SWEAR IN

Written May 9th

Well it has been quite a while since I wrote a blog. I wish I could blame it on the internet never working but I don’t actually need the internet to write the blogs. So I guess I can’t really use that excuse. But Training is officially over and I am an actual Peace Corps volunteer now. (If you didn’t know before I was a Peace Corps trainee for the past 10 weeks.) Our swear-in ceremony took place on May 5th at the Ambassador’s house. He has a beautiful house and the ceremony was televised and made the newspaper called the New Times: Rwanda’s First Daily the May 6th edition. I am actually pictured on page 3 so hopefully I can put an electronic copy on my blog for you all. The oath we took is the same oath as everyone in the U.S government takes including the military and congress. That’s right Nick I took the same oath as you
I, Sonya Alexander, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, domestic and foreign, that I take this obligation freely and without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties in the Peace Corps, so help me God.
So after swear in we got to spend 4 days in Kigali to buy things we need and to relax and hang out. I love shopping so this has been a really fun couple of days. The peace corps gives us a move in allowance to buy things like appliances and furniture for our houses. We have also gotten to test many restaurants in Kigali. Night one, we ate at what we thought was Thai food but in reality it was owned by a French man and mostly only had French foods. The guy didn’t even know what Pad Thai was. So I had noodles and vegetables in a peanut sauce which was as close as I could get to pad thai. The next day we stuffed ourselves at the ambassadors house after our swear-in ceremony. So for dinner we just had the famous Rwandan bar food brochettes and fires. The next day we had dinner at a pizza place called sun and moon. The pizza was really good they were just a bit stingy on the cheese but cheese is very expensive here so that understandable. My friend ordered a cheese pizza with olives and literally got one whole olive cut into about 8 pieces on her pizza. Even with all that I would recommend the place because it’s good and cheap. Friday we ate at a little coffee shop located outside the market called aromas. It was so-so but cheap and owned by a Texan. I had a burger and fries which were not as good as at this coffee shop Bourbon. Speaking of Bourbon it is like a little America in Rwanda. It’s like Starbucks but better. The food is really good and comes out really fast. Service is great. They have amazing ice cream that’s real Italian gelatti. The only glitch is that they are really expensive. We also ate at an Indian restaurant which was good but not so good non. A few weeks ago a few of us came to Kigali and ate at a really nice Indian restaurant. The food is amazing the non and chicken tika masala is amazing but it’s one of the most expensive restaurants so we can’t really afford it on the peace corps budget. Today we found a really great cheap burger place with good milkshakes so that was exciting also.
I feel like all I ever blog about is food but it’s a big part of happiness here in the Peace Corps. The theory goes that women gain weight and men lose weight. I will hopefully not be part of that statistic. Luckily in Rwanda it’s somewhat ok to go running unlike in other countries where it is completely unacceptable.