July 4th

100 days over
Yesterday was Liberation day. It marks the end of the genocide, the end of the 100 days. In the morning there was a 'celebration' at the national stadium. H.E. Kagame spoke at it. There was tradiontal songs and dances performed. I had already learned from my students that they aren't just any traditional songs, they are specific for liberation day. There was also a military demonstration (its more like a parade, but everyone here uses the word demostration). This was in the morning, and was over at 1 pm.

Now--my day. As you all know, 4th of July is not only a holiday here in Rwanda, but also a HUGE holiday in America.Independence Day. Fireworks. BBQs. Family Fun. Ect. Thats normally what happens, right?--here.no.
Friday night I met up with some of my friends and we went out to dinner. We went to this amazing Ethiopian resturant. It was my first time ever eating Ethiopian. Tons of fun. Highly suggest it if you have never. After dinner we went out for a coke at this bar/resturant that we had seen before but it doesn't have a sign/name that we could see, but we decided it might be fun. Well its called Rodeo. They had a band. It was like country-western-rwandese music..Man did we have fun. and our cokes were good too(I'm serious about the cokes). I stayed the night with my friend at her room she had got for the night. Although I live in Kigali and could have 'easily' gone home, sometimes it is just easier to do this. Not to mention of course the fact that I wanted to stay cause I could take a hot shower on Saturday morning..haha.
Saturday morning-CLEAN HAIR. YES. CLEAN HAIR. oh man, it was so nice, so nice. anyway sorry, I'm getting off track. We had a lazy morning and then headed out around 10.30ish. Well well,although we had held out hope that things would be open, once again, no. Luckily our trusty Blues Cafe was open and we went there for tea. Most of the people who were there were whites. Not very surprising. What was interesting was that they had their rain flaps down. We figured that as the day went out, hopefully more things would open. This was correct. At almost exactly 1 pm things started opening up so we could then go food shopping. It was also interesting because around this time the cafe lifted the flaps.. I can't help but wonder if they were trying to be on the DL about being open??who knows.
Food Shopping-- My friend and I did it up right. We decided to go all out. She and I bought ground beef, hot dogs, cheese, spices for the meat, popcorn kernals, chips, rolls, and ketchup. Then we went back to my place. We stashed the hot dogs for later in my heasmistress' fridge,but then we went to town on the meat. We made AMAZING burgers. We spiced them up, put onions indside. Oh it was good. Then we toasted the rolls on the burner. Oh man, you can't imagine how good it was for us. Then we had our cheese and ketchup on it. For once we did not have to worry about there being mayo or some other random sauce on the burger. and we knew the flavors would be good. We brought two of my chairs and my coffee table outside and we ate outside. It was such a pretty day with a good breeze. We sat outside for about 4 hours. It was just so relaxing. For a second I could have imagined myself doing this back home in America.HA.
Later in the day we made killer popcorn. I know its easy to do, but we were so proud of ourselves. All around we had a very relaxing Fourth of July. Although there we no fireworks,we did manage to have some fun.
And the best part is, we saved the hotdogs and one bag of chips to eat today..haha.. the fun just continues.
I hope everyone at home was able to have the same fun that I did.(even if you did get fireworks)