A Fishy Christmas

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you are all taking advantage your break to relax, have fun and re-energize for the new year! It seems that not many of you have enjoyed my previous (quite depressing) blog, so I have resolved to never post something like that again.

Instead, let me tell you about my fishy Christmas. This year, I spent Christmas at Akagera Park with 3 expat families living in Rwanda. In all, we were 9 adults and 8 kids, in 4 big 4x4s. It felt good to have kids running around everywhere because that and the plastic Christmas tree was just about the only things Christmassy about this holiday. Even the band at the dinner was composed of 5 rastas playing Bob Marley instead of the more traditional Jingle Bells or other holiday carols.

On the morning of the 24th, after a big all you can eat breakfast at the hotel, the gang split into two groups and I chose to go with the one that went fishing rather than the safari (which I had already done last time). Now if you know anything about me, you know that fishing is NOT my favourite thing in the world, but my idea was to get some sun and sleep all day, while the others did the fishing. This is precisely what I did at first, until Martin and Caro started catching fish….then I thought to myself: “hey this doesn’t look so difficult…I want to catch one too!” It didn’t take long before I started fishing with them, but it did take a while before I caught anything. We stayed at the lake until nightfall and the count ended up being something like the following: Caro: 7 fish, Martin: 10 fish Naya (6 year old): 3 fish Adrien (3 year old): 2 fish Pat: 1 fish.

After our big day fishing right beside hippos and crocs, we had a wonderful dinner with everyone at the hotel and played cards all night (which I enjoy much more than fishing), while listening to a Bob Marley band. I wonder if Santa in Rwanda has dreads or if it’s just this band that didn’t get the memo about Christmas….

The next morning I got woken up at 7AM by a text message sent by Henriette, an employee from Ruhengeri wishing me happy holidays. Then came in a bunch of other messages from local friends, which made me feel happy because I know that back home I would also be calling all my friends to wish them merry Christmas. We spent all day relaxing at the hotel. I particularly enjoyed the TV and hot shower, 2 things I don’t have back in Kigali.

Just as we were about to return home, we received a call from one of the families saying their truck got stuck while they were looking for the giraffes. They were caught in the middle of the park. So, we organized a rescue mission and after searching for 1 hour found the poor little family in a ditch on the side of the path. Good thing we were lots to push the car, and there was a phone signal where they were or else they would of easily spent all night there, sleeping with the giraffes, baboons and antelopes!

Thanks everyone for all the Christmas wishes, I love you all lots and lots! Enjoy your oh so short break from school!

-Pat
-xxx-