The Results of Great Expectations

The following will be turned in for credit as my final Independent Study project conclusion.

In general, I believe that Americans are of the mind that there are certain expectations--established by the individual--which must be met in undertaking a project, academic or otherwise. Based on my preparations in the several months prior to my journey to Africa, however, I feel that my main principle going into the trip was to expect the unexpected--I had told several people that I expected the experience to change my life, but after talking to one individual, I was hesitant even to hope for that, for the very same fear of failure that has been ingrained in American society. Fortunately, my “non-expectation” was indeed met, albeit not in any way I could have imagined, of course. It was in this way and during this month-long residency in Rwanda that I found God to be the only avenue by which to achieve physical, spiritual, social and academic excellence.

First, there is something to be said for relationships in regard to cross-cultural transcendence. I always thought I had a certain soft spot for designing relationships between characters in my writing, but now I have found that, without solid bonds, it is essentially impossible to move forward. For example, the day that our team visited with members of a village sociotherapy group, we started the day with two hours of shelling peanuts, singing with the locals--us singing in our language, they in theirs--and even teaching them the word “ooftah” and how to count to five in English. At the beginning of the trip, the blisters and dirt and sweat I became covered in might have discouraged me, made me question whether or not the Rwandan people were simply taking advantage of us for a day; and yet, it now seems obvious to me that, if we had not partaken in those activities, had not made clear our desire to identify with them and learn rather than simply hear a story that would stay in Rwanda, they would not have shared the few, short testimonies they did share with us. The fact that we actively made an effort to connect with them through physical labor, socializing and academic interest (at least for me, and as I took notes during their testimonies I believe it is reasonable to assume they understood the concept of our academic purpose at least loosely), even though they could have no idea whether or not we would be back in their country someday, struck me as foundational in creating realistic interactions between fictional characters.

But more than that, perhaps, is the fact that I saw genocidaires seated centimeters from victims with my own eyes, and heard them proclaiming their love of Christ with my own ears. When something that seems so impossible does occur in reality, it makes a person wonder--and yet I know that that sort of supernatural forgiveness is only possible through Christ. In the context of seeing thousands upon thousands of skulls and bones--some of which I physically touched--and probably a hundred graves prior to the revelation of this information, too, speaks to this truth, but the published story of Imaculee Ilibagiza is what truly solidified the idea. Over 90 days she spent in a roughly 5’x5’x10’ bathroom with seven other girls, no electricity, no change of clothes and little enough food to drop her from 115 pounds to 65. Yet she prayed every waking moment--thanks, forgiveness, the rosary, deliverance--taught herself English with one of the pastor’s (in whose house she hid) books, and survived the genocide well enough to become a distinguished employee for the UN, though only one of her six family members (besides herself) lived. It is stories such as these that convince me that God has a way of speaking in any and every context.

For a long time, during the trip especially, I tried to find a theme--fear, suffering, love, isolation, success--that was capable of bringing every single person together. Each one I came up with is all well and good, but as I was convicted--graciously so, of course--by my teammates for every sour attitude, every grudging comment, every denial of personal issues, every preoccupation (such as running and blogging) that kept me from ministering or simply doing the work God had brought us there to do, any temporary lack in faith, I saw that I can hold myself to a higher standard, and I should. To do this, I need God--for anyone to do this, I believe, they need God. It may not explain why atheist athletes win ten gold medals and live a long life, or why tasteless musicians become multi-millionaires, but when I got sick less than a week in--102.6 degree fever, two days of bed-rest and no food, severe back and intestinal pain kind of sick--God gave me the kick in the pants I needed and could not have received or understood any other way. I can see no reason why God would use both my biggest fear and my least accepted Biblical teaching--getting sick in Africa and the spiritual gifts of the New Testament--other than to bring me closer to Him by completely surrendering my expectations so that I would be able to return home to America with my own story to tell, that it might encourage others in their faith.

Though sickness prevented me from training for skiing and cross country (more than once) in the way I intended, I feel as though the few days I did run and do ab workouts and exercise by hauling bricks and playing with kids were enough to allow me to bounce back. More importantly, I was able to focus on the tasks at hand, and realized that some things--mostly related to God--are more important than training or even school sometimes. Due to translator availability, respect of privacy and time constraints, I was unable to personally conduct interviews or hold formal team discussions on genocide, and there was really no quantitative data that facilitated my project objectives. But through the many memorials we visited, peer-led devotionals, and casual conversations with my teammates, I learned more about myself and what it means to be a Christian in the world and not of the world than I ever could have imagined, or achieved without surrendering my expectations.

With all of that in mind, I have drawn these conclusions with regard to my writing, professional or otherwise: 1) the glorification and spirit of God must be the motivating force behind what I write. While that may or may not mean directly referencing him, I know for a fact that I can and should keep the amount of violence, swearing and sexual themes to a minimum. I believe this is possible without sacrificing original and creative plot lines; 2) relationships both between individual characters and with God are key. As such, I will endeavor to create innovative but believable connections and interactions between characters; 3) I have to accept the fact that poetry might be the genre I explore and publish first before undertaking a novel project. As my best creative writing throughout the trip has come in that form at the times where my emotions were most passionate, I know I will have to learn how to channel that skill into prose, and that will take time; 4) I have to accept that it is impossible to please or entertain every person, and if I use my relationship with God as my foundation for all my writing, I must recognize that whoever does not have the Holy Spirit may not appreciate what I write. Still, I hope that they will come to at some point, and I must be content with that.

In the end, the best answers I can give to the questions like “how was your trip” or “what was your favorite part” or “what did you learn” are “life-changing,” “growing closer to God” (largely through discovering my ability to speak in tongues) and “God as defined in the Christian Bible is the answer to everything,” respectively. Some may find that unsatisfactory, but whatever is said, Rwanda changed my life and solidified my passion to become a writer all at the same time, in the course of 22 days. That is what I call a January Interim Experience.

