed to go and figured I would come up with something to do!!

I ended up watching a few movies and listening to music and just relaxing!! It was actually super great!! And then around 7 or 8 that night Jackson showed up!!!

I guess I have not talked about Jackson much... Sorry!!!

Jackson is my boyfriend :) He is Rwandan and just came back from serving his mission in South Africa! I have had lots of friends return from missions and I knew how hard it was readjusting to regular life... sooooo I tried to hangout with him anytime I was in Kigali!! It didn't take long and he asked me to be his girlfriend!!

I guess for those that dont know more details I will just share a little more about Jackson and our relationships!!!

The very first time I met Jackson was at a welcome back celebration party thing with all three branches combined!! I introduced myself and realized he spoke great English :) Then after the party I was helping clean the church to get ready for Sunday and Jackson joined in!! He even offered to carry buckets of water that I was already carrying!!! No other Rwandan man had ever offered to help me do anything... so I immediately thought Jackson was a gentlemen!!! After cleaning the church we were talking and he offered to walk me home... Say what?? Its at least a 30 minute walk in the other direction then he was going... I told him no but he said he would anyway!!! Hahahaha we talked and laughed the whole time!! It was amazing to have an instant friend!!! Plus he was not like all the other Rwandan men that expect me to marry them after I say hi :/ so I enjoyed his company very much!!!

We talked casually at church and then didnt talk again till the following Sunday. He asked for my number and we hung out a couple times and the day we went to his village he asked me to be his girlfriend!! I of course said yes :)

He is seriously the sweetest guy and I am so happy to have a friend like this in Rwanda!!!

We hung out over Christmas and talked more over that couple weeks since I had time to be in Kigali!! I think thats all for now!!