Classroom is complete

I was so exhausted last night that I didn't post anything. But we finished the classroom! It looks awesome now that it is all complete. It is so bright. One wall has simple math problems, another has the days of the week and another has a weather scene which was requested by the stanwich pre-k cottage. It looks so good! It was really cool seeing it all complete and the kids kept looking in the window to try and see what it looked like. The kids aren't allowed to go into the classrooms until the school is opened up. But Winnie, a friend of pastor Norman, and now our new friend, started telling the kids stories. It was so cute because all the cyabatanzi kids were gathered around Winnie listening to what she had to say. Mr fletcher suggested they move the story telling into the classroom that was completed last summer. The kids were so excited to be able to go into the classroom. It was really cool to see what it will be like when school actually opens there. Winnie was teaching then their numbers and letters because they are painted on the wall. The kids were so excited and were shouting their letters and numbers so proudly. I even jumped in and helped them to recite their letters from A-Z and then from Z-A. When we finished painting, we closed the doors to the kindergarten and were finished in cyabatanzi. It was crazy how quickly we got it down. All the kids worked together to complete their task which was really cool. I've done many trips where we painted houses and it never got done this quickly. We drove down to the main road and I had my eyes peeled for kids in the clothes we gave them the day before. All of a sudden, from far away, I see bright green pants. They were my old pants. I could just tell. When we got closer, I was right. A little boy was wearing my old navy green butterfly pants that I had given. I wanted to see someone in them so badly, so seeing this boy in my old pants made my entire trip. I even made the driver stop the van so I could take a picture of him. It was the coolest thing ever. We also got invited to pastor Normans house for dinner last night. He asked us to come over at 7, which is late for us here, since we had become used to leaving for dinner at 5:30. It's funny because in Rwanda it takes so long to get your food whenever you go to dinner. And going to the pastors house was no different. We got there and sat in his living room and had tea. African tea by the way, is the best tea ever! It's so good! But then we sat there for two hours talking. Pastor Norman had disappeared and so did his wife. So all us Americans were just hanging out alone in his living room. It was fun though even though everyone was getting a little bit delirious by the time the food came at 9:00. It was really cool to be eating in someone's house in Rwanda instead of a restaurant. So it was a really cool experience. By the time we got back to the hotel I was so exhausted that I ran into the wall when I was trying to walk into the bathroom. That's when I decided to not blog and go to bed. But that was yesterday ....
Today we got to sleep in which was really nice. We then went to visit two different groups of women who had made jewelry for us to bring home and sell at home. They had all made so much it was really cool. The second group we went to had babies everywhere so of course right away I was on the floor with the babies. One baby was probably 7 months old and was getting such pleasure out of eating my knuckles. She would use my knuckles as a bottle and then laugh to herself. She was adorable. And then there was a boy who was about two and he thought it was the funniest thing to pull my hair out of my head. He was adorable though. I wish I had brought my camera in because they were the cutest kids ever. We left and went to lunch at the little mall and are now back at the hotel. The owners of the hotel are having a BBQ for us tonight so we are just staying in and hanging out. Which should be nice after a long couple of days. I can't wait for you all to see pictures!