CMU/Rwanda Nearing Completion of Renovations!

The signage has not yet arrived... but this is the
sign on the door right now. You are looking
down the admin. hallway... and to the left is
the "lobby".  

This is a small copy of the giant billboards that appear
at different spots in the city.

In the student wing: rooms for collaboration on a small scale.

Also in the Student Wing
is the Student Lounge.

This place looks pretty inviting.

It is a great room and i'm sure the students will love crashing
here when they have done too
much studying.... or if they haven't done any at all.

This is the Student Center... I think that is what it is called.
A large meeting room with lockers and plenty of work space.

Just different views of the same large room.

 Innocent and Lionel checking out the chairs.
They don't think they are too big!


 On to the Offices....

This is Susan's office

and Lillian's office...

And Crystal's office!  Johnson's office is housed in the student wing
and since Michel was away i didn't get a picture of his office either.
Next Time!

This is the "lobby".  Furniture is in but it is not completed.

On to the Classrooms.

They look great with all the furniture and the blinds on all
the windows.

Really looks like a different
place!  Everything is almost
student ready.

 Every room is warm and inviting.  A great place to learn.

These blinds are now all over the 4th floor.
They are nice at keeping the warm of the sun under control
 but they sort of take away the beautiful
views...

Bruce's office is finally getting the way he likes it
and the way it is most functional.

 Bruce and Lionel checking out the hanging of the last picture.
and oh, the round table arrived, too!

Just a few more things left to do and then the students will
start arriving...

Hope this has helped you see the progress and the plan that is taking shape!
It is starting to get exciting now.  Orientation starts in 5 weeks so
time is getting everyone's attention.

Pray for the staff, the students that will be coming, the professors soon to arrive
and for all the details to be worked out.

It's an awesome things to start a program like this from scratch.
Keep up the great work everyone!

love,
margie

Bruce's Birthday!

Bruce's Birthday started the night before when Koffe and Sanythia were visiting and 

he came home from work.  They put a hat on him and sang

"Happy Birthday" to him.... just the way we sing it.  

It truly is "the" International Song!

 Guess there wasn't quite enough light on in the dining room! 

They love Bruce and were excited for him. 

 William Koffe had invited us to the Kagugu School to meet some
Americans that were here visiting.  But after waiting for too long
( and they still hadn't arrived ) we left and went to have 
Birthday Breakfast at the Manor Hotel.
This is the same place i go for aerobics.

This was the view from our table.

President Kagame!
Later that day as we were driving down to the grocery store...
all the traffic was stopped in every direction..
 Our driver said.."OH, it's the President!"  And he put the
window down just in time for me to snap the Presidential Car.  You can't
tell from this picture, but apparently he most often drives his own car....
( I'm sure it must be automatic... ha!) and there are 2 black cars that proceed
and 2 that follow his car.  Didn't get to see him though!  We just felt the affects 
of the President driving by.  He must have been going out to celebrate B's birthday!

Once we got all the groceries it was time to put the party together.
We decided to have the party with the office staff.  A good idea, except that Michel
wasn't able to come due to a previously scheduled meeting.  
So, we missed him being there, too.
Anyway.. after preparing and packing everything up to take to the
office i decided it would have been easier just to have had everyone
come to our house... but it worked out great! 

     Lillian in her "too cute" shirt. 

Looking around the corner to see if Bruce was coming.
He was birthday skyping with Michelle and Isaac.

 

                        

                     This was the initiation of the new staff kitchen!
                 Is that a "59" on the cake?   Whoa...

It all worked out very nicely.








He can still blow out all of his candles... even at his age!

Everyone seemed happy to have cake and cookies
 in the middle of the afternoon.
Bruce, Crystal, Susan, Johnson and Lillian...
and we missed Michel. 

These are traditional types of spears that different tribes would have used and
their handles are wrapped in tiny blue and yellow Rwandan beads.
A piece for Bruce's desk.  It looks much bigger here than on his desk.

 The kitchen isn't quite ready yet.... so you see the microwave, coffee maker,
and the little fridge haven't even been unpacked! 
But that didn't stop us from having fun.

James, Susan's husband works in the same building so he
dropped by a little later for some cake and coffee.

It was a lot of fun but now I have a problem.  The staff all thinks
that I should have a party for each of them on their birthdays!
I think that would be fun, too! 


The work day wasn't over so Bruce did some more work in his office.
While I waited I rehung all of the pictures and things we'd gotten to 
decorate his office back in April.
Got everything hung except the big, heavy Rwanda map.
It looked very nice.
  

 Think the desk is big enough?    He didn't order it.. .
but I think he likes it now that it is in the right place.

 Another corner.. The meeting table hadn't yet arrived to
put the chairs around.

This is my favorite.  I think it should hold
books, but Bruce is making it his china hutch
to hold his water bottles!  ha!


Once all the emails were tended to....we headed home.


We had planned on going out for dinner in the evening but Bruce got so many
calls and skypes that by the time he was done talking we were
both too tired to go out.
So, for his big birthday dinner we had ham sandwiches
and popcorn.  And then he opened his presents while we watched 
City of Angels on TV.


It was a quiet birthday but fun, just the same. 


Happy Birthday, Bruce and I do pray that the Lord
will bless you this year as you continue to follow His lead in your
life.  It will be a Big Year with the opening of CMU/RWANDA!


