Fall

It's just barely fall. The mornings are cold, the afternoons warm, and in the evenings when I come home, the neighborhood boys are playing football in the street. I am living average American days. I ride the Metro to work from my cool urban neighborhood, contribute to the well being of a million low income pre-schoolers for nine hours, visit with friends in DC's hot spots, and ride the metro home. I'm exhausted, but happy.

One part of me loves this- I could do this forever. Another part feels the lull of complacency, and misses the daily ethical conflicts, sensory overload, and inherent difficulty in every errand that makes me feel so awake when living abroad. My days now have plenty of challenge - struggles with making good use of technology, navigating office politics, and determining compliance of our grantees - but its all so intellectual, and fails to engage me viscerally and physically, a failure which bugs me if I bother to let it.

I've committed to two years of this experiment. The Experiment of the American Experience. The "commitment" has wiggle room, but for now, I'm going to see how this whole yuppie thing plays out, and if I end up bugged or happy.

A short synopsis of the last year

After leaving Rwanda, I finished up my last semester at Tulane University, completing my Master of Public Health degree then moved back to my parent's place to look for work over the winter. In the spring I found a job, visited my brother in Perth, helped my friend get married in New Zealand, and had two fantastic summer months playing in the Washington sun while waiting for my job to start and before moving to DC, to start my next adventure - a Presidential Management Fellowship with the Federal government. Let's see how this goes.

Monday

Yesterday I worked at the office straight through sunset, and left only because it's hard to get transport much after dark. I had planned on continuing to work when I got home, producing lecture recordings into videos, and burning all the course materials onto disks. I was in a foul, foul mood because things were progressing more slowly than I had thought possible, and so much needed to be ready for the last day of class.

When I got home the power was out. My black mood sank a little deeper. How was I going to get everything done? After fuming for a few minutes I sat with my host and chatted for a bit, and then the little boys asked me to play cards, and the baby sat on my lap, and the dad got me a beer, and I fell in love with my host family all over again. By the time the power came on, two hours later, I was in a much better mood.

Please go easy on me, Queen of Languages

Betsy has been gone to Uganda, and so the last few weekends I’ve gone off by myself to explore the exotic corners of the country.

The bus ride is fascinating. The beautiful Rwandan countryside flows by, with deep valleys on either side of the road that usually follows the ridges until we swoop into the valley floor for a time before climbing up the to ridge once more. My seat mates are excited to sit next to a Muzungu, a Whitey. They want to talk to me, are quickly disappointed upon the realization that I only speak English, and content themselves with borrowing whichever book I have brought on my lap.

Recently, my French has reached a level where I can attempt a conversation beyond “Bonjour,” especially if my seat companion is persistent. In the two hours it took to get to our destination, one lady (who spoke no English at all) elicited my name, my work, where I lived, my age, that I was single, (followed inevitably by “why?”, I don’t even need to know the word to know that is the next question – “What is wrong with you?”) and that I was an intern. She worked in insurance, was going with her husband to visit some relatives and lived close to my house; she would return to Kigali on the bus yet that night. We exchanged phone numbers with promises to meet up again in Kigali. (Unfortunately my French is considerably worse on the phone and we did not get past “Ça va?” when she called. )

I ended up in Ruhengeri, the town from which one bases excursions into Volcanoes National Park, home of the famed mountain gorillas, and of the best hiking in Rwanda. I dedicated the major part of a day exploring the town, in spite of the fact the guide book describes Ruhengeri as “an unremarkable town.”

There is the market, a place that sells second hand clothes that arrive by the container-full from America, and the ladies who mend and alter these clothes, as well as sewing up African clothes if you should ask.
There is also an impressive looking district hospital, bustling with mothers with sick babies on their backs.

But the best part is wandering up and down the road to town watching the people, trying to walk as slowly as the locals, taking in the colorful dresses, “Bonjour”ing a hundred times to young and old alike, using my entire Kinyarwanda vocabulary to wish people a good evening, ask if they are well and what is their name before shrugging helplessly at the onslaught of Kinyarwanda that ensues…”Um, sorry I don’t actually speak your language.”

The Genocide is a slippery reality

Most days I play with my Rwandan brothers, laugh with the kitchen staff, go dancing with my hosts, and travel around to the tourist destinations around the country; most days I don’t dwell on the fact that 14 years ago the country was torn apart by neighbors hacking each other apart with machetes. Instead I enjoy the friendly hospitality of everyone I come across, I appreciate that Kigali is one of the safest capitals in Africa, I go to work, and then to play.

