The Meet and Greet

First of all, my apologies!! I had no idea I'd be this busy. Today is my first "chill" day so I'm going to try to upload some pictures and write about my first day in Bukavu. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a lot more spare time on my hands now, so I hope to fill you all in on what's been happening.

On Thanksgiving morning, I woke up in Kigali after just one hour of sleep. Kevin (another OFA adoptive dad who I've been traveling with since Amsterdam) and I headed back to the Kigali airport and took a quick flight to Kamembe, which is a town on the border of Rwanda and Congo. It was an absolutely gorgeous flight. There were little homesteads scattered equally over the green, lush hills that spanned the distance between Kigali and Kamembe. I could see people down on the red, dirt roads - in groups, walking, working. Every house had a garden and saw a few people out hoeing in their gardens, and one woman sweeping the path with a homemade broom.

After the 30 minute flight, we landed in Kamembe. The "airport" was just a little tiny building - we didn't even go inside. Just walked from the plane, through a fence, grabbed our bags out of the back of a pick-up truck and grabbed a taxi. The ride to the border was actually pretty fun. It was beautiful scenery, and we drove crazily around potholes and people and cars. I was in the back, smashed up against our mountain of luggage. I remember I just felt very alive at that moment. We saw women walking from Congo carrying large empty containers on their heads. They cross the border in the morning to buy goods in Rwanda. They then take it back to sell in Congo.

After just 10 minutes of driving, we arrived at the border, where we were met by Mike (our twins' foster dad). He helped us go through customs. It would have been a pretty intimidating process, I imagine, had he not been there. But for us, it was really quite simple. We piled in the jeep and drove through the town of Bukavu - just 5 or 10 more minutes and we were at the house! Time to meet the kids!!

These first two pictures are of me meeting the twins - that's Noah in the picture. You can't see Lauren, but she is right beside him. Noah went to me right away, while Lauren was a little hesitant.

The next two pictures are of us in the twins' room, where I also stayed while I was in Bukavu. This is about 15 minutes after I arrived, I think. Lauren had a hard time warming up to me, but a few days later, she actually fell asleep on me at the dinner table. So sweet. This is right before she drifted off.

I hope to write more very soon, but the kids are up and I am trying to finish up between bites. I'm not editing and polishing, so apologies (again) for a choppy post. Crossing my fingers that it sends!