Lemonade

When life throws you lemons, make lemonade!

Now in the states this expression has a fairly negative connotation, implying that something bad has happened. In Rwanda lemons are a blessing! The girl who sells us fruit came the other day with a whole basket of huge fresh lemons - 15 for a dollar! So we took this opportunity to introduce Rwandans to lemonade. It was my duty to make this refreshing drink. So I squeezed 33 lemons, cooked up the sugar, water, zest, salt, and proceeded to follow the directions. It turned out alright, although I think the fact that the lemon juice sat out for a few days and someone accidentally dumped chicken water in the zest bowl may have altered the taste a bit. But hey, it was lemonade in Rwanda, what more can you ask for?

In other news, I taught my pre-schoolers how to do "high five" so now they all run around giving me high fives! I have it on film so you'll all have to check it out when I get home. I couldn't help but think of Matt as I gave 50 high fives.

On Saturdays older boys from the orphanage come over for "boys group" with Les and last weekend Yvonne and I were invited to join them to give a girls perspective on dating. At first I was a little nervous, considering I am lacking experience in that department, but it ended up great. The boys are so funny and honest - they were all talking about whether they prefer the butt or the chest - one guy was a "skin man". African or American, all guys are the same!

On a sadder note, Emilee's sister is very sick. We've known that she hasn't been doing well so we have been sending leftover uji (the cream of wheat stuff) with Emilee to give to her, but yesterday she took a turn for the worse. She has AIDS and it's taken over her body. Her 5 year old son Adolf is in my English class. We went to visit her yesterday and she is so tiny and weak. She was whimpering from pain and could barely talk. She lives in a tiny 2 room mud house with no water or electricity (like most Rwandans) and the only light is from holes in her roof. The family is scrapping together some money today to take her to the hospital. She can't take medicine because it has to be refrigerated and the family has no way to do that. So please pray for her.

I had another cooking experience last night when Yvonne was stuck in a meeting and I had to figure out how to make spaghetti sauce from scratch! It was a little rough and Mariya had to come help me find things , but in the end it didn't turn out horrible (although I didn't eat it!)

Alright that will have to be it for now. Sorry it took so long for this post but the electricity has been very unpredictable.

I hope you are all doing well. Take care.

Dana