The Wedding Present: Part 2

The bride invited me to her new home on the other side of town.  And what a lovely home it is.  The small front yard has an avocado tree, a papaya tree and a banana tree.  The newlyweds are blissfully happy.  As soon as I walked into the living room, the first thing I noticed was a large wall clock with a gold-colored metal rim. Now, I knew the couple’s taste in wall clocks and was glad that I had not given a clock as a present because they would now have at least two wall clocks.  Then I noticed Nicole’s wrist; she was wearing a wristwatch.  A good thing I also rejected the wristwatch idea for a gift.  And, then, I spotted it – my wedding present hanging in a prominent place on the wall above the couch. I took this snapshot.

The couple was elated with the present and thanked me again and again for it.  The gift turned out to be even more perfect than I’d imagined because the photos were of the couple during their civil wedding ceremony, which I had not previously known. Thus, there would be no reason for them to replace the photos that I had painstakingly obtained for the plaque. The wall hanging was inscribed with the phrase “Umurage mwiza ni urukundo,” which literally means “Good inheritance is love.”  There was no question that this house was filled with love. 

Nicole (pronounced “Nikoray” because Rwandans pronounce Ls like Rs and pronounce the last vowels in words) served tea.  On the small TV in the living room, the DVD of the wedding played. It was fun to re-live the wedding and see myself as part of it.  On the coffee table was my wedding card wishing the couple “reak happiness.” Fortunately, the grammar mistake seemed to have passed completely unnoticed.  

Nicole invited me to go for a walk, which turned out to be quite a hike around a part of town I had not previously explored.  As we walked around the “lake,” which is actually a dammed pond, I foolishly stopped to pet a goat (ihene).  Nicole is a fast walker and, feeling my age, I sometimes struggled to keep up with her on the narrow, winding paths and many steep hills in our town. She periodically asked with concern in her voice if I was tired, and I always replied too quickly that I was not, saying “Oya, nabwo ndananiwe” in Kinyarwanda, which she no doubt knew was a lie.  So ended another lovely afternoon of perfect weather in Nyanza.