I wrote this the week before Christmas. I am now officially finishing my Peace Corps service on March 29th, and with so little time left, I'm hoping to document a bit more regularly.

My Garden:

I have a beautiful garden full of vegetables, herbs, salad greens, and a field of sweet corn that might just be perfect on Christmas day. It's beautiful and makes me happy every time I look outside. Back in America, is it possible for us to afford a place in the city where gardening is possible? It's making us discuss the suburbs for the first time in our marriage. The first time in my life!

My Front Door:

First Anna made the wreath out of avocado leaves and dried chiles from our garden, then one from a pine tree cut down along the road. The archway is from our front yard, the chairs were purchased from the back of a bike of a guy I saw walking down the road. This is what got me into the holiday spirit.



Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World)

I just got back from a 5-day camp for secondary school girls. I was facilitator for 11 girls from all over Rwanda, talking about goal setting, good decision making, and HIV prevention, on top of the leadership acitivities, and just fun. Doing yoga outside with a bunch of groaning girls while the evangelical church next door blasted praise music was an entertaining high point, as was the camp fire where the girls wrote things that someone had told them they couldn't do because they were girls, then threw it in the fire. When one of my girls read "they say I won't find a husband because I'm clever," crumpled the paper, and threw it in the flames, I cheered. It was exhausting, though, and it's good to be back at site.