With almost every day spent giving sermons to different
congregations here in Rwanda, life naturally turns into an adventure when we
have a day off. So yesterday, we decided to start the day at a massive track
and soccer stadium. Our intention was to spend the morning playing ultimate
Frisbee in the middle of Rwanda, but we got there and weren’t allowed on the
field. So I took pictures and decided to journal…then proceeded to talk to a
local guy who called me “lazy” since I wasn’t squatting up and down flights of
50+ stairs and doing 200+ vertical sit-ups.
After eating some lunch, we headed to the airport to catch
up with family back home. I bought one of the most amazing cups of ice cream
EVER and was able to Skype with my best friend. Yay! At one point, I stepped
away from the table to call her and I ended up 5 ft from a mzungu couple who
full on made out in the middle of the Kigali airport…eww! Amy and I took
motorbikes back from the airport and they loved
taking pictures with us! As soon as I got off of my motorbike, the guy kept
repeating “me picture, me picture, me picture!” So here’s my motorbike driver
who I like to call Stevie…because he kinda-sorta resembles the Wonder!
Several of us had decided earlier that night to attempt to
go find the local Mexican restaurant for dinner that night. So we returned back
to the house and realized that nobody had tried to track down the location of
the restaurant. So I went on a search calling and texting people. We finally
tracked down the area of the city where it was located thanks to Brian
(mmm…Amen!).
The only problem was that we had no idea how to get to this
area, Kimihurera, and nobody at the house spoke English. So I went to the
French-Kenya-Rwandan speaking woman and attempted, with many over-exaggerated
movements, to describe what we needed. She tried to explain where to go and I
ended up bringing over a piece of paper. This is what she wrote:
So we figured out we were supposed to take a bus from one
place to another to another…the only problem was that we didn’t really even
know where we were starting. But we decided that a Mexican dinner was well
worth the adventure through the crazy unknown country of Rwanda. So we took off
to the nearest bus stop, handed the slip of paper with kinda-sorta directions
on it to a non-English speaking Rwandan with a USA t-shirt on. He spoke a few
sentences in some other language and pointed to the ground. So we waited…and
waited…and eventually a lady walked up who was headed to the same area we
needed to get to. We boarded a matatu with her and she said she would take us
to this restaurant that she’d never heard of before.
If I haven’t explained a matatu before, here it is…a sardine
can on wheels. 20 or so people in a regular sized van…it’s like “Honey I Blew
up the Sardine Can” with 20 sardines packed into the most ridiculous ghetto van
ever made! I had a lady sitting next to me who was closer to my torso than my
own arm could get. It was slightly insane. Not to mention the subwoofer screwed
into the top of the van located directly 1 ft in front of my head.
So they dropped us off and we spent the next 35 minutes
trudging through the hills of Rwanda trying to find a hidden Mexican restaurant
amongst the houses. At one point, we passed another group of white people and I
made the comment that we had to be going the right way if we were headed in the
direction that they had just come from. As the passed, they made the same
observation, “This has to be the right way since they’re coming from there!”
That’s always a good sign…
As we headed down the street, the lady helping us commented
that she had a camera and she really wanted a picture with all of us mzungus
before we parted way. So when we finally found the restaurant, we all took
pictures with the woman who gave up her evening to lead us to some hidden
Mexican treasure. And we arrived!!!
To Mambo Bar and Restaurant…complete with foosball, bunnies,
an in-ground trampoline, a swing set, a swimming pool and a volleyball court.
Heck yeah!
We spent half of the time waiting for our food out on the
trampoline! Talk about random!
I ordered this amazing chicken burrito and we spent the next
couple hours just hanging out in what I consider to be one of the most random
places in Africa.
As we left Mambo, Gina’s wart foot was starting to bother
her…the short back story on this is that Tricia’s fuzzy toe wart somehow
infected Gina’s foot with a wart. Gina decided to take matters into her own
hands and carve it out herself. So that’s what she did and she’s been gimping
around for the last few days…so Amy gave her the first of many piggy back rides
that night. As one person tired out, the next would volunteer to carry her for
the next hundred feet and so on and so forth.
Just imagine for a moment, 7 mzungu girls in the middle of
Africa on these random dark streets in the middle of who knows where taking
turns giving piggy back rides to one of the girls. We definitely got a lot of
attention and giggles and glares in our direction. 2 miles later, we finally
found our bus stop and waited for 3 motorbikes and 1 taxi to offer to take us
home.
That in itself was an adventure because 100 yards from our
stop, the taxi driver decided to pull over and stop every 10 feet to,
hopefully, let us off. We tried to explain for awhile that we needed to go
straight but in another country where people don’t speak a lot of English, we
were posed with a problem…a jerky ride for 100 yards and a lot of laughter.
I’ve fallen in love with the randomness of life in these
other countries! I love that, at least in Rwanda, people are always willing to
drop everything and help you get to where you’re going! And I love that God
provides random moments of jumping on trampolines and taking pictures with
motorbike drivers to lighten the mood of life! And I love that we have a squad
awesome enough to provide piggy back rides to those who have wart-healing feet!
I love my life!
