Mosquito Face

Relaxing in Geita is not always so relaxing.  People show up at your house unexpected, you run out of water or there's no electricity, and you still have to cook, because unless you want beans and rice (which I actually do really like), there's no place to eat in town either.  So Brett and I devised a way to allow us to get a lot of work done and still be able to enjoy our free time.  We work 6 days a week here in Geita and only take 1 day off.  Thus, every 6 weeks we have a full week off.  That way we can leave Geita if we want.  We can go to Mwanza, stay with friends and go to a couple of restaurants, even spend a day at a pool.  We don't always take that week off though; sometimes we take just a few days or sometimes none at all so we can have more time later.  For example, we want to make sure we have enough time to spend with friends and family when they come to visit.  Of course we continue working some of the time they're here and just take them along with us.  But it can take anywhere from 2 to 4 days just to pick them up from the airport and take them back and it's nice to be able to take them on safari or somewhere else if they want to.

Last week a friend of Brett's from college and one of his friends came to visit.  They spent a week in Dar and on safari before they came to see us and a week in Zanzibar for a week after they left.  During the week they were here, we showed them around Mwanza and Geita, took them out to a village where they got to experience real Tanzanian life (which most tourists never see), drove them to Kigali where they toured genocide sites and then out to Musanze (formally Ruhengeri) to trek through Volcanoes National Park to see gorillas.  Brett and I just enjoyed the cool weather around a fire with Baylor while they did that.  It was a super busy week, but a lot of fun.  Definitely worth the 6 day work week.

The only bad thing was that one night while in Kigali, a mosquito got into Baylor's net and bit her little face 60 or 70 times.  She looked like she had the chicken pocks.  Fortunately, 1) they didn't seem to bother her at all and 2) malaria is rare in Rwanda because of the high altitude.  She just looks real sad.  I would post a picture of her, but I don't want you to be sad too.