Impossible

It seems impossible, the variety of things we've done in the last four days. It seems impossible the amount we've accomplished in the last three weeks. It seems impossible that tomorrow, we begin our journey home. It even seems impossible that genocide occurred in this place, not quite 20 years ago.

But nothing is what it seems.

I wasn't planning to be overly "serious" with this post, but in light of recent events, I think you might find it an almagamation of many emotions--take from that what you will.
Alright. So Tuesday, most of the GAC team (meaning Alexa, Amanda, Anna and Emily) went to PEFA for their final day of cleaning and caretaking while the rest of us joined the City Hill team for our last day working at Rusororo, and let me tell you, I felt even more accomplished after that day than Friday. We moved 190 cinderblocks (one of which had a gecko inside), covered the ceiling/floor of half the building with them, cleared excess timber from between all the "walls" and around the perimeter of the building, moved a huge pile of bricks and went on two prayer walks around the whole site (in shifts, of course). So basically, an awesome and fulfilling day.

Wednesday was fairly exciting as far as touristy stuff goes, seeing as how we actually got to go on a safari (that's for you, Taylor) through Akagera National Park as the City Hill team's "fun day" (GAC's was Nyungwe National Park, if you recall). Started out fairly pedestrian (for Africa, anyway), with just some lakes and birds and lots of bushes and bumpy, windy roads (which unfortunately induced enough motion sickness to make half the ride rather uncomfortable), but finally we ran into some real wildlife--baboons, hippos, giraffes, zebras, a jillion antelope type things, warthogs, the whole shebang. Pretty darn cool, but when you're driving under the African sun on the equator in a cramped car for the majority of 15 hours, sucking in enough dust to coat your lungs, face and hair with five pounds of it, and you've been awake since 3:30 in the morning, you wonder if it's worth it.

But don't worry, I'd say it was.

Don't let me leave you under the impression that only the animals made the trip what it was, though--the people in our car entertained us at least as much. While we had some good laughs and enjoyed singing whatever Brittany could teach us, the best part was hearing everyone's testimonies of how/why they came to Rwanda. Sharing mine took enough words to bring back some of my monster allergies or whatever they are (me+lots of talking+lots of dust=cold-like symptoms, apparently), but I'm fairly confident that it was worth it, too, for everyone else to hear it. Plus I just got to know everyone better (both cars were mixed teams, by the way), which was awesome.

Also, I got to climb a tree :) Although doing it in Spanish gauchos/pantaloons was not ideal...

After a large and wonderful dinner at the guest house, some last-minute shopping at the nearby grocery-type shops, and a great night's sleep of about 8 1/2 hours, it was Thursday and the event I had been looking forward to for at least a week was finally here--sociotherapy. That might seem strange to some, as I'm sure I've never expressed any real interest in psychology or anything like that to anyone, but as far as my independent study project goes, I thought this would help me the most in really identifying with the people here. So needless to say, I was pretty pumped when I woke up this morning. Did a core workout with Kelly, ate some delicious French toast with peanut butter, honey and bananas, then got ready to go. Little did I know, we had a while to wait, and some interesting things were to happen in the interim.

We were scheduled to leave at about 9, but found out that our driver still had to fix the car from it's crunch on the way back from Rusororo, and ended up leaving at about 10:30 instead. In the meantime, however, as we sat around a table under the pavilion in front of the guest house (aka the infamous Phase 10 table), we chatted and sang bits of worship songs and even got Willy to teach us the chorus of "Our God is an Awesome God" in Kinyarwanda (which I will happily sing for you when I return to the States if you'd like). As I was sitting on the wall surrounding the area practicing this, I heard a sort of scuffling on the rocks and a serious "OH" and all of a sudden everyone was gathered at the opposite wall. I walked over and found Emily lying on the ground, for some reason asked, "She didn't throw up, did she?" (I guess to make sure she wasn't choking on anything while unconscious?) and after receiving a negative response started sort of pacing and words I didn't recognize--except for one, imana--were pouring out of my mouth. As soon as I would finish the phrase I would repeat it again like I absolutely couldn't stop, and I thought, 'this is real. This is more real than it's ever been.' In a matter of seconds, maybe as much as a minute, Emily was sitting upright, laughing, saying she was fine, felt "good," and then she was on her feet. I'm not saying it was me, but I can't deny the spirit of God. Sorry if you think that sounds cheesy or "preachy" or "too religious," but I've never felt so...affected, I guess, in such a good and powerful way.

Twenty minutes later, we were on our way to the sociotherapy group in Nyamata with as cramped cars as the day before. Fortunately, we only had to drive for about an hour (and only that long because we got a little lost on the village roads and had to turn around a couple times) before reaching our destination--a narrow, hidden footpath through some herb-smelling bushes on the side of the road. Everyone piled out, not really knowing what was going on, when some people who had been walking the same road greeted us and led us through the brush onto a peanut plantation (or whatever you call it). There were other crops too, and mostly they just showed us around, pointing at different plants and telling us what they were used for (through our translator from FVA), then we turned right around and walked back out, trekked own the road about 10 minutes or so, then spent the next 2 1/2 hours shelling peanuts.

Um, what?

In case you were wondering, Karen did mention that we would possibly be helping them harvest peanuts, but I don't think any of us were expecting to get blisters from shelling them (although I think that was just me who ended up with actual fluid-filled bubbles on my thumb and forefinger...). It was fun at first, but by the end I was ridiculously sweaty--for whatever reason--not to mention dirty, and my hands felt like they had been rubbed raw. Finally, though, it was time to talk. As the muzungus doing grunt work had attracted quite a crowd, we relocated to a spot under this enormous ubukuyo tree (which I climbed quite enthusiastically--wish I would've gone higher, but it made Karen nervous) and settled into the grass to hear them speak. We took a long time with introductions, and when we finally got to hear some stories, they said there wasn't enough time and I found myself disappointed. Weren't they going to tell us something that could really rattle our American cages of comfort and privilege?

