{"id":120,"date":"2011-03-22T03:46:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-22T07:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/2011\/03\/22\/holiday-where\/"},"modified":"2011-03-22T03:46:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-22T07:46:00","slug":"holiday-where","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/2011\/03\/22\/holiday-where\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday where?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Saturday was our one and only slack day in the trip and we ventured into the Congolese market in town in order to stock up on last minute souvenirs.  It’s was interesting dynamic because the rainy season has begun here and rain was pouring down all day while we were at the market.  Rain in Rwanda really shuts down the stores- well, the whole town really- because so many of the roads are not paved and it gets dangerously muddy.  Our driver for the day had a big 4×4, but the market was pretty empty for the most part.  We wandered around from tiny shop (maybe the size of a small walk-in closet) to tinier shop bargaining for baskets and earrings to take home.  Our driver, Ibrahim, is really good at this African game – I can’t remember the name- but there was a table set up and many of the male shop owners (why only male?) were playing it on the narrow walkway.  I bought one with an elephant carved in it, even though the elephants refused to show themselves for my safari adventure, but I never ended up having enough time for Ibrahim to teach me how to play.  I guess I’ll have to count on the internet to teach me! While weaving in and out of shops, we met a couple from Tennessee who are in the process of a 5 country tour of Africa.  The woman told us they are going to the Congo next- I confirmed “The Congo?  For a holiday?” and she, seemingly ignorant of the violence there, assured me that they were indeed attempting to visit the Congo for holiday.  Whoever they are, wherever they are, I hope they stay safe- and I hope their in and out by nightfall…<\/p>\n

We loaded up the back of the truck with a ton of souvenirs and moved on to the German international grocery store in Kigali.  One of the ODU professors made friends with an artist who has a small shop next door so we visited him and bought a ton of his stuff…I think we’re done with spending money now that our suitcases are stuffed full.  I guess there’s a subconscious desire to buy all of Rwanda in order to prevent the inevitable fading from our memories…
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That night we had dinner at our host mother’s sister’s house.  She’s a single Rwandan woman, very controversial, who travels the world dealing in Rwandan embroidery art.  She has a 7 year old son whose story I feel compelled to share because it’s so beautiful.  As a single woman, she had considered adopting a child- she’d had a very long ten year relationship that has diminished any desire for her to pursue marriage in the future- but she wanted someone to share her life with.  One day, while she was at the shop she runs in town,  there was commotion in town.  Someone had found a baby, just hours old, abandoned on the street corner.  She went to see what all the commotion was about and offered to take the baby to the hospital to ensure he was medically okay.  In the end, they allowed her to sign paperwork that essentially made the child hers.  She said the process is a little different than adoption because he was never entered into the system and he was just hours old when he was found- a tiny tiny 4 pound baby.  He doesn’t know yet, but his name is Moses, and she uses the biblical story of Moses as a bedtime story for him to warm him to the idea that he was an orphan.  She said that there are so many orphans in Rwanda, he will understand because he is not the only one.<\/p>\n

In that same theme, we went to visit the family of our driver Ibrahim, who has also adopted the baby of a family member that could not care for him.  Our host mother also has three of her brother’s children who was unable to raise them.  It’s really inspiring that so many Rwandans welcome these orphans into their homes and raise them as their own.  Our host mother even said after her own children are grown, she plans to adopt another baby.  Tragic that there are so many orphans, but inspiring that there are so many open homes….<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday was our one and only slack day in the trip and we ventured into the Congolese market in town in order to stock up on last minute souvenirs.  It’s was interesting dynamic because the rainy season has begun here Continue reading Holiday where?<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}