Its been awhile!

To all the wonderful people who read this blog,

Its been awhile, I know.  Me, myself, and my camera have been rather busy with the first quarter of school, going back to Minnesota for the wedding of one of my very best friends, and coming back to Rwanda to roll right back into teaching.  

This first quarter of school has been good. I have a great group of second graders, full of life and energy.  My favorite quote from a student so far this year is (after getting new, bigger framed glasses on my trip home to the states): "Ms. Cullen, you look like a scientist!  No... you look old fashioned!"  And then, on Friday, one of my students from last year ranted: "Ms. Cullen, your glasses from last year are really SO much better.  I think you look much better with small glasses rather than these big ones."  I won't take their advice, I'm confident in my choice of frames (however I do feel a bit like a hipster...)

I live with five other wonderful women this year, some of which work with me at school, others manage a health study and run a home for street boys.  I drive a little scooter to and from school each day, soaking in the morning sun, mist, or rain, whatever the morning brings.  After school, I work with both children and adult language learners, tutoring them in English and developing friendships.  Most evenings I try to cook something, usually lots of vegetables that end up in a salad or stir fry.  Sometimes I make a smoothie with mangoes from our yard (that is, until I unintentionally set our power converter to the wrong setting and burned the plastic off of my magic bullet, which now is replaced with a hand blender whose voltage I don't need to convert!)  Life is good.  I'm happy here, although getting a taste of fall back home was quite the tease.  Call me strange, but I really do miss the cold weather!  

On to the pictures:

1) Taking a walk with the kids from New Hope Homes.  This is after we splashed around in a stream near their home in Musanze.

2) A campfire with our wonderful staff at KICS.  We had a great weekend retreat in September, and this was part of it.

3) Beautiful Rwanda colors: red dirt, green vegetation, solid rock.

4) Colors, again.

5) A gorgeous waterfall on the way to Lake Kivu for our staff retreat.

6) A fellow teacher ziplining across a stream.  This was all jerry-rigged by my headmaster and our PE teacher.  I didn't get a chance to try it, but it sure looked fun!
That's it for now, folks.  Sending love, from Rwanda.