(the best climbing tree EVER)

But I found that there was enough in their body language to show that they had been deeply scarred. Perhaps more amazing, however, was that upon learning that in this group of about 8 people, perpetrators sat so close to victims they were almost touching. And yet, it didn't seem strange or tense--there was just overwhelming forgiveness in the air...but also exhaustion. They all got along, worked for a living, had surviving relatives, but there is no doubt that their minds are beyond the sort of tired that every college student thinks describes them after finals.

And it didn't stop there. One of our own team members shared their testimony, filled with more horrors than I ever expected, and it was that which really struck me. Terrible things do happen all over the world, and all too often, no one sees them. It was then that I realized how alike people can be at essentially opposite ends of the globe, and maybe it is our suffering that brings us together--especially in Christ, as it was with these people.

It was on that note (or perhaps a slightly lighter one, in that everyone was smiling at having come together) that we piled back in the Land Cruisers and headed to the nearby Nyamata Parish Catholic Church Memorial. It was small compared to the other two we went to, but walking down into a 3'x15'x45' crypt full of bones and skulls you can touch is a little bit different than standing in the doorway to a room full of lime-encrusted skeletons. Not necessarily more powerful, but when you see them by the thousands, scattered over so much of one country...it makes me tired. It made me a little bit angry today. But I think it's just that, right when you think you've seen every side of a tragedy (if that's even a synonym for genocide), there's something else in front of your face.

In the next couple hours people generally had some to time to be in their own heads before we moved on to our next and final event of the night, the beginning of our goodbyes--dinner at the house of Karen's good friends and the heads of FVA who have been working with us throughout the month. The food was deliciously Rwandan (I am seriously going to miss some of the meals here), the company was great, and gifts were given all around. It was generally a happy time. But sitting in that beautiful, big house really made me--as well as several others--wonder at what I had seen earlier in the day. Could these really be two parts of the same tiny country the size of Maryland? It seems impossible.

Imana ishyimwe (God be praised).

[They Built a] Brick...'ouse

We sure are mighty, too, but I think what we're letting hang out is a bit different than what The Commodores had in mind ;) (More like our singing abilities and laughs and shirt-tails...)

Last Friday (today is Monday) marked the Gustavus team's first day actually working at Rusororo (or the Faith Village orphanage site), and either the second or third day the City Hill team had been working there--hauling bricks. And wooden scaffolding that no longer needs to be used. Hallelujah. I don't know how many of you would find "hard labor" as rewarding as I do, and maybe I wouldn't even say that back home,  but watching those bricks pile up (even though we weren't the ones actually laying the mortar and building the walls) and seeing some actually progress (all the while clearing out my sinuses from what I still don't know was a cold or serious allergies to some pollutant in the air) felt totally awesome, let me tell you.

(the hardcore crew--we raced bricks to the pile)

On our return to the site from lunch at La Planete, however, some more interesting events took place (I'll basically leave it to you to determine the significance). We need two cars to get around now since our team has about doubled in size, and I was in the one driven by Alan/King (no one seems to know which is his real name) with Amanda, Emily, Anna, Alexa, Karen and Cindy (from City Hill). We drove for about 10 minutes (just long enough to get "out of the city" from where we were) when a weird clicking/thumping noise started in the right rear wheel. After a lot of stop and go and phone calls back and forth in Kinyarwanda, we pulled off the road and Bosco came to our "rescue" to figure out what the problem was. Alan/King hopped in the other car and drove the other group to Rusororo while Bosco drove us a little further, then ended up pulling off the road (on the other side, I guess because there was more of a shoulder) and turning the car off.

We were in for a long wait.

So what did we do? Well after drawing a hopscotch grid with a rock and Emily's shoe for some little kids walking back from school and dozing on the pavement under an umbrella in the near blistering heat, and seeing another car with about 10 other Rwandans looking to help (I can only assume), we did the only thing there is to do: play Phase 10.

But wait--wasn't King/Alan coming back for us?

Yes, but unfortunately, he never got to us. Not long after he dropped the other crew off at Rusororo, King/Alan collided with another vehicle. He allegedly went to the hospital, but was unharmed, as we saw him in perfect health today. Still...it made us all wonder--was there are a reason our car "broke down" (we ended up using the same car to get to Rusororo anyway, and Bosco just took it to the "garage" afterward to get an axel problem fixed), and why we switched drivers? Maybe it was simply to bond with each other, maybe to have the experience of being "stranded" (which, according to Karen, must occur on every mission trip), maybe to teach us to be cautious (as the driving around here is just generally chaotic)...who knows. But ask yourself this for me: are there really such things as coincidences?

Anyway, we got there eventually and did our after-school program (between intense periods of brick-stacking, of course) and returned to the guest house tired, hungry and dirty--but accomplished. Saturday, then, was a well-earned respite of shopping, reading and lounging around.

Sunday was much of the same--oodles of cribbage, which I have decided is my new favorite card game, but also a nice candle-lit dinner --but today we got a little change of pace. Our guy at Gisimba, Il de Phonse (Ildephonse?), hasn't obtained the information to complete our proposal yet, so Kelly and I got to go with the rest of the team--and I mean the whole team (minus Karen's husband, who got stuck being babysitter at the guest house for his daughter)--to PEFA for some deep-cleaning. I started out on dishes with Brittni, Alexa and one of the Mamas, Anounciata, but quickly finished that task and moved on to help with laundry until lunch. I probably could've handled that with a little more internal grace, honestly, but now that it's done (and I didn't have to deal with things like scabies and bed bugs, like Anna, bless her soul) I'm glad I could at least help out for one day. Picking up trash after lunch, however, was even less enjoyable, mostly because the only means of disposal they had was a pile on the hill going down from the "playground" to the garden. I just felt like, what's the point? We're just putting all of the trash in a spot where the kids can reach it. Then the guys who were supposed to be working (plus possibly some friends) thought it would be great to take pictures of the muzungu picking up trash in the gutter.