But all of the sudden it comes up: the G-bomb.
For Example:

I was excited to fly to Thailand. My older brother was getting married and my whole family was going to be there – the first time we were going to be all together in five years. I was gushing over breakfast to my Rwandan family about how happy I was to see my family, my favorite people in the whole world, all at the same time. All eight of us! I asked my host-dad how many siblings he had. “We are 4.” “How many brothers and how many sisters? What birth order?” “I am the only boy, and the youngest now.” “Now?” “My two brothers were killed in the genocide.” “Oh.”


Another time we were eating dinner at a restaurant with a bunch of family friends. They were chatting away in Kinyarwanda and all laughed. I asked the guy next to me what was so funny. “It’s hard to explain in English” “So try!” “The virgin is always fresh, fresh as the Genocide (laughter)” “That’s funny?” “Yeah. The Horror of Genocide is always fresh, just like a virgin. (More laughter). Maybe its just Rwandan humor.” Yeah, maybe.


Then last night, I was playing Crazy Eights with the boys when Hope turned the channel to France24- a debate on the report put out this week on the role of France in the Genocide. Beside the floating heads of the debaters was news reel from 1994, showing bloated bodies, refugees and panicked faces. I stopped playing for a second to watch the news, trying to catch the French as it rattled past. The boys clamored for me to continued playing, then when I was unresponsive, sat and watched it with me. “Grandma was killed in the Genocide, right mom?” said Enzo. “Yes, she was.” replied Hope. And then the news switched to something in Iran and we went back to our card game.

Akagera National Park

The invitation came in sealed envelopes. Inside was a little slip of paper written in French, of which I could only read the date and time. What could be happening on Sunday morning at 7:00? A class trip to the Game Park in the East of the country!
At 7:00 I hopped off a motorbike in front of the school and seen just 10 people ready to get on the bus. I was confused, wasn’t this a class field trip? By 8:00 we were leaving town with an overloaded bus, having stopped at half a dozen places to pick up people and supplies.
We got to the game park and a tour guide got into the bus, and we proceeded into the dirt roads of the game park. After 10 minutes someone pointed. “Look Animals!” The driver backed up and drove the bus off the road toward the herd of waterbucks. We got closer, and closer and the animals just watched as the bus drove right up to them. I couldn’t help but as all the Rwandans gathered around the windscreen, completely blocking everybody else’s view, to see the animals a few feet away.
After a few minutes the waterbucks ran off, and we drove back to the road. Along the road we saw impalas, and far off we could see the neck of a giraffe. As we drove up to the giraffe it (surprise!) ran away. So everyone got out of the bus to track the giraffe on foot. We walked up a hill and saw the giraffe, its mate and two babies run off to a near by tree. We stayed on the hill and took pictures, while the guide explained that two giraffe couples were brought in from Kenya a few years ago, and now there are 100 giraffes in the park! We drove around the park looking for zebras, buffalo or the lone elephant to no avail. But we did see monkeys and hippos. Then we dropped off the guide and drove back to Kigali. And now I know 20 or so of the students in the MPH course here (which is different than the course I'm working with) but unfortunately they will be done at the end of this week.

Thailand

Jeremy and Michelle got married in Thailand. Why? Because Thailand is halfway between Perth and Seattle, and makes for a fabulous holiday. I met up with Jer, Michelle, Josh and Elisa in Bangkok the weekend before the wedding and we played tourist and went to the dentist.
By tourist I mean Josh and I explored the “low cost housing” areas across from the tourist district one morning, eating our way through the narrow alleys. First we ate some lychee-looking things that I thought were amazing yellow fruit (long gang) that I’ve had before, but were the less-than-good Kool-aid berries. We disposed of these, and got in line for cooked thingies from this lady. We had NO idea what they might be, but hey, there was a line! They were, in fact, delicious. And I still don’t know what they were – crepe dough, filled with pudding, and topped with green onions. Then we got Rambutans (hairy leeches) that a lady cut open for us using a knife that she had just sliced fish with. (Of course she wiped it clean on an old cloth first! Hygienic and Everything!). Then we found Mangosteens, which are my favorite fruit ever – purple husks on the outside, delicious white sweetness on the inside. We happened upon a doughnut shop, and then a coffee shop,though not located next to eachother. I was convinced that I was going to be sick from such a delicious morning of dodgy food. But no, it was all good, and we hopped on the boat back to our side of the river.
As for the dentist, I mean the Dental Hospital in Thailand is cheap and excellent, such that it was worth half a day of my 3 day sojourn in Bangkok to get a checkup, cleaning and fillings, and for Jeremy, worth a whole day of his honeymoon to get a root canal.
We also all got massages, multiple times, because Thai massage is one of the wonders of the world.
The wedding itself was amazing. The festivities lasted almost a whole week full of dinners and games, beers, new friends and family time.