The Winners and the Wardens

 This was a busy week....  Every night there was something!   

The first event is at the French institute.. a send off party for the scholarship 

winners from the Benefit Concert that we held in Oct.  

This is Maurice.. announcing the students..
He is the director of the institute and
we worked with him a great deal
on the committee for the concert.  

This is one of the winners... Samiel.

And the girl behind the mic is the other winner.
They were surprised by a 2 year scholarship instead of just one.

The International Choir joined Shantel in singing
Michael W. Smith's  Alleluia... 

 The two on the right are the new French Ambassador
and his wife....They have just come and the other
couple works at the institute.  

This is a better picture of the 2 winners with the DJ in the middle. 

Then the next night I went to a meeting... at the US embassy to 

find out about being a volunteer" Warden"  while we are 

living in Kigali.

This is Emily and she ran the meeting after the ambassador
did the introductions.  I missed his picture.

Folks were there from all over Rwanda... Some from the
border area when some of the trouble has been lately.
What the wardens do is to make sure they know who the Americans
are that live in their neighborhood.  Then if a security issue comes
up they can be notified.
Check out the Poinsetta at the end of the porch. 

The two to my right are from church.. In fact,  Brian is one of the pastors
at CCR.  He's been a warden for some time.
The nice part about this is that you are the first to know of
any areas of concern.  It was a good meeting and well run. 

The Matt got up to share --He is the security head of the Embassy.  He told

us lots of interesting things and of course lots of people had questions.  Then i found 

out he lives about 5 houses down from our house.  I hitched a ride home with him

since Bruce was out with the car.... He has been all over the world working...Very interesting guy! 

Yes, I signed up to be a warden. Now I need to get to know all the

Americans living in my neighborhood.  I wonder if i know any of them

already?   

love,

margie

AIC Friends at Work and Play--Exercises and Coffees!

Just fun pictures of our aerobic class... forced inside from the rain...

and coffee outside afterwards! 

Alga and the Christmas tree!  She
doesn't even look like she worked out! 

We're always having fun! 

And that was Wednesday.... On Thursday morning we had our last AIC coffee of the year at Samela's!  

Chatting on Samela's beautiful porch with a great view!

Isabella always has the best shoes...  i usually wear flip-flops!  

 And now due to lack of time... just the pictures....

This is Samela... her house and her spread.....
that volunteers helped to make, too.

Maria is leaving in Jan before we get back
They are taking a new post in Burma...  

 and Ead is heading back to Thailand. 

Sava and Maria having the last chat....

They will both be missed so much.  Each of them
contributed greatly to the AIC


People in this group come and go in and out as the year progresses but it
is still sad to say goodbye to good friends.
Maria and Ead you will be missed but we wish you God's protection
over you and that we will meet again!

much love,
margie

The Japanese Emperor's Birthday Party in Kigali

Tuesday, November 27th we were invited to celebrate the Emperor of Japan's Birthday! 

The Japanese Embasssy had a big party in his honor... even

though he was back in Japan.   The Japanese Ambassador's wife,

Machiko and I have become freinds via AIC,  the concert committee and also

from exercising class, so we were invited to the party.

 The ambassor and his wife on the left and i have no idea
who is on the right.... but someone from the embassy no doubt.
The party was held at the Japanese residence--which was beautiful.

 A shot of all of us together. 

Another one of my exercise buddies and also
a friend from AIC, Emi and her husband.  She looked
so pretty in her Mother's kimono, but she said she could
barely breathe!  Oh, the price of beauty!

     The Japanese lantern... is a little too close to the camera,

   (It looks like a giant water cooler in the picture but it was really quite small.)
but this is where they served the buffet.

 Maria (l)and her husband Terry (not pictured) are getting ready to go
on another assignment and they will be leaving in Jan.
 She is pictured here with our US
Ambassdor's wife, Cindy (r) who you have met before.
I forget the man's name in the middle.   

