Things I will miss...

I know I still have over a month here, but I can’t help thinking about the things I will miss when I leave. Here are the highlights:

Taxi motos. They are so cheap, efficient, fast, fun, and only a bit life-threatening
Fruit: Passion, papaya, mango, lemon (they are way better here)
The insect noises at night
Being woken up by goats and roosters in our yard
The way people greet EVERYONE when they arrive somewhere
Really amazing African tea and chapatis
The view of all the hills
The sound rain makes falling on the tin roof and the smell of the dirt roads afterward (which I miss already because it’s the dry season…)
Having family and friends drop by randomly to say hi
Girl time in the back bedroom with the baby
Preparing dinner outside (it’s actually really great, and the charcoal smells good)
The music in the public taxis
The paint jobs and tassels on the public taxis
Hitting the ceiling to signal that you want to get off the taxi
The taxi fare-taker guy who loves me because I keep my money in my bra. He says I can always take his taxi, even if it is full, he will make someone get off.
Okay, everything about the public taxis
Moms with tiny babies tied to their backs
The way that people don’t throw away very much stuff
That a coke costs 40 cents, a taxi ride 25 cents, dinner $2, a hotel room $12
The pervasive optimism even in the midst of very tough circumstances
Hearing people sing all the time
My little neighbor boy who says “Mizungu, bye!” every morning
The guys who sell stuff on the street. We call them the walking Wal-marts. They have absolutely everything, and you can send them on little errands (to get cold water, to bring you change, to find a specific thing that they don’t have) while you wait for the bus
Drinking soda (especially Fanta citron) out of glass bottles with straws.
The way that people I barely know (or don’t know at all) invite me to dinner, to their hometowns for a visit, even to their weddings
Geckos on my ceiling
The beautiful birds that live in our bushes. They are bright red, blue, yellow, or green, and really tiny.
Hilarious articles in the New Times, “Rwanda’s leading daily”
Commercials for SONARWA, which I will film and put on Youtube.
Awesome vegetation
Seeing laundry hung to dry on trees
Little kids in school uniforms
How the earth is red
Disorganized, beautiful terracing on the hills