I am now 21! Thank you to SO many of you who sent me emails or other forms of birthday wishes yesterday. I had a wonderful birthday here. As soon as I woke up the kids started singing happy birthday and saying "Happy Birthday, Alyssa" over and over in their cute Rwandan accents. Later in the morning (after making up some story about why I needed to put on some clothes that could get dirty) one of the girls from the church came in and started marking me with charcoal and saying all sorts of weird things to me. I obviously knew it was a joke, so I was laughing as she was pulling me towards the outside door. Well, as soon as I reached the door, some of the people from the family I am living with jumped out from around the corner, shouted happy birthday, and dumped two HUGE buckets of water on me!! It was very funny, but I don't think the Daniella and Nathan (the kids I am living with) thought so because they got soaked as well! According to them, that is a traditional thing to do on someone's birthday!
So I quickly changed back into dry clothes and left to go to town to pick up a card from my family that I thought someone had left at the front desk of a hotel. So one of the guys from the church went with me to help me find the place. After riding the public taxi for awhile, we got out and walked for quite some time. I thought either it was just really far away, or he was lost. However, when I arrived home I found out that he was just trying to keep me away from the house because they were planning a surprise party for me! I walked in my room and all the people who live in my house and the Wheeler family all surprised me and sang happy birthday! They even had a cake that said "Happy Birthday, Alyssa" on it. So I blew out the candles and we then had an huge Rwandan lunch. It was so fun to celebrate with them.
I decided to go back with the Wheelers and we went to the Bourbon Cafe (almost like a Starbucks) where we relaxed and got on the internet. I ended up just spending the night at the Wheelers last night instead of trying to figure out transportation at night. And now I am sitting at a hotel using their free internet!
Pastor Joel joked the other day that since I am now 21 I am mature enough to start more of my ministry here. He has been very busy with a team that is here through Hope Rwanda (he is the country coordinator) but will be more available to meet and plan in this next week. It has actually been neat to be able to observe what it is like on the other side when a team from America is here for a week or so. It has also been good for me to simply continue to get to know his family and settle into Kigali. Of course, my nature is usually to always be doing something, but I am learning a lot about the value of slowing down!
4 comments:
That is hilarious Alyssa. I love the thought of being in another country where we don't really know all of the traditions. So pretty much anything could happen and as soon as someone says "this is a tradition here" were going along with it. I think I like Rwanda-style birthdays, we should bring that over to the USA.
Happy 21 and a day, Sweetie. It was fun reading the details about your birthday. I told Joel you'd rather have a Rwandan birthday than an American birthday. Guess you got one!! If anyone wants to see Alyssa's birthday blog go to alyssa21st.blogspot.com.
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