Pictures are worth so much more

Yes, I am completely behind in posting. That being said, I'll have you know that that 15 January - 15 February was the busiest I have ever been in my entire life. I am surprised I am still alive, to be honest.

We did move into the new studio/house, which, while breaking my bank, has been the exactly right decision, and the ballet school has been able to flourish in this new space. I quickly went from 60 students to 80 shortly after opening for classes here. The studio is so much larger and cooler. Outside there is a swing set, a gazebo, and a large yard, so it has been great for parents, sibling, cousins, nannies, and everyone else who waits while the girls are in class.

My friend Megan moved in with me, and it's been so great having a friend around. We spend quite a lot of time together, doing ridiculous things like buying a kiddie pool and sitting in it when it gets high in the 90s (which it has been doing a lot lately).

We've started choreographing for the Spring Recital - it's going quite well, though I'm having a hard time remembering which group is doing which piece - working on six different ones concurrently! The oldest group (11-16 years old) is doing so well, they love coming to class and you can see them all working very hard to progress.

We had a party on Friday night - everyone brought something for dinner, then we watched Center Stage (classic ballet teen movie) with one of the family's projectors. It was quite a bit of fun.

Last Sunday Megan and I decided to take a day trip and drive two and a half hours east to Akagera, a national park of Rwanda. We borrowed Jen and Dano's car, the beautiful '93 Toyota Carina that has had a good amount of trouble, but keeps on keeping on. I threw it into fifth gear and enjoyed cruising through the beautiful, beautiful country that is Rwanda.

It was an incredibly hot day, and the drive was quite long, but we arrived expectantly. Fred was waiting for us.


We said our hellos and then he walked away, in search of greener pastures.

We then ran into close friends Joe, Tabitha, and Murray. They joined up with about 5 other friends shortly thereafter, and let me tell you, a herd of zebras is quite a beautiful thing - especially when you're in dry, dry, flat, grasslands; a stark contrast to the lush hills of Kigali. It was hard to believe we were still in Rwanda.

Later, we watched Jimbo, Clarissa, and Talia hang out with their fellow hippo friends, staying in a group so as not to taunt the ever present crocodiles (who refused to be photographed).

Of course, it wouldn't be a real day off in Rwanda if something didn't go wrong, so the Toyota took this opportunity to break down in the middle of the elephant section of the park (even though we didn't see any). It began to overheat so we pulled over and sat for 40 minutes, refreshed the water, and hung out with the baboons.

We decided to try again, and got about 1000 meters before we could see the water boiling up again. Another 40 minute break, another 1000 meters ... three hours later we hadn't completed a mile and it was turning into dusk. The way back to the park station was all up hill, not to mention the fact that we were still 3 hours from home and that the J's needed their car back...

I was so dirty (had been crawling under the car to figure stuff out) and hot and overall not in a good mood. I really don't do well when I feel unclean. We stood around, stared at the car, did some war dances, screamed, laughed, and mocked ourselves for thinking the day was going to go smoothly. A mutatu (VW bus stuffed with at least 16 people and invariably several chickens) pulled over at one point, and everyone piled out - men, women, children, and everything else in between. They all crowded around me at the hood of the car and start talking and laughing and prodding. I was so paranoid they were going to take off the radiator cover and steam burn the 30 faces that were over the hood. I eventually just yelled, "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" I think they got the hint cause shortly thereafter they all shook their heads and got back into the bus. Eventually, some dudes showed up and wove a threadbare string in between the car and their truck. It definitely did not seem like it would work.

Fortunately, it did, and ten minutes later we were parked at the station. Still, we had no way to get home. A mechanic was going to come in the morning to fix the car. Fortunately, there were a couple of cars leaving the park and we quickly accosted them, begging for a ride back to Kigali. A group of Americans graciously said yes, and we piled into a massive SUV. We got dropped off about 20 minutes from our house in Kigali, and couldn't find motos, so just started walking...I think we were both pretty delirious at that point, it was about 8pm. After walking for a while we got on mutatu and I hung out the window yelling at people ... like I said - delirious. After what seemed like years, we got home, and in true form, the power was off.