Where to begin?

Really.  Where to begin?  Where did the time go? When I think about my April holiday, I can recall various humorous anecdotes and a couple frustrating situations, so there are moments that really stand out – and these I will write about over the next few entries, hopefully. 

Because I’ll write more over the next couple of weeks, I don’t want to repeat myself and bore all of you to death, so I’m trying to condense my month into a few [edit: okay maybe not few] bullet points and here they are.

• traveled to Nairobi with Paul
• had the first crazy cab ride of the month (there were quite a few)
• met Ginnie’s parents (awesomeness!)
• saw my kids and a few other PCVs in Thika for the Nationals
• had a lady puke on me in the bus to Kakamega (not so cool…)
• met up with Matt who I have not seen in months
• had another crazy cab ride into Kakamega forest – and due to miscommunication and a lot of other reasons, we had to come back in town to spend the night
• stayed at a fantastic cottage type of place in the forest with a fireplace (dude – it was cold enough to actually have a fire!)
• hiked through the forest and walked through a downpour
• got my ass whupped for the first time at rummy by Lee (little did we know what we were in for the next week and a half)
• met up with other PCVs in Jinja raring to go for our two-day rafting trip after the three matatu day – Lee was our guide and hero for safely getting us across the border
• our raft was christened “Fuck, Yeah!” (yes, Allen was in our rafting group …)
• went over some crazy ass and awesome rapids
• went to Kampala dead tired and basically just crashed
• checked out Kampala and had wine at the shore of Lake Victoria
• had another interesting cab encounter that took over a hour and half to “resolve”
• got on another bus to Lake Bunyonyi where we rode a boat with a roof in the driving rain  to the island we were staying at – unfortunately the roof didn’t do much to keep the water out
• ate fantastic food and relaxed on an island for a couple of days
• of course we all got whupped again in rummy by Lee (no way he is not cheating … )
• crossed the Uganda-Rwanda border
• was impressed with Kigali – everything looked really developed and they even have a Nakumatt!
• ate frog legs, fondue, excellent desserts, great wine and drove on the right side of the road – dang, there’s actually good food in East Africa – who knew?!
• was humbled at the Genocide museum and church memorial – what a terrible, terrible thing for a country to go through – it was just very thought provoking and sad
• became a little sick and spent the last day and a half in Kigali basically out of commission
• flew to Nairobi for the VAC meeting and part of the IST for the newbies, as well as the BCC workshop (is that enough alphabet soup for you? no worries – we have more out here in Peace Corps – Kenya!)
• had a blast with all the PCVs
• met up with my parents who flew out here (yeah I know! the month’s not over!)
• had a fantastic dinner with a good number of volunteers with the parents
• had a wonderful safari in Maasai Mara where we saw a couple of cheetahs chomping a gazelle
• relaxed in Lamu and ate way too much food
• showed the parents around in Kilifi, introduced them to some of my kids, teachers, and basically showed them my neck of woods
• spent the last few days of our trip together relaxing in nice cottage in South Coast
• went out to a fantastic restaurant in a cave – it was truly cool
• had a monkey sneak in our cottage via a small hole in the roof who stole my sandwich
• and now, back to the grind

I had a couple of great trips, and it was also great to spend time with the volunteers during their IST – it was just a great all around month.  I am now catching up on work, finishing up my schemes of work, planning out this term, which will be my second last term. 

Whoa.  My second last term!  Really, where did the time go?