This past weekend was memorable. My fellow St. Teresa’s parishioner, Marie Gato, built a beautiful home for her family in the village where she grew up in Nyamasheke province, which is about as far as you can go from where I live in Rwanda. She asked if I would attend the blessing of the house by Fr. Placide. I said, “Sure, why not?” Her brother picked me up in Kigali at 4:25 a.m. and we left for what might be the most remote place I’ve ever been in. We were probably an hour and a half on bumpy unpaved roads to finish the trip. It was beautiful village, though – green and hilly with a nice view of Lake Kivu. You can see the houses in Congo from her village. Anyhoo, the whole village turned out for the house blessing ceremony on Saturday afternoon. It was quite an event. After Fr. Placide blessed the house, he was given a young female cow. There was a lot of eating and photos. I even made a speech, half in Kinyarwanda and half in English. I tried banana beer (yuck!) and swam in Lake Kivu. I finally made it back to Kabarore five days after I left with some serious laundry to do.