Pictures of Life

These pictures are in a perfectly random order, but I want to get this posted while we still have internet service so you can see a little of what our life is like here. 

Pulling up to our house - The houses here are walled in with a gate. When you arrive somewhere, you honk until their guard lets you in. Eddie, our guard, sleeps during the day, so Simon has taken charge of gate duties.

Please don't judge. The car seat laws here aren't what they are in the States. The school provides us with a car, and we are so grateful for that. The car isn't big enough for all of us to be belted properly. It's quite nostalgic, really; it makes me think back to when we were kids and would pile in cars, smooshed in and falling asleep on our siblings. 

See, despite the uncomfortable, jostling road trip to Kumbya, she is happy!

This is our road. The way the dust has been smoothed out gives us hope that pavement is in the plans.... 

Ben in his office at KICS

Despite making new friends, they are still each others' most consistent playmates. 

Friends. 

One of the kids' favorite activities (obviously) is to twist themselves up in the swing and then let go until they spin themselves dizzy. 

looking down our driveway

Home Sweet Home. Fun trivia/history fact: Pre-genocide, our house used to be the headquarters for Campus Crusade in Rwanda. 

It took me a while, but I finally found a map of the city.  

After dragging these kids all over following a hand-drawn map, we finally made it to the place that sells tortillas, hummus, salsa, bagels, and smoothies!

Our room. Where I'm sitting to type this. 

Your room when you come to visit us. 

Our dryer. 

This is the inside of our water filter. Just thought you'd want to see the fun stuff (ants) that gets filtered out of our water before we drink it!

Simon playing in the yard. 

Imaculee, our helper around the house. 

This is the room we've designated for toys and books and stuff. 

You may remember that one of the most exciting things about moving here is that Kigali is also the current home of our dear friend the Thompsons. Of course, when we arrived they were back in the US (showing off their beautiful new baby), but Hunter just returned and we are so excited!!!!

Annie hated the trampoline for the first week, but once she turned two, she was sold!

Annie has also pretty much hated all water her whole life, but today she couldn't get enough of the pool!

Charlie was also pretty proud of his swimming abilities. 

That's all for now. I'm going to say a prayer and hit publish, and hopefully you'll see this soon! Oh, and then I get to run and open our very first care package! Yay! A word to the wise - it is not cheap to send things to Rwanda. If you want to send us granola bars and cheez-its, we recommend buying a plane ticket and hand delivering.