T.I.A.

This Is Africa.

Africa Time is becoming a phrase I hear frequently. And in the past few days I have been realizing what that actually means.

On Friday, Kerry and I had to be at school at 8.50, so as the bus didn't come right away, we took motos from the orphanage where we stayed Thursday night to the bus stop center of Guitarama. Kerry asked someone which bus was going to Byimana (where the school is). The man gestured to a bus near the front of the clump so we joined the few people in it and waited. This was 8.15. 15 minutes and 5 buses leaving in the direction we wanted to go later- we verified that we wanted to leave now. And were told yes this bus is leaving. 5 more minutes and we got on another bus.

This second bus was slow in starting an like all local buses stopped frequently. At 8.45 the by pulled into a gas station. Everyone getting in had many packages. And the man who collects the money saw a friend and got out to chat- while the bus waited! Until Kerry forcefully said 'let's go!!' in kinyarwanda. We were ten minutes late to class.

It's hard to be a model of 'western efficiency' when you're relaying on local transportation.

Today, Danice and I decided to go to mass in kibuye. Which is a town on lake kivu. (as a side note, kibuye also had a large massacre in their church. The chose to create a memorial next to the church and still use the old buIlding as a place of worship. It's a bit weird praying somewhere that 10,000 people were brutally killed)

We were told mass was at 10.30 or 7.30. So, now being experienced with how late mass in Rwanda (and especially in Kinyarwanda) goes we decided on 7.30 so as to not miss our 2.00pm bus home. We got to the churh at 7.40, wondering if we were late but we were actually the first people in the church. At 8.05 mass actually started. It ended at 9.40. So not too bad.

One final thing to share- it was announced in Kinyarwanda, French, and English that today's collection was for the people in Haiti.

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