It took pretty much all I had not to either flip them off, yell at them, or throw things at them. I also tried to avoid glaring but I'm pretty sure that one failed.

(I suppose now is probably a good time to tell you that muzungu means "white person." You may have guessed that, and you may or may not find it racist, I don't know. When the little kids say it, they're mostly excited, especially when you acknowledge them. Karen has said that now it means something more like "foreigner" or "passerby," and in some cases, it seems like that. But out of the mouths of others, there's no doubt it's used as a derogatory term, and the only thing you can do is remind yourself that everyone is a child of God, whether they believe it or not. Forgive them for they know not what they do, you know?)

So where does that leave me? Well, back in the comfort of the guest house, it's harder to be angry, to know that, as much as Rwanda has improved, there's still so much to be done. But it's true, and I can only pray that God will use other people (or some of the same, who knows?) to finish what we've started, and what we've furthered little by little.

May we all come to know what it means to help rebuild God's creation.

Architecture 101 - Back to School?

Before I get to the stuff that actually has anything to do with the title of this blog, let me summarize the last few days. Saturday was the first real day for me (after rising from the dead), being our "adventure fun-time day," in which we drove a total of about 9 hours, spent about two hours at Murambi Memorial--where they have probably 50 rooms housing actual corpses from the genocide preserved in lime--and almost two and a half more on a 5k-ish guided nature hike through the African jungle at Nyungwe National Park, from which we could see both the D.R. of Congo and Uganda at different points on the trail. I'm not going to talk about the memorial, as there's not much to say on the actual historical content of it, and the poem "Precious" that I provided a link to on my last post should tell you enough. As for the hike, well, my camera battery died right before we started since I'd left it on so long taking pictures on the drive over, and I became fatigued pretty quickly since I was still getting over being sick. Also, we were going to stop by a tea factory near there, but it was closed by the time we got there, so we settled for tasting some tea leaves by the side of the road (which I thought were pretty gross, but some people liked them. Anyway, here are a few quick photos from the scenic drive through the Rwandan countryside:
(yeah, those are really clouds--Rwanda's lowest elevation is at almost 1000 meters and rises to over 4500.)
(yeah, that's a goat in the front there. Farm animals kinda roam free 'round here.)
Person carrying tea leaves on their head! Also saw a dude carrying a couch...on his head. So wish I got a picture of that.
Prison workers (on rice paddies, I think), identified by their orange and pink uniforms (the first means they've been tried and convicted under the Gacaca system,the second means they're awaiting trial).


By the time we got back, it was about 9:30 I think, and everyone was dog tired, so it was good the following day was Sunday--which was pretty chill as usual. Monday, however, awesome things happened. Wasn't mentally/spiritually prepared to run (yes there are spiritual preparations for running for me, ask me about it when I get home if you want to know more), but I was ready to move. Unfortunately, I spent most of the day with my butt in a chair, either at the guest house or the Faith Victory Association (FVA, the organization through which we do pretty much everything here) office, but after a full 9-hour work day (with an hour for lunch, of course--let's be real), Kelly and I had successfully designed and photocopied the plans for three schools (elementary, middle and high school) and an administrative/extracurricular building within a single plot of land for the Gisimba Memorial orphanage and Nyamirambo neighborhood, and laid out a solid written project proposal. Sure, probably more than half of the drawings are not completely to scale, and neither of us have any real architectural experience, but 24 hours later we'd had a meeting with our Gisimba correspondent, obtained the OK to hand the plans off to our friend Sandrali (the real architect) and received a promise of information-gathering from the Gisimba people to finish the written proposal, which we are hoping to have finished by this coming Monday. So. Erin Sister Architect--I'm doing what you could be doing, halfway around the world. And now I'll let that work speak for itself :)





But that's hardly the end of the excitement! As some of you may know, my (possibly our?) good Alaskan friend Natalie has been working at the Kigali International Community School (KICS) as a fifth grade teacher for about six months now, and I hadn't seen her in probably over a year when she came to meet me at the airport when we first arrived in Kigali. That was a happy time in itself, but today was the best. I'd given her our team cell phone number on day three or something, but we hadn't really connected other than a few emails. Still, she gave me the name of the headmaster at KICS eventually, and this morning we (Kelly, Anna and I) were able to arrange a day "shadowing" Natalie. Kelly is the only one seriously planning on becoming a teacher, but we all had a reason to go.

Since we had to share a vehicle with the team going to PEFA, we ended up at KICS an hour early, but as it turned out, God had some additional plans for us--pray for the school. The headmaster informed us that they are currently going through an accreditation process with whoever it is in the U.S. that organizes that, as well as constructing a new science building/library which was supposed to be finished this past summer I think. The receptionist (or whatever you want to call her) also just found out that her adult son in the States is still sick with some unknown ailment, and worse. So we prayed. We walked and toured and prayed and it was so good. Then, just before we went in to see Natalie, a guy (parent, maybe?) who had come to talk to the headmaster informed us that he had heard of Gustavus, was from Minnesota and knew a second grade teacher at KICS from Anna's hometown.

Small world much?

So yeah. Talked to her, went to Natalie's class, had a blast singing what we call "campy-camp" Christian songs, listening to a Bible lesson, helping kids spell, eating lunch with the kids (which included a detailed description of a LOTR-style book allegedly being written by an art-obsessed ten-year-old named Trevor), reading Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and going to a chapel service run by kindergarteners.

Phew. Sorry, that was a long sentence. G'ahead and catch your breath. Okay, go.

Also, it was just awesome to hang out with Natalie, and arrange a cribbage date for Sunday. Hoo-rah. Oh and we sat in on the second grade class too, where they had just been talking about MLKJ day, and a little girl named Abby explained to me how the American civil rights activist made a law that allowed her "brown" friend Georgia to play with her white friend Grace. Talk about awesome.