Here's to a great year!


love,
margie

Day 2 in Akagera Park

For those of you who really know me... you know that seeing a sunrise isn't 

one of my usual things to aspire to.  BUT there are always exceptions.

This is what it looked like on Sun. morning.  

Should have been Resurrection Sunday!

It was so beautiful!!

Finally decided to go to breakfast... and when we opened our door.... down below us

on the ground level.. were about 25 baboons!   Here are a couple of the cute ones. 

We've learned since returning home that these little "sweet looking" creatures are anything but sweet.  Some have done some terribly vicious deeds... at the lodge.  But to us, they were just amazing to watch. 

This mom actually had twins but i didn't get a good picture of them together.
I was standing about 6 feet away from them when i took this...
but had i known what I now know I would not have gotten so close.

Mommies and babies were everywhere...One of the older
baboons looked like Barney.. with just 3 legs. 

THIS was the only "hotel" information in the room!  How funny is that?

After breakfast we did something that we have not done for many, many 

years... We went to the "sort of" clay tennis courts and played tennis. 

Wow, were we rusty!  And not just from the dust of the court either. 

We won't be in a tournament any time soon... but it was fun 

to try to see if we could still wield the racquets.  After about

an hour we could finally volley back and forth a few times. 

This is something we need to re-up in our "old" age! 

It is so much fun...but it probably wouldn't be 

nearly as much exercise if we had a ball boy! Ha!

Time to relax at the pool for about 1 1/2 hours after tennis.

Met Jennie, a lady from the US embassy.  She was great 

to talk to with and she encouraged us to get more involved with them. 

We hope to do that AND sign up for our absentee ballot for November, as well.

By this time Bruce had had a little too much sun...so he took a dive and then 

a girl in the pool said, "Hi, Bruce"!!!!  He was so shocked that someone knew him
instead of me.  I loved it!  Turns out she has applied and is 

accepted to be in CMU/Rwanda this fall. Fun to meet her and the 

friends she was with.  Very sharp girl and English speaker!

We decided to leave a little early to get home at a decent hour... so on the way home,
Bruce stopped at the park entrance to get some drinks and picked up a rider-- Charles..
a guide at the park since 2000.  He needed a ride back to Kigali--2 1/2 hours.
I wasn't too excited about that at first... but then quickly changed my mind.
He knew exactly where to take us to see some beautiful animals.
These zebras were the first sighting!   

They just meandered ahead of us in the car.

 Don't think I've ever been this close to a zebra and the statues they carve here look
just like this one.

 And then on Bruce's side of the car.. this "little" guy
just stood as we drove closer and closer.... Bruce shot this
from the car window.. No zoom even.

 I had been trying to get a picture of their eyelashes!  This picture caught it.
Imagine what they'd look like if they used mascara???

Charles told us that this giraffe is due to deliver a baby any time.
She is over 20 years old and they don't know if she will make it through
the delivery.  She was so beautiful.  I think he called this a reticulated giraffe. 
On second thought i think not.. I think the lighter ones ( like the ones below) are reticulated but i don't know. 

Did you know that giraffe only sleep a few minutes each day and eat about 140 lbs of food a day? If they lay down to sleep they twist their necks around and rest them on their back laurels!  Imagine that? 

OK... this is with a zoom... We weren't this close but we were only about 12 feet from this little guy.  We were in the car and he just turned to see us drive by so his world could get back to normal.  After seeing him, we left the park to start the
"detour" route home.  Fortunately, Charles knew a better route than the one we had come on so it didn't take nearly as long to get back.  

 There were some scenic places on the return drive, though!

Just out for a Sunday Stroll.

 Mud bricks drying so someone's house could be built or repaired.

 Kids all along the route would come running to the car or just way from afar.... yelling, "Muzungu".  We would wave from a distance, slap hands if we were close!
BIG SMILES all around!  See the little cow next to their house by the little girl in pink?  This is a typical sight in Rwanda.


When I started writing yesterday, I began by saying that
we didn't have very high expectations since so many people had told us that the South part of the Park had very few animals.
Expectations?  Well, i guess if they are low anything is great but
truly ours were met and even exceeded our hopes.

It was a great two days.

And another thing happened when we drove into town....
We never expected to see Street Signs here either but guess what?
While we were gone the poles went up!

This could mean that we might actually have an address here.

Still no mail delivery but it would make giving directions a whole lot easier.

This is the pole on our street!   Can you see it among the white columns?

So...things beyond our wildest imaginations and expectations are coming to pass...  

I WONDER WHAT WILL BE NEXT?  

Our Sunday ended with a visit to Sanythia and her family in Kagugu village.

She was home from boarding school because she had been sick.  It was great 

to see and be with her. 

AND after that we went to Geoffrey Rugege's Birthday party at Crystal's house.  

His dad was there too and he is 98 years old.  Still walking everyday and he gave a very

moving tribute to Geoffrey for his birthday and closed the party with a long prayer that we didn't understand, but we are now learning that this is the way birthdays are celebrated.  Several people speak on the birthday person's behalf and after the birthday "boy or girl" also gives praise and thanksgiving for things in his/her life... a prayer concludes the celebration.  

As Bruce said on the way home----"The Rwandans know how to do traditions right!" 

Giving praise to the one who gives life in the first place

does certainly seem to be the right thing to do! 

And we were pretty thankful for a great time with all of His creations, too!

love,

margie