My 1 Year Rwandiversary

Sorry, this post is a few days late, I can't tell you the last time I've had access to wifi.

But last week my cohort and I celebrated our 1 Year Rwandiversary. One year ago, we left our lives in the US to move to Rwanda. In some ways it definitely doesn't feel like its been a full year, and in other ways it feels like its been 10 years. While I still feel like the new kid on the block, who doesn't understand half the things that go on around me, it feels good to make it to this big milestone in my service. Truthfully, I celebrated the actual day by opening up my bag of brand new underwear that I brought for year 2 (extremely happy someone told me to pack it). And I was able to celebrate over the weekend with my close friends.

People say "Peace Corps is the toughest job you'll ever love." And its very true, after spending 365 days in this country I can say I faced some of the worst and best moments of my life. Puking in the middle of village because I drank too much sorghum beer (non-alcoholic), spending 2 full weeks on medical hold for a still unknown reason, and having a rat in my bed, definitely make the list of the worst moments. But I can't even count how many good moments I have had in this country, and I know I'm only getting started. My neighbors have become my family and my support system. They help me with everything from buying food at the market, protecting my house from thieves when I leave for the weekend, and making my laugh and dance when my students have been terrors all day. I couldn't live in this country without my amazing support system here, from my neighbors and fellow teachers, to other volunteers that keep me sane when Rwandan culture starts to frustrate me.

I have fallen in love with many parts of Rwandan culture, and I will never understand other parts (but that's for another post). I can't thank my family and friends in the US enough for how much they've supported me in my 1 year here. From sending packages with the best foods, listening to my complain and sometimes cry and always telling me I can do it. I have now begun counting down my next milestone in Rwanda; my family coming to visit. Only 89 days, 9 hours, and 18 minutes, from the time I'm writing this, until we will be on the same continent again.

So to mark this milestone, here is a video I made, so you can all meet some of my neighbors that I've come to love and see some of the amazing moments we've shared together. We've discovered bubbles and Moana together, translated storybooks into Kinyarwanda, learned to dance and sing together, and they've learned to understand my terrible Kinyarwanda skills while teaching me more about life, love and family than I could have ever imagined. Warning: My Kinyarwanda is not grammatically correct of perfect in this video.