And then, y'know, we basically got hit on by a motorcycle taxi dude who really didn't speak any English but was able to teach us words for pretty much all of the body parts in Kinyarwanda as we waited an extra hour and fifteen minutes for our real ride. Nbd.

Also, City Hill team got here yesterday, so the guest house is now twice as full, but it's all good. I'm excited for what's in store for the rest of this trip :)

Bieber Mango Caring - AKA Part 2

After a relatively-short-yet-unidentifiable amount of time laying in bed weakly praising God (as in practically silent with my eyes close and my brain shutting off but it was still sort of a whispery singing) for keeping me alive and in the company of such loving Christian people, ndshaka hab'la was still in my head. Now Karen gave us a list of Kinyarwanda words before the trip, which Kelly and I were (and still are) really working to incorporate into our vocabulary, and I was vaguely remembering that ndshaka meant something like "I want." As I was pondering this (and life in general--holy emotion overload), I kept thinking, I should ask Karen. Karen. Karen. But I never said it out loud. Still, about two minutes later, Karen walks into my room.
"Did you call me?"
I smiled. "No, but I was thinkin' about it." God is still working.
"Oh! Okay. What's up?"
"Does 'ndshaka hab'la' mean anything in Kinyarwanda?"
I had to repeat it again as she came closer to my bed, because she couldn't hear me.
"Well, 'ndshaka' means 'I want'...and 'habla' means something in Spanish, hey, do you know what 'habla' means in Spanish?"
Oh I knew. I know. I start laughing and cover my face with my hands. To speak. I want to speak.
"So, you just said 'I want to speak' in two different languages. How cool is that?"
...or something to that effect.

So yeah. It sounded more like habala rather than habla or abla (how you're actually supposed to say it in Spanish), but it was close enough that there is no doubt in my mind that Karen's suggestion described exactly what was going on. I wanted to speak, and I did. God was working. God is working, in me, in ways I never imagined. And yet, this is what I expected--the unexpected. Granted, I spent the next day more or less unconscious (sleeping), in bed, and the times I was awake there was all kinds of not good pain in my back and general intestinal area. But nothing was really happening. Then Dr. Imaculee spoon-fed me a few bites of some too-salty, creamy, green chicken soup--which I threw up--took some antibiotics and went back to sleep. And the next day was better, I got up and out of my room more--sat in a plastic poncho on a plastic chair in the rain--checked and sent some emails, but I was still weak and maybe a little cranky. Definitely had another emotional meltdown (with tears, though this one was on a slightly different subject). So it was really hard, and I didn't feel 100% (physically, though I'm still not entirely certain mentally/spiritually) until yesterday (Monday, 1/16), but through it all I knew I had something good here, something worth sharing. And of course, that's when I realized a really powerful truth in that "cliche:" sharing is caring. I want good things for all of you reading this (whether you're a super creep that I don't know that somehow found your way onto this blog, or my best friend), and I believe in the power of testimonies. Honestly, those are always what convict me most in my faith, and what really keeps me searching, exploring my relationship with God.

So basically, what you should glean from this super long blog (in regard to me personally) is this: I got really sick, had a powerful spiritual experience which I will treasure forever, got better, and I'm still rebuilding my life. Big surprise for a college student, right?

God Bless.

P.S. Keep checking our team blog, http://gacrwanda2012.blogspot.com/ (A, because it's awesome, B, because I'll be posting to that one about our last 3 awesome days hopefully tonight), and check out my two latest poems (and everything else on there if you so desire) at http://writelikeright.deviantart.com/

P.P.S. I'm just going to take this opportunity to give a little shout out to some awesome people I've been thinking about, in no particular order (and just because you're not on this list doesn't mean you're not awesome or I never think about you--I promise): Matt, Mike, Anders, Annalise, Emileah, Meredith, Mom, Dad and Erin. And Shannon and Taylor and Kelly D :)

See you all in February! (But don't worry. I'll keep blogging.)

Bieber Fever - A Bad Mango - or Sharing is Caring

(Pretend I posted this 2 days ago)

Hope those titles caught your attention, because I've got a lot of things to cover, and it has come to my attention that my blog should perhaps contain fewer words and more pictures.

So. For the time being I will limit the words, because I'm too lazy to add pictures right now and will likely be more so after writing this because I must choose my words carefully.

Ha. And now that I have sufficiently wasted your time, here I go.
Um, where to start. Shoot. Well Sunday was beautiful, and you should read all about it on our team blog (http://gacrwanda2012.blogspot.com/). Monday we spent most of the day at PEFA (Pentecote Evangelique de Fraternite en Afrique)--
(insert abrupt and ephemeral pillow fight here, in real time)
--which is a small orphanage off a ridiculously non-navigable (except by our superman driver Bosco) dirt road "run" by three "Mamas," who care for about 22 kids aged about one to ten (wow that was an awkward sentence. Can you tell I'm thinking about something else? I promise we'll get there. I'm nervous is all. Or something. Sheesh). It was a lot of fun to just play with the kids--and work in the garden, even though I felt pretty inept at it...but Innocent and Manuel were very patient with us and I had the joy of hacking apart eggplants and such using a not-quite-boy scout-safe knife with Alexa :)



Anyway, it was fun but I can't imagine dealing with all that every day, on top of cleaning clothes, sheets, floors and bathrooms (which are honestly too nasty to describe, and Kelly was the only one who actually saw them at their worst AND volunteered to help clean them, God bless her), so I'm glad I was not assigned there for the week, because it would've been just that--an assignment. My heart would not have been in it.

Little did I know, that assignment wouldn't mean much this time around anyway.
(Ha. The suspense is killing you, isn't it? I promise I'll get there soon. By which I really mean eventually. Oh geez.)

