Have you survived the night?

It was lovely to wake up this morning and actually be here - we saw so much yesterday that we didn't really take in, that if I hadn't seen it all again today I might not have believed it happened at all. First thing we were taken up to the Anglican cathedral - a few meters from Sue's house and in those few meters we were greeted so many times with 'Mwaramutse' - Kinyarwandan for good morning, but literally translated as 'Have you survived the night?' the only possible answer to which his yes! It is a pretty spectacular building…and an amazing contrast to the buildings surrounding it. It seats about 500people…and apparently Tracy and I will be expected to stand up and say hello in church on Sunday…only the service will be in Kinyarwandan so I'm not entirely sure how we're going to know when to do this!!

Then we went up to the Tubakunde building - where I think I will be spending most of my time. At the moment it is still very much a building site - there is a big wall being constructed round the outside, and a lot of work still to do inside the house, but you can see how wonderful it is going to be when it is done. However, I think I'm going to be spending more time tiling, hacking, painting, circular sawing (if they'll let me…) and fixing sceptic tanks than looking after babies at least for the next couple of months. I'm really quite excited about the fact that by the time I get back I may well know enough about building to build my own house…although I suspect that I won't be using a welding machine that is attached to a reel of wire which is shoved straight into the plug hole with no plug!
It was hotter today than yesterday - probably about 28degrees, but because we were in and out of buildings all day we didn't fry. Oh, and this afternoon we went to see the house we will be moving into as soon as they have finished painting it. It's amazing - far nicer than anything we expected - we have two huge bedrooms and a third off the kitchen, a lounge with more furniture than we will ever probably fill with visitors, an INSIDE toilet as well as the three outside ones, a larder(!) and a little kitchen with two electric hobs and a fridge. There is a hot water tank on the outside of the house…we don't actually know if it is going to work but it is promising. And perhaps most excitingly we have a guava tree in the yard!!!! As soon as we move in, I shall take some pictures to show you. We went to the market and bought bedding, cutlery and pans this afternoon, so we're already to move in when it is finished. Nathan is the 24 year old Rwandan who is the business manager for Tubakunde and he has been just wonderful. He sorted the house out for us, and took us shopping so that we weren't charged Muzungu (white person) prices. We are continually watched when we are walking around, but people are so friendly as well. We have met some lovely children who want to practise their English but only get as far as "Good morning, how are you!" And when we're driving in the car, they get so excited if we wave…beginning to feel a bit like the Queen with her royal wave!

Everything is so new, and so exciting, and I can't believe quite how happy I am to be here at the moment. Haven't had any pangs of homesickness so far and have no worries about how we'll get through the next six months…perhaps it’s the honeymoon period, but I genuinely think we have such a good support network from Pam and her various friends that we will be well looked after. We also met our 'house-girl' today. She is called Rachael and is probably about our age, and will be helping with cleaning etc and most importantly shopping so that we aren't sold things for twice the price. Rachael seems lovely, and comes with Pam's recommendation so I think she will be honest and look after us well. She speaks better French than English which means we will have to brush up our French - however, it will do us good! And we are determined to learn some more Kinyarwandan so that we can talk to all the people that seem so keen to meet us! For now I had better sign off and go to bed, we will be meeting Bishop John at 8.15 tomorrow morning!! We are extremely priviledged to be seeing him at all. He has only been here for the last couple of days, and goes off to the USA tomorrow and had a queue of people lined up to see him all day today. I'm not entirely sure what to say when I see him…but you know me, I'll think of something!