Holiday and Halloween

It’s happy post time! I thought I would divide my posts into happy and unhappy posts because otherwise I might get bogged down posting about the “unhappy” and you might get the impression I am not having a fantastic time here (which I am).

To de-stress from all of the genocide memorials, my directors took us to the village of Kibuye to relax. How is a village relaxing, you ask? Well this particular village happens to be the home to a resort on Lake Kivu near the Congo border. And it is gorgeous. And I had one of the most relaxing times in my life there. I swam in the lake surrounded by islands, watched fun movies (as opposed to genocide movies, which we also watched but I’m pretending we didn’t), read fun books (as opposed to genocide books), hiked, ate a cheeseburger (a big treat here), and just gazed at my beautiful surroundings. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. My sanity, after all of the genocide, was restored. And when most of the students returned to Kigali, a few friends and I stayed for the weekend (for $6 a night!). Best weekend this semester by far.

Another happy event was Halloween. My director threw a party at our school and invited a bunch of her foreign friends; it was a nice change to talk to non-Africans and non-Americans. After the party a group of us went to the Kigali Casino. I walked away with money, which took care of my gambling debt from Kampala. We left the casino at closing time (5 am) and because none of us wanted to wake our families up, we decided to sleep in the lobby. During the two hours that we slept on the lobby couch not one hotel employee approached us to tell us to either pay for a room or leave. My theory is that when we do stupid stuff like this, that no one here would ever do, not even the youth, they honestly have no idea how to react. So they don’t react. Which means that you can pretty much get away with anything you want.
After our public sleeping, we bused it to town for a mazungu (white person) breakfast. Best omelet I have ever had. And the most expensive. Then I took my to-go coffee cup (so rare) to gacaca. Gacaca is a traditional justice system implemented post-genocide to prosecute genocide perpetrators. It is widely viewed as a productive and efficient traditional justice system, one of the best in the world. I have waited to attend a session for several years now. I will definitely write a separate post on the gacaca because I think it was relevant to understanding post-conflict justice.
Overall, awesome Halloween.

Yay for happiness!