jumbled

since the internet was basically down for over a week i have lots to still write about...i made notes so i would remember all the things to write about but my time table is a bit jumbles so these stories may be out of order....

stephanie left on wed the 26th her and i went out to chez londo for drinks that night to say our see you laters and such. we saw the icky old white men at the place but they didn't have their local prostitutes with them instead they were sharing pics of women from around the world on one of their laptops...nasty! i realize there are gross people in the world but to literally sit in the middle of a restaurant/bar and share pics like that for anyone to see is sick. those are the kind of people the world does not need!!!

earlier that day i had taken a motorbike to work and i swear the guy tried to kill me....he wanted 1500fr for a ride to the orphanage. normally i pay 700 to 800 and i told him no thanks and started to walk away...he agreed to 800 and then proceeded to kill me on the way to work. he talked on his phone, he fixed his shoes, he fixed his pants, he jumped the slowbumps in the road, he sped faster than any of the bikes i had been on thus far...but i stayed cool and did not panic...it some weird way it was fun that i survived the ride. as i walked the last bit of the way to work i wondered if that was a small inkling of what the rwandans felt like...things are out of your control so you just try to survive...i know my motorbike situation is nothing near what they went through but my point is at what point does someone in a life or death struggle turn off their senses in order to survive? does time stand still or does it move in ways most of us could not even imagine? do you conciously turn off your thinking or does your brain take over to protect you? i know there is lots of research out there on so many different subjects regarding all this but i really can't seem to believe this is a natural pattern that anyone would be able to figure out and write a thesis on and find answers.
most of us don't even like the sight of blood and to try to imagine finding your own family members chopped with a machete or raped and left for dead ...i just don't know how to find words.

...on sunday aug 23 stephanie made sugar cookies with the guest house staff...it was really fun to watch...i doubt any of them had made sugar cookies before and they seemed to enjoy themselves quite a bit. and they liked them so much i think most if not all were gone by the end of the day. after stephanie and i walked over to kimironko market. i needed to get some fabric for some bags i had made. i meant to buy for 2 and walked out with 4. some of the fabric there is so beautiful and i couldn't resist...it is basically $4us for a sheet of fabric. we got back to the house ate some lunch and i took stephanie to the orphanage to play with the boys...our plan was to bowl, maybe play baseball, have some 3 legged and wheelbarrel racing but much to our surprise...when we got there the boys were in cleaning mode. they had volunteers coming from south korea...an entire busload of neon yellow vest wearing south koreans. the afternoon was an ablsolute blasgt. AND the boys danced inturo traditional dancing and drumming as well as the koreans drummed, danced and tae kwon doeded (i know that is not a word).
the best part of the day for me was one of the erics wrote on his balloon that he loved me and thanked me for being there and it still makes me tear up thinking about it. i will keep that balloon forever! i also tried to beat box for the boys and i was horrible as expected but they all thought it was hilarious that i got up to try to do it.
i think being there that day was a turning point with me and some of the boys as i hadn't gotten as close to. i really felt that so many boys came around and really let me into their lives that day. and now in retrospect of that day i know it really was a meaningful day to quite a few of them.