After PEFA, we all clambered back into the Land Cruiser with the tricked out stereo and the non-functional seatbelts (sorry parents, I promise it's not terrifying and like I said, we have a super driver) and drove to Gisimba Memorial Centre, which is actually another orphanage. This one was a little weirder, because out of the 141 (or 138, Kelly and I have yet to account for the other three in our calculations for the school project proposal), probably 50% were above the age of 15, all the way up to like, 27. Still not quite sure how that works. But this place was nicer (flushing toilets, hooray), a bit bigger perhaps, and run by people who actually speak English (but have great French names like Jean-Marie, Jean-Francois and Ildephonse). We got a quick tour but it was kind of late in the day for much to get done (things pretty much quit around 3:30 here it seems, and I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's supposed to be nap time between then and dinner time at 7:30...but you also have to keep in mind that when you say you want to be picked up at 3:30, it probably means the car will roll in at about 4:04), so we headed back to the guest house for a pretty low-key evening.

Pause.
Wow. It's like by being paranthetical, I think I'm writing less--so false. Sorry guys.
Play.

The next morning we headed off to PEFA again for the main part of the day, then planned to make it to the Faith Village site by around 4'oclock (Rwanda time). Started off all well and good, picking up kids and swingin' them around, having our watches messed with until the Chrono mode was all sorts of whacked out and alarms were going off at random times, getting snot and spit smeared in our hair by the Hair Mongrel (don't actually know his name), playing "Hagarara, Genda" (our Kinyarwanda version of Red light, Green light, literally Stop, Go) and generally having a rollicking good time, but all the while I was feeling more fatigued. At one point I sat down next to the orphanage owner's daughter to avoid the climbing children, and after we struggled to converse in English for about 90 seconds she asks, "You know Justahn Biebah?"
Justin Bieber. Of course.
I smile. "Yeah."
"You look like heem."
Or something to that effect (which she later changed to "hees seestah," but we all know the real story). So yes, it is true friends, even half way across the world, where more than half the population probably knows little to no English, I have the same hair as the 13 year old JBiebs. Such is life.

And it is after this revelation that the real stuff begins. We go out to the "playground" at Pefa (maybe a 60'x40' plot of dirt in the back) to play Hagarara, Genda, and it's getting hot. I'm not feeling great, so I do the yelling of Genda and Hagarara with Karen, but when we switch games, I've had enough. I spend the next 3 and half hours or so in a locked room, curled up on a concrete floor for the most part, trying to tell myself the queasiness will go away.

It doesn't. But we get in the car and drive to Rusororo (Faith Village site) to host an after school program, and I actually feel a little better when I get out. Amanda and I sit under the mango tree with the bench and exchange emails and fun facts about America with John Peter, one of the workers, while the rest of the team collects kids in the neighborhood with the collective call to come: muze. Once they've got everyone gathered, I take the position of videographer for 5-10 minutes, then pass the camera off to Anna because I think I'm going to vomit. I'll spare you the description of the hole I tried (and surprisingly, failed) to barf in.

Then I curled up next to the big metal supply container 50 meters from the group and start thinking about that mango I had for breakfast. In retrospect, it probably wasn't the mango. Or maybe it was, but my reasoning behind dwelling on that was more likely because of Gunner's bad mango incident on the CHS ski team trip to Valdez junior year. (So I really hope someone reads this who catches that reference.)

Anyway, it gets to be about 5:30 and I'm freezing. I'm wearing a t-shirt, but I'm also on the equator. I should not be this cold. I'm surrounded by little Rwanda kids staring and pointing at the sick muzungu (I'll explain the definitions behind that word another day), but I don't even care. We get in the car--I'm sitting in the front this time, with the window rolled all the way down--and the shakes are starting, tylenol is being passed to me, hands are being layed on me and the thermometer reads 101 something.

Yikes, right? It gets better.

Everyone's praying, some in Kinyarwanda, some in English, maybe one in "tongues." I don't know what to think.

Thermometer again, and I'm at 102.6. It's a miracle I wasn't swearing in my head, but suddenly I'm hearing two people in tongues. Three. Maybe more. I didn't even know we had that many people in the car who could do that. In all honestly, I wasn't so sure I believed ANYONE could do that anymore.

I've had my eyes and mouth shut the whole time, but the saline is pouring over my face and suddenly Karen asks me what I think about speaking in tongues.

'scuse me, what?

Well you might guess what happened then. I told her what I thought. She told me what she thinks. Words/syllables pop into her head and she speaks the ones she can pick out, the ones that sound right. Suddenly, it sounded so simple. As she was saying this, words were popping into my head. But I fought it. I thought, No way. Not that fast. But I'm a slow learner--is anything too hard for the Lord (Genesis 18:14)?

No I can't tell you what I said. It sounded like gibberish to me too, but it just came gushing out (even if at a whisper). And then, there was one phrase, the first phrase, that stuck: ndshaka hab'la. I'd ask Karen about it later if I remembered, I reasoned.

Finally we got back to the guest house, Karen walked me to my room and to bed with the rest of the team in tow, prayed some more, and took my temperature one more time: 99.5. Sleep well, she said.


...and I'll finish the rest later because I don't have time (and to keep you somewhat in suspense ;))

A Blog-worthy Breakfast, Bushwhacking, and Bargain Fest

Our first weekend in Rwanda finds our team in both touristy and "local" situations. At about 6:30 on Saturday morning, Amanda, Kelly and I set out for our first run of the trip, exiting the guest house from the back to go up the hill to Amahoro Stadium (which took about four minutes). It was a lot of laps (although it could've been more, since we ran around the outside of the stadium rather than inside on the track), but I think we all were grateful to get out and stretch our legs in a gratifying way (not to mention it was probably about 65 degrees and cloudy, wonderful running weather). We were the only women running, although there were many other people there, ranging from casual joggers to athletes, and wore the least amount of clothing than anyone, wearing basketball shorts and t-shirts.

