Office Party, Rwanda style!

Yesterday we had our MGVP Christmas Party complete with spaghetti dinner ala Leon, decorations put up by Noel and Jose, and background traditional Christmas music I put on my I-pod when I was home in October. We played the "white elephant" gift game! It was quite new to most of the group, and great fun. Poor Noel had 2 of his gifts stolen (one by me!), but he ended up with a GREAT gorilla painting by Eric, one of the artists who works with Julie at Art of Conservation.

Here are some pictures of our day:


Noel and Joselyn putting up the decorations.


The finished product!


Leon and Felician preparing the feast!


The Christmas feast.


Ama with her Christmas decoration!


And Ama eating her Christmas decoration...


Here's the MGVP team enjoying dinner.


Opening gifts was fun.


Here we are with our gifts. Me (obvious, I know), Innocent (from Art of Conservation), Felician (one of our guards), Clementine (former administrative assistant now at university in Kigali), Schadrack (current administrative assistant), Leon, Eric's wife, Eric (from Art of Conservatin), Noel (lab technician), Joselyn (data entry for MGVP) and Joseph (our porter for the forest). Great team!

At the end of the day, after almost everyone had gone home, Felicien, Leon and I washed the dishes and put the house back in order. There was little conversation, because my French and Kinyarwanda is so bad, but it was a comfortable, familiar, post holiday activity. I am so thankful for my Rwandan friends; my family away from home! But I miss you all!