Langauge class starts today...ohhh boy

We started class this morning.  The head of trainings name is Mupemba (moop-pem-ba.)  He is the jollies Congolese man I have ever met.  Everyone calls him Mup (moop) for short, along with all the nicknames that come with, such as the Mupanator.  He is the director of training, and there are about 15 teachers/staff.  I am in a group of 4 people with two different language teachers.  We started at 8am sharp (Ha! Just kidding, nothing happens on time here, its awesome,) and had intense Kinyarwanda language training until noon, when we took a break for lunch.  Kinyarwanda is really hard.  Like English, it doesn’t really follow any rules like other typical language.  It’s going to be tough to learn, but I love the small classes, and the teachers are all very encouraging and patient.  After lunch, we had a health and safely section, followed by a two hour break.

 A group of us decided to explore a little bit and hike to the lake nearby.  As we were walking through town, Seraphina (my host sister) spotted me and called me over.  I left the group and followed her to her family’s fabric shop where she helps her mom and sisters.  I do have a host family!  Last night I got the impression that it was just going to be Seraphina, but she does live at home with her mom and three sisters.  I met her mom (my host mom) and two of her sisters.  Seraphina and her sisters have finished school, but their little brother is in Kigali with their father finishing up school.  Seraphina speaks enough English that we can hold a conversation.  I don’t speak enough Kinyarwandan het to speak her language, but she likes to practice English, and if she doesn’t know the English word, we can speak some French to each other.  There are so many amazing fabrics there.  Their shop was pretty small, but covered from ceiling to floor with colorful fabrics.  I showed Seraphina which fabrics I liked, and she taught me how to say the different colors in Kinyarwanda.  I can’t wait to buy some fabrics and have some long skirts made.  She also introduced me to her friend who is a “umodozi” (my first vocab word actually that means seamstress,) so I will definitely have her make me a skirt or two.   Having a host family really makes me want to learn Kinyarwandan.  They are so nice, and I can’t wait to be able to speak with them! I feel lucky that Seraphina is my age too because we are able to talk about pop culture.  One of my first questions was if she knew Britney Spears, and she laughed and said of course.  She also knows Rihanna, P.Diddy, Eminem, R.Kelly, Akon, and Usher.  I thought that was kind of funny.  After a few hours, I said goodbye to Seraphina, and walked back for dinner.

Best.dinner.ever.  Someone taught the cooks how to make guacamole (there are tons of avocados here) so they made huge pots of guacamole, beans and rice.  It was SO delicious.  I am now sitting in bed under my mosquito net so full and satisfied.  Tomorrow is another long day of language class, but on my break, I’m going to run to the internet café, post this blog, and stop by the fabric shop to see Seraphina, and hopefully pick out some cute fabrics!