April Showers Bring...Well…May Showers

5-1-10

Jarod here…the rain has come with a fury the past week or so and in no way is that depressing. For some reason I love the rain here. It is so refreshing. Back home, I hated it when it rained but for some reason here, I love it! In other news, we have now finished our last week of training. Once again, it is hard to believe we have completed 9 weeks of PST already. It seems just like yesterday that we were waving goodbye to our family in the Fayetteville airport. However, at other times it seems like years ago when we left the states…it’s weird. Anyway, today is an exciting day. Yesterday was officially our last day of classes. Today we are having farewell parties. The first party is for our host families where we will have tea, coffee and fanta, present them with a gift and tell them bye. However, my mother wouldn’t accept a goodbye just yet. She conned me into coming to visit tomorrow and I am dragging Sarah along with me (yea she is not too happy about that). The next party is for all our trainers and training staff. It should be fun as we are doing a 4th of July style party with twister, the 3-legged race, a scavenger hunt and things of that sort. We will also be having some good American style and much needed food.

On Tuesday the 4th we leave for Kigali where we will be sworn in as volunteers on Wednesday the 5th. The ceremony will be held at the ambassador’s house and I have been told that it will be nationally televised. So, no pressure on my speech to be good…should be a fun experience! I can’t tell you how excited I am to be having a week in Kigali to indulge myself with some good, flavorful food and hopefully some somewhat fast wireless internet to update these blogs. (Side note: if there ever seems to be some inconsistencies with dates of these postings and their correspondence, it’s because we usually write our blogs weeks before they are actually posted due to the lack of good internet connection…so they are not usually applicable to the day they were posted). After swear-in on Wednesday, we will be given a list of things we need to purchase for our new homes (along with a nice chunk of change to purchase those things) and shortly after there will be 34 “umuzungus” going on a crazed shopping spree throughout the city.

Anyway, that is about all that has been happening and will be happening during the next week. Oh yea, we lost another one of our volunteers yesterday (birababaje-it is sad). Our one and only Lawrence (the first fellow PCV we met as we got into the taxi in Philly to go to staging) has gone home. Now we are down to just 4 guys…guess we’re going to have to bump up the testosterone level a few more notches. Moving on…I hope to be able to spend some quality time online in Kigali next week and will hopefully be able to email a bunch of you. Feel free to email Sarah and me as we love to receive emails from friends and family back home. As always, we miss all of you and look forward to hearing from you. Also, we have skype and if you have it at well let us know as we would love to chat! Take care and be blessed! Umunsi Mwiza!!!

The Rings!