Birthdays and New Places

On Saturday we celebrated Noni's birthday at the very popular Indian Khazana restaurant in Kigali. Infamous mostly because it is unexpectedly one of the best Indian restaurants anywhere, and they put on a show with singing and dancing for birthdays. Over-the-top Indian costumes for the staff with clown painted faces, all the while singing "Jambo, Jambo". Pretty entertaining stuff! I also met new friends from Booz-Allen in Washington DC who are here working with the NGO distributor of HIV/AIDS treatment for our programs.

After dinner we went on a mini "bar crawl", where I got to see the newly renovated Papyrus lounge, and the new "B Club" where there is a cover charge, DJ, and the first limosine in Kigali parked in the parking lot. It is really mind blowing how fast things are progressing here. On Sunday I went on a 10K hike with Marie Claire and got caught up on lots of things about Rwanda. I watched the exciting Spain/Germany soccer match that evening new friends at my hotel.

Tonight I went to dinner with my good friend Laurie from the UK Embassy. We went to another new restaurant called "Heaven", which was recently opened by an American who runs an NGO here. It is beautiful, and I forgot to bring my camera! It is perched on one of the many hillsides overlooking the city. There is a very creative menu, and extremely attentive and friendly staff. They sell T-shirts and even have a large screen TV in the bar where we watched Andy Murray win a really, really long game at Wimbledon. This is amazing progress here.

Today was a typically busy Monday which included an afternoon Embassy celebration and send-off for the current Ambassador. He is retiring and returning to DC next week after 2.5 years in Rwanda. Tomorrow is the Rwanda Independence Day so the office is closed, and Friday the office is closed for the 4th of July. This makes the work week jam packed with tasks. But it is nice to aenjoy some days off while here. I am re-thinking my plans to go to Uganda this weekend. I am having a great time connecting and re-connecting with everyone in Kigali, I think I need to just enjoy my time here!