Happy New Year

Beautiful Bright Moon

Happy New Year. Sorry for the lack of updates. A mixture of complete normality (nothing to report) and festive recovery.

Howl, Festively Recovering

 

 

Although, I must be honest, Christmas and New Year really aren't a thing in Rwanda. It's nice in some respects because there's less pressure and commercialism, but in some cases it can be extremely underwhelming.

Nakumatt's attempt at a Christmas section. Nobody could even tell me where the wrapping paper was.

About as impressive as my attempt at courgette cake, though it did taste a lot better than it looked.

Made with a homegrown marrow.

Like I say, Christmas and New Year have been really quiet. I spent Christmas at CasaKeza, my friend Mia's café. It's a Spanish tapas restaurant and she makes extremely potent sangria.

Spent the night singing carols around a bonfire with friends Pieter, Dory and Lulu. Then stayed after hours helping Maia wrap her daughter's Christmas presents whilst drinking whisky. Crawled home at 4am. Lucky I live next door.

Dad sent over a parcel of presents - including a vast quantity of chocolate and something for the kitties.

And Santa Cat (AKA the kitties) left something for me in my bed.

Spent Christmas Dinner at my friend Pieter's. He cooked a nice spread and even had a tree. I had to retire early due to hangover.

Pieter's Cat Umva

Most of my friends sensibly left for New Year, but my friend Tracey came from Kenya for the night, along with her friends Olivia and Saira. Olivia had just stepped off the plane from Australia and Saira only a few days before. They're staying with Tracey in Nairobi but wanted to see the gorillas. We'd booked into a restaurant called Heaven, which is usually really lovely, but New Year was not so good. They basically put on the same buffet you can eat any day of the week in any restaurant in Kigali, and the place had all the atmosphere of a retirement village. We decided to eat, then high tailed it across town to a much nicer bar called Pilli Pilli, which is on top of a hill overlooking town. We saw the fireworks at the Convention Centre.

Sometime in between all that, Jo hosted a pizza night at her place. She has a gorgeous garden with a pizza oven and the booze always flows freely. It was a nice relaxed evening teaching the kids to throw a frisbee and making flower pizzas with Zuba.

I got a lift home with Maia as we live close to each other, but just as she was dropping me off, she got a call from a friend asking if we were going to the I Am Kigali festival, so we decided to check it out.

It was so bizarre. A rocking live music show... in the car park of Rwanda Revenue Authority.

Bit of a mind bender: "Yay! Music!" - "Ugh, taxes." - "Yay! Music!"

But it was a good night. There was a whole troop of Burundian drummers.

A great display of traditional drumming.

And very modern dancing.