After we returned and relayed details of our endeavor to the rest of our team, it was time for another fruity breakfast, this time consisting of a banana, a bland orange with a green peel and a huge slice of mango. Then the cooks brought us some crepes and Karen got the peanut butter, and suddenly we were in a gourmet restaurant (at least that's how I felt...it's amazing how much you can take peanut butter for granted).

But the blog-worthiness of that breakfast came after the food. I don't know what started the conversation, or how we got to laughing so much at meals yesterday, but I think Alexa's revelation to us that her Chicken Tandoori "hot, posh wrap" from the airplane dinner on Thursday was still in her backpack--in the closet--was probably one of the funniest things about Saturday. Then Karen said she would pay Emily 25 cents to eat it, and everything got that much better (which is especially evident in the video of Emily actually eating it while Karen vehemently denies that she was being serious and says that Emily really shouldn't eat it).

Risky [breakfast] business aside, the day was much more eventful and we covered a lot of ground (more literally than figuratively). After a continuation of our Phase 10 game (which is still not finished, and in which I have somehow ended up in about last or second to last place), we hit the streets again with Bosco and Willy, picked up Dr. Imaculee at a gas station, and drove to the revered orphanage site which we had all been dying to see.

It doesn't look like much, but it's come a long way from the jungle-y plot of land it was before, and the smiles on the faces of the workers told us just how amazing and beautiful and wonderful this project is. Climbing around on top of the building was fun too, but it was walking the grounds that really gave us the eyes to see how much potential the site and even the country has. God is truly working here, and I'm excited to see how He will use our team to bring out that potential.

After everyone had their fill of taking pictures on and around the building, we gathered around a mango tree for a short prayer and set off on our tour, quickly realizing why Karen (and our Rwandan friends) had told us to wear tennis shoes and long pants (advice which I failed to heed to the appropriate extent). The grass on the majority of the grounds was fairly tall and prickly, and the "path" wound around and through myriad crops planted all the way up to the edge of what I like to call the "anti-squatter fence." But after about ten minutes or so of walking, our Rwandan leader literally had to use a machete to whack through all the brush to make a path. It was cool to see all the different types of plants (especially the banana trees, which we discovered can be sliced through like butter, even though the trunks are about 5 inches in diameter), try several of the crops (including but not limited to fresh corn, a small, bitter type of red eggplant, some kind of potato and some beans or ibihyimbo), attempt to assist in the harvest of beans (which I failed miserably at, for whatever reason) and meet with some of the workers, but by the time we resurfaced from the underbrush, several of us were covered in stickers and burrs, Anna getting the worst of it. It was also getting pretty hot outside, so I think most of us were ready to get back in the car and drive with the windows down just to feel the breeze.

It was about 1:30 when we arrived at La Planete for lunch, and although the heat had taken my appetite, an hour-plus-long wait in the shade brought it back--until the food came. I was hungry and I ate, but there was so much food that there wasn't more than an inch or two of free space in any given spot on the table. For nine people, we probably had 20 plates of rice, fried "banana" (which tasted like a potato), a coleslaw like dish, some type of pork or beef in red sauce, shishkabobs, french fries (not in the typical sense, perhaps, but the fried potatoes definitely took up most of the space), cassava, peas and carrots, a giant sponge-looking and -feeling dough ball called ugali, and even more. I really don't even know how we ate as much as we did, but I know I was beyond uncomfortably full after that--and, after almost 2 hours at the restaurant, it was time to walk to the market.

It took about an hour to get there, I think, but according to Karen, we took the long way. The way was hot and dusty, but our slow "Rwandan" pace was actually kind of nice, as it gave us all ample opportunity to take in our surroundings and talk with each other about our experiences thus far. When we arrived at the market, however, most of us found ourselves at least a little overwhelmed--and uncomfortable. Though I was surprised at how well I personally handled the smells of all the decaying organic matter mixed with body odor and generally unidentifiable scents, along with the extremely close quarters and importunate vendors, an hour was absolutely plenty of time to spend in there, and I'm fairly certain we spent at least half an hour longer than that in the roofed market place. Still, I came out with 18,000 FRW (Rwandan francs) or $30 worth of souvenirs, and a better idea of how to haggle better next time.

After we left the market, however, we still had a long walk back to the guest house--longer, most likely, because some of us were under the impression that Bosco was picking us up, and we'd been on our feet all day, some of us in less appropriate shoes than others *cough cough*. We were tired, hot and dirty, but a pit stop at a wedding dress shop brought us some smiles and laughs as Alexa became our team Barbie doll and posed for the camera, rhetorically asking, "Is this not the coolest thing that's ever happened to me?"

Probably around 6 o'clock or so, we finally made it back to the guest house, into the common area...and onto the floor, where we spent most of our time until dinner, which of course came too early and with too much food, even at 7:30. We got to try passion fruit and tree tomatoes though (which Willy and Karen had purchased at the market), and had a rollicking good time making designs in our corn cobs with our teeth, even though we were really too full to eat them.

After dinner and a devotional, it was finally time for bed--not even ten o'clock, but I was finally tired enough to sleep for 7 and a half hours solid.

And now, on to another day :)

Whirlwind 2.0

PHEW.

Crazy. Forty-eight. Hours. And we've barely even done anything yet.

But here I am! In Rwanda, in a guest house with running water (though it is, regrettably, not drinkable), electricity and WiFi--praise God for technology. Sometimes.

