He dared to ask the question: "Is there a balance between Kreotene and Atkins?"

The answer: apparently not. In the life of any expat, a golden light shines forth when someone from the West comes to bring you that which you long for. In my roomate Oren's case, he was longing for some power bars. He's a big, muscle-sporting guy. He says he's been hungry ever since he got to Rwanda-rice and beans apparently don't cut it. To emphasize this fact, he consumed a 1.5 ltr. tub of cookies and cream ice cream with oatmeal cookies crushed into it with Kyle an Benna. And so, when he heard that someone was coming to Rwanda from Dubai, he asked them to pick up some power bars. He needs protein. Instead, he got three crazy bars packed with kreotene, along with a box of Atkins bars and a box of slim fast bars. All for the low low price of $50 US. When my roomates and I were lounging on the couches in the living room on saturday afternoon as he lamented his tale, we were all gutting ourselves laughing. Good intentions notwithstanding, we were trying to figure out the leap from power bars to slim fast bars, and it was hilarious.

I've had another great weekend. Friday, my friend Sarah came back from Uganda, and she has made friends with Kigali's contemporary artist, who had an artshow at one of the local bars. So Andrew, Sarah and I headed for dinner to this Chinese restaurant called Flamingos, which actually offered some pretty amazing grub, and then we headed out to the artshow, which was great. Saturday morning, Sarah and I trudged our laptops to the airport so we could use the free wireless and drink a coffee. The coffee was ridiculously overpriced, but I got a bunch of work done.

Then we came home, scoffed some avacado and tomat, and headed to the market. By the time we got back, Benna, Oren, Kyle and Assaf had arrived, so we settled in for some lounge time (where the Atkins-Kreotene exchange took place), and then we all darted off to for dinner at Sole Luna, this great Italian restaurant with gorgeous terraces covered in virginia creeper overlooking Kigali (the great thing about Kigali is that its all on hills, so restaurants can get ideal locations nestled into the hills overlooking all the other hills. Its genius). We had some amazing food and a lovely night, went out to a lounge for a few drinks, and were back to the house by midnight, where we had yet another magic moment, and I realized, after two months in Kigali, I've found my Rwandan family. I felt super warm about this until Benna and Assaf woke me up at 4am.

The next morning, despite torturing Assaf that I was going to wake him up at 6 as retribution, I slept until 9-huzzah, I haven't slept in once since I got here-and worked until the rest of the crew rolled out of bed. We again made our way to the market, which was awesome-I found some great fabric, a green sweatshirt jacket I bought but am not entirely sure about (byer's remorse? Hope not), and a basket for my trinkets on my bedside table. Kyle found a sweet Kokanee Sasquatch shirt-a nod to the BC roots, along with some even sweeter orange running shorts, and all in all, we had another great day. Everyone took off at 3 and I worked the rest of the day.

Was in the field yesterday, this time visiting a mushroom and passion fruit cooperative in pretty much the middle of no where Rwanda. It was amazing. Jovin and I drove three hours to the field office, then another hour and a half down crazy dirt roads, and ended up in paradise. It was staggeringly beautiful. And Jovin's offroad moves beat the boys on bombi summit hands down. Am now back in the office, working away as always, and can't believe I've been here as long as I have. I was having a dream the other night that I was back in Canada, and when I woke up, I didn't know where I was. The first thing that flashed through my mind was-whoops, I'm not ready to be back in Canada . Thankfully, I don't have to be yet. So its Wendesday afternoon, I'm eating a passion fruit, a kind gift from one of my cooperatives, and I'm about to head off to french tutorial, because night school just wasn't enough for me, and I thought, hey, with no spare time, lets figure out a way to increase stress. Voila.