My Jack Bauer “24” Bday

So yesterday was my 24^th birthday, and what a great day that was!  March 20^th was also another volunteers, Devin’s, birthday, and three other volunteers had birthdays during the last week, so we all decided to have a big birthday bash on Saturday to celebrate all the March birthdays. 

We all woke up around 6:30am to catch the 7am bus to the Nyungwe Forest National Park, which is in the southwest of Rwanda.  The bus drive was about three and half hours to get there.  Something I have learned here is that all the roads here are super windy because of all the hills, so I was happy to be able to sit in the front of the bus to avoid motion sickness (just BARELY made it!)  The ride was beautiful there, lots of green and lush hills, and fields of tea leaves or rice.  It is much more green and jungley than I would have accepted, but then again, we are in the peak of the “rainy” season, so maybe everything is so bright green because of the random downpours.  Anyway, we finally got to the park around 11am and we were all very excited to get off the bus.  The Peace Corps had negotiated a price for the volunteers to pay only $35 US dollars (still expensive considering we get paid $37,000 FRW/about $70 US dollars for three weeks, so about $2 US dollars a day) but they had forgot the letter clarifying the negotiated price, so they wanted the normal admission rate ($60 US) from all of us.  Of course none of us could afford their price, and there was no negotiating with them, so sadly, we hoped back into the car to return back home to Nyanza L  I was super bummed about it, but the truth is, we will all be here for two years, and were promised a trip back, so we will go at some point.  Also, it started POURING rain right when we left, so we will just have to pick a better day.  All in all though, it was really fun actually to get out of the city of Nyanza and explore the countryside and more rural areas.  So all was not lost.

When we got back we had all decided we were going to cook a big “Mexican” feast and then go to the Boomerang bar to continue the birthday celebrations.  We are usually left on our own for the weekend to cook, so we cooked up some rice, beans, maize, guacamole, salsa and grated some cheese.  There are these flat breads here that are called “chipotis “ (sp?) that we used for tortillas and piled on the ingredients to make a DECLICIOIUS burrito! I am so excited that Rwanda has all the essentials to make a decent burrito, so I most definitely will not go starving ever!  In fact, as I type I am snacking on some gauc that I just made; we have an avocado tree in our backyard, I went to the market earlier and bough a pepper, two tomatoes and an onion, and used my old tin oatmeal can to mix everything together, really good!  Oh ya, we also had also bought some Pringles at the “Muzungu” (white people) supermarket in Butare on our way back from the Park, so we feasted on burritos, Pringles and No Bake chocolate, peanut butter and coconut cookies.  It. Was. Awesome. 

After our feast, we had a few rounds of birthday shots, and then left for the Boomerang.  We had a room all to ourselves (which Devin’s mom sent her a “hip hip hooray” sign that we hung up on the wall to make it a little more festive.) There was a DJ and some beer so needless to say we danced the night away! Well ok, until our 10pm curfew that is…  We tried to bring some “American Culture” to Rwanda by constructing a beer bong, but we were able to find a suitable garden hose, but not so successful at finding a funnel, so our attempt was unsuccessful.  But all and all, what a fun birthday in Rwanda!