So what have I been doing? Well after about 17 hours of flying, a very disappointing Nutella confiscation, vomit-inducing (and possibly record-setting) turbulence and learning how to "manually" flush a toilet, we finally got some sleep...but only about 4 and a half hours for me. Solid hours, but I still woke up wide awake at 4:45 in the morning and ended up writing 8 pages in my journal waiting for everyone to wake up. When it got close to "normal people" (an awkward adjective I seem to have taken to describe a large number of things here--i.e. "oh so this is the normal-people-entrance") wake-up time--meaning 6:30, yeah, yuck--I decided to tackle the curtain-less shower concealed by a bathroom door with a four inch gap between its bottom edge and the floor. Wouldn't seem that crazy, except that Karen told us ahead of time we'd probably get water pretty much everywhere--and she was so right. Some of the holes in the showerhead seemed to be plugged in such a way that caused them to shoot water out in random directions, then one of the plastic pipes that connected to the showerhead (and seemed to be rather extraneous, actually) came loose and water was pretty much gushing down the wall--

But hey, maybe that miniature swimming pool threatening to edge its way into our room drowned the cockroach I found last night.

Anyway, our team got cleaned up as best we could and headed out to the lobby for a breakfast of tea, a huge slice of pineapple, a tiny but surprisingly delicious banana, white bread with jam (or "Medium Fat Spread," probably a close relative of "Butter; it's not!") and the kicker--papaya. Now this was my first time trying the raw "fruit," and up until that point all I had heard from my team members was that it tasted like feet, onions and something very non-fruit-like. After consuming one large forkful, I agreed with the first description as much as I could imagine what feet taste like. But I ate it anyway, figuring it had to be good for me if it was organic and tasted nasty.

After breakfast we went through some more team stuff, I led a devotional (which I came up with at somewhere between midnight and 7 in the morning) and the GAC girls had an awesome impromptu worship sesh which may or may not have included a dance to a "campy-camp" song (led by Emily) which required moves resembling the chicken dance in the middle of the common area of the guest house. Obviously that's what cool people do when their team leader is talking with the host (whose name is Willy, by the way, which I thought was pretty awesome and totally fits him, because he's awesome) about what the heck we're going to do for the rest of the day.

So what did we end up doing? Well after an hour of playing Phase 10 and sneaking pictures of Karen and Willy, we finally set out to have lunch at a buffet restaurant called Karibu with our "chauffeur" Bosco. We stuffed ourselves on delicious, genuine Rwandan food, then headed into town to exchange our good ol' USDs for Rwandan Francs (which Karen did, actually, while we all sat cooking in the Land Rover and got badgered by an old woman with really bad teeth who couldn't seem to do anything but smile and moan but was apparently asking for money). Then we were off to our real destination: Kigali Memorial Centre.

After a sobering 2-hour sojourn through the history of the Rwandan genocide, we reconvened at the memorial café and left the premises for a lovely driven tour of Kigali--and found a place to run! I think the Amahoro Stadium will be my new favorite place :)

2012 - Here we go!

The majority of the world has survived yet another day of predicted apocalypse, so I suppose that's reason enough to feel good about the coming year. However, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have mixed feelings (again) about spending a month in Rwanda. There have been tears as well as general utterances of frustration between all the holiday events of the past two weeks--Christmas with the parents, snowboarding at Alyeska, watching all 8 Harry Potter movies in less than 23 hours--but I'm sure being around my team will help reassure me that even if we have to deal with theft, parasites, gastrointestinal issues (hey, I could've been a lot more blunt, you should thank me), lack of water or electricity or any number of things that always come creeping back when I realize how close I am to being as far away from home as physically possible (without transcending the ozone layer), everything is going to be okay. Ultimately.

After I remind myself of that, I start getting excited. I've yet to make an actual list of people for whom I plan to purchase gifts, but I've been thinking about it, and I'm actually super excited to find cool ("wizard" in the UK, fun fact) souvenirs to bring back for people. However, I'm also looking forward to bringing something special to Rwanda for my high school youth group leader---not only is it going to be AWESOME to go half way around the world and see someone I know, but, provided I can find the candy in Minneapolis, I so look forward to seeing the look on her face when I hand her a packet of Bottle Caps :) I might be just as excited to see the looks on all my teammates' faces when we arrive, though--that could be a treat (and will hopefully be photographically documented for your future enjoyment). But finally, I am looking forward to running. I'll miss skiing like crazy, and the weather forecast shows temperatures in the mid to high 80s during the day in Kigali, but I've had some great skiing over Christmas break at home and I'll just be thinking of the heat as a tolerance enhancer for Minnesota in the fall :) Or something, haha. I've probably been reading too many running books lately.

So now that I've thoroughly elaborated on pretty much everything except what this blog is supposed to be about, let me touch on wRiting and Religion--I was just re-reading my Independent Study application (because yes, I frequently forget what my specific objectives are, which I agree is kind of ridiculous), and what I wrote in the "Goals and Objectives" section was this:

My project is to discern the relationship between my writing as an aspiring author and the fieldwork I participate in with the genocide survivors in Rwanda through a moral and/or religious lens. I aim to learn how to transcend cultural boundaries in communicating my ideas through writing.

First of all, every time I re-read the whole application, I think, "geez, can I really do this?" or "dang, that sounds WAY more academic than it should for a J-term class." But then I realize, hey, this is what you want to do with your life--write and explore your faith/religion/beliefs/whatever you want to call it. Not only that, but over break (as anticipated, honestly) I felt like I was living in limbo; Minnesota was feeling more like home than ever (and Alaska less, in turn), which I found extremely upsetting, but I think it was because of the lack in my spiritual and creative life (although there were likely more issues than that, with this being the first Christmas without my sister in the same state as me). If you've ever heard anyone describe themselves or others as being "spiritually dry," I feel like that's been me for the past couple of weeks, and the same goes for my writing--totally uninspired (and maybe a little nonexistent...), and I am not satisfied with that.

So what am I going to do? Well, now that I've killed the last hour of my layover in Seattle (it's 11:30 in the morning, and I've been here since 5:30), I'm ready to get back in the swing of...well everything. So here's to a New Year's resolution of really living.

Peace, friends <3

(P.S. That was written on 4 hours of intermittent sleep--on planes and in airports--and cake for breakfast--WOO!)