 Two more AIC friends, Mitra and Edna
both enjoying themselves.

There were a LOT of people present.

The Ambassador gave a short address about the
emperor and everyone was very impressed when
he delivered a lot of it in Kinyrwanda--even his jokes! 

The crowd listening to the ambassador

 Alex and Atsushia and Bruce.
Guys Bruce works with at Telecom house.

Anne from AIC and her husband and their friend

And the pictures of the emperor and his wife.

Akihito (明仁^?, born 23 December 1933) is the current reigning Emperor of Japan (天皇tennō^?), the 125th emperor of his line according to Japan's traditional order of succession. He acceded to the throne in 1989.  

  

                 Ok..  this says his birthday is Dec. 23...  but this was they day we celebrated!  I think the emperor's wife looks like our Machiko....except she is older.  Both are beautiful and sophisticated. This was quite a party and I'm so grateful Machiko asked us to come.  

I wrote to her, Emi and Kyokoto see if their families are ok... after the earthquake in Japan. Only heard from Emi and most of her family is in Osaka... so she said they were all fine.  I trust for the other two that their famiilies are ok, too.

  Thanks again for a wonderful evening! 

love,

margie

The AIC Christmas Bazaar

The Annual AIC Christmas Bazaar was the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

The Kigali Music School was asked to sing some carols so Aimable, the director asked if

I would accompany them... Well, for what they were going to do, Bruce was 

the one to  do that best!  So on Sat... we went to rehearse with them.  

About 4 were missing... but they sounded great!!

The African style "Go Tell It on the Mountain" was my favorite.

Then Sunday was the actual event. Since I was on the Bazaar team and Bruce had

to get the piano set up we went about 9:00.  The president of Uganda was staying 

in the Serena Hotel so security was tight.. but we got in with no trouble because we 

had taken a taxi..  WHY?  Well, Bruce had called our mechanic on Sat. night and

asked if we could get the brakes done before we left.  He called Sunday morning and said "can i pick up the car today and do it"???  Ha!  So, that left us without a car... but

he picked our car up to work on, we took a taxi and at the end of the day, he brought the car to the hotel.

Who says people don't want great customer service??  

It worked out perfectly! 

What can i say... but my adorable little Brazilian friend, Edna is a card! 

Marianne? and Mavis putting the AIC table together.

The reception/entrance table is getting all the vendors set
up and preparing for the crowd. 

 These are our new t-shirts that Barbara had made in Germany!
This is Fanny and Anne...running the front table.

The vendors just arriving.

Looks pretty sparse!

                                           

 But not for long ---Everyone is getting set-up! 

These ladies are from our church....

 I shopped too late and missed all of these
beautiful baskets and trays!  They sold quickly.

 The Japanese Embassy getting into the spirit.

More great stuff.

Beautiful linens

and handmade things.

AND THEN WE OPENED THE DOORS!

       AND THEY CAME!

The choir looked great and were well-rehearsed...
Everyone enjoyed their carol singing.

Bruce, of course did a great job accompanying, too!

Christine directing on this one.

See Bruce back there???

 And this was the scene at least 3-4 times from 11:00-3:30--
The electricity kept going off and on...

There were several periods of raffle drawings since Nalini and Barbara 

had collected over 100 prizes.  Three of them were airline tickets!!

I ran the membership table next to Carliese selling raffle tickets and we had

a lot of fun...  Guess we didn't get our pictures...?? 

Anyway..  This is one of our major fund raisers for AIC...

the Africa International Club 

and this year we had over 600 come with an admission cost, just for

adults of 1,000RWF... which is about $1.60.  

And all totaled with the vendors tables, gifts from the embassies and of 

course, the raffle tickets.... we made over $6,000.  

It was a very pleasant day.... lots of fun and knowing that we will

 have that  much money to give away to folks in need in Rwanda 

made it even better!

love,

margie

ps..  i'm trying to get all the blogs done before i leave so please forgive any errors--

I'm hurrying way too fast.