Hey

It’s been a little while, mainly due to a lack of connectivity and electricity. As it stands I still haven’t worked out if/how I’ll be charging my laptop, and thus this post will be quite brief and I’m not sure how many will be following it in the near future, but hopefully I’ll work that part out.
I’m at my site and I start teaching tomorrow. It’s been an interesting week, though not incredibly eventful on a grand scale. A lot of meeting people, trying to remember names, being followed by children, being called muzungu (of course), being laughed at, being asked to teach everyone and their mother’s mother’s mother English, being told I speak really good Kinyarwanda, or on the flip side that I don’t understand anything (which is often true), being asked why I’m here, where I live, how “I find the climate”, how I find the people, and being forced to consume more sodas than I can ever recall in recent times. I even opted for tonic water the other day just because I knew I wouldn’t drink it as fast. But you know the only thing worse than a bottle of tonic water? Two bottles of tonic water. And what’s worse than two bottles of tonic water? Two bottles of tonic water followed by a grape Fanta. I say this all in jest though, I’m more than happy to hang out and socialize, get to know people and whatnot, even if it rots my teeth a bit.
The main event has been my housing situation which is still unresolved, and I’m currently staying with my headmaster until the latrine/fence situation is addressed. I’m hopeful that within a week or so that aspect of things will get sorted out, as I’m quite eager to get space for myself and actually be able to unpack my things (especially since I have a lot of crap!).
I’m starting to get to know some people though, and I’ve been running almost every day in the morning, which has greatly helped me map out the surrounding area. It’s really quite beautiful and I enjoy the calmness which surrounds me here. It’s interesting because while it feels like you are in the middle of nowhere, there is always a bunch of houses right nearby, whereas in the States you wouldn’t expect to find any people at all in such an area.
It has poured rain like no other today, almost a frightening amount. Rain here also means no commuting in our out, because it’s all dirt roads and then get very muddy to the point where you can’t drive on them (unless you a F-350 or something). I enjoy the sound of the rain though, the loud thundering crashes on the tin roofs here. I’m going to miss it during the dry season which is fast approaching.
Anyway, I’d write more but like I said, I’m trying to make this charge of battery last as long as possible. In the meantime I hope everyone is well and hopefully I’ll be able to write more sometime soon.