Officially a Buyogan (Buyogian? Buyogite?)

I arrived in Buyoga on December 30th. From Kigali, you head north to Rulindo District for an easy 40 minutes on a snaking paved road that seems to ascend endlessly higher and higher. Then comes the "fun"... For my initial arrival, I got to travel with all my luggage in a nice Peace Corps SUV, but normally the primary mode of transport from this point is an exhilarating motorcycle taxi. You weave your way up crumbling dirt paths, climbing to still higher heights. After another 40 minutes, you reach Buyoga, perched on a mountainside with views of terraced farms on adjacent hills and meticulously-groomed tea plantations in the valley below. I know, I know, I'm living the hard life. That's just the beginning, though!

My headmaster gave me the tour of the secondary school where I'll be working, and let's just say I'm pretty excited. It bears little resemblance to my school in Mauritania, as it boasts among other things: electricity (with back-up solar power as well as a generator), a photocopier, a computer lab, a fully-stocked chemistry lab, satellite TV in the teachers' lounge, basketball and volleyball courts, and a brand new library. In September $50,000 worth of donated books arrived from the nonprofit World Vision. There are textbooks in all subjects, dictionaries, CD-ROMs and audio cassettes -- mostly in English but some in French also. Unbelievable. Additionally, my very-motivated headmaster has plans to buy laptops and equip the school for wireless internet perhaps as soon as April. (YES, PLEASE!)

The school also has some animal husbandry projects. Literally in my backyard are six cows, and just down the road are five special cows that were a gift to our school from the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame. In October they arrived on a plane from Ireland. Their dairy production is up to 5 times that of a Rwandan cow! And there are also about 200 rabbits, all colors and sizes -- and all really cute.

As for accommodations: upon my arrival at site in Mauritania, I was given an empty one-room cement block, about 10' x 10', with no electricity and a latrine outside. Here I have a whole house?! My headmaster picked one out for me, so now it's being pretty much gutted and revamped. Probably not necessary, really, but that was already in the works. They told me it'd take two weeks when I arrived, and then someone said a month, so I'm hoping to split the difference perhaps. Anyway, I guess the Ministry of Education is paying for all this, because I'm sure not. But the new house will have three bedrooms, a living room, electricity and -- an indoor bathroom! Now, admittedly, this is still rural Africa, so yes, it's really just a cement hole that you squat over... but THIS hole is indoors! And it drains to a pit outside. I am thrilled. Until the new place is ready, I am staying in a similar house, also all to myself. I have sofa chairs and a coffee table and a big wooden bed. And I don't even have to sleep in a net because there are no mosquitoes at this elevation. Oh, the luxury.

So, I have a lot to look forward to this year! For now, though, I pretty much just have a lot of time to kill. The first day of classes isn't until February 1st, so that's essentially when my work begins. In the interim I've been settling back into that familiar Peace Corps life of perpetual free time. I've achieved my long-time goal of being able to name the capital of every country in the world, so that's pretty exciting (South Africa has three; Nauru has none!). Also I have a cumulative score of $6127 on iPod Solitaire, if that means anything to you. And pretty much whenever I'm in my house, I'm listening to the BBC or Voice of America on the radio. They have some excellent programs, which keep me in touch with world news and American pop music -- from yesterday and today! Who could ask for anything more, right?

OK, OK, I try to do some "useful" things with my time as well. I've been meeting people in the community, and I started giving daily English classes at the school to 4 or 5 enthusiastic coworkers. Also, I've been having fun experimenting with my cooking. You have to understand, cooking totally from scratch on a single burner takes some time and effort. But I have made a successful tomato sauce, and gazpacho, and you can't beat good old French fries. Produce is super cheap here. There is a market every Thursday in Buyoga, so I stock up for the week by spending about $2. Each of the following costs the equivalent of 20 cents (100 Rwandan francs): a kilo of potatoes, 20 small tomatoes, 3 avocados, 4 large green bell peppers, a pineapple. And the stable boys outside my house even bring me fresh milk from the cows twice a day!

As I glance back over this blog entry, I see an exclamation point in every paragraph. You got me: I'm pumped.

I do have fleas, so you can't win 'em all, I guess. But there's hydrocortisone for that.