Musings about "home"

I remember the first time I called my college dorm room “home.” I ran into one of my 3 beautiful roommates on campus and when they asked where I was going I responded by saying “home” before quickly correcting myself and saying “the quad” (as we lovingly called our room).  Walking back to my room, I didn’t know what to think. On one hand, I was so excited to have finally subconsciously called this place home, for it meant that this was a treasured and comforting place to me.  But on the other hand, it gave me a sad feeling.  Growing up in the same house in my little Connecticut town all my life, I had a very concrete and distinct knowledge of what “home” was.  When someone said “home,” I was barraged with images of our pink house (which is now tan), the donkey statue in the back yard, our perfect climbing tree, and my tan paisley room which is desperately trying to return to its roots and be a guest bedroom again.  I saw my church, my schools, countless fields and parks, and adorable houses.  I didn’t want to let go of that for a minute. And somehow, by saying that the quad was my home, I felt as though I had let a little bit of that go.  I didn’t know how I could have more than one home.

Then I spent the summer working at a camp in Pennsylvania and went straight to Rwanda for the semester to study abroad and so spent only a single day at my house from June through December.  I had such deep longings for my Connecticut home while in both these places.  But, I too missed being at school and spending time in the quad.  After a year at school, that had become a bit of home too.  And after two months spend in the sanctuary of my camp in the woods, well, I missed that home while in Rwanda.  And then even more- when I got home from Rwanda and was sitting in my room in quaint New England winter weather, I had such a deep desire for home in Rwanda.  It seemed as though each place I went, I both made a new home and felt like I had lost a home as well.  The land of a thousand hills had captured my heart, and I can’t even begin to list the number of things I miss about that home (as cheesy as this sentence sounds). Returning to the school I loved felt so new and strange, and every day that I woke up I longed for Rwanda.  I can’t even explain how difficult it was to be back.  I think because Rwanda in so many ways is the polar opposite of school, it was challenging to be away and I missed it so deeply.  I didn’t know how I could live so long and so far away from a place that truly was home.

I started thinking about the concept of home recently when friends were joking with me about if I ever even went home.  They had a point. I go to college over four hours from my hometown, spent my summer in the woods of Pennsylvania, went to Rwanda for the semester, and spent my spring break on a service trip- I hadn’t been home for an extended amount of time for a while. 

But what does “home” even mean? Because the more I travelled, the more I spent time in other locations, the fuzzier that concept became to me.  Instead of only seeing clear pictures of my darling town when someone said that word, there was a big collage in my mind now, splattered with pictures of all the places I’ve had the blessing to spend periods of time in.  So when someone mentions that I don’t spend time at home, or asks me if I’m planning on returning “home” after graduation, I find myself at a bit of a loss for words. 

Developing many homes all over doesn’t even make me feel more grounded to this world.  I feel like I’m in a constant state where I’m never fully at home.  I can’t be in four places at once.  I can’t help but not feel completely whole or completely myself, because there’s some of me at each place.  And I think of wonderful people in my life, some of whom I’ve discussed these feelings with and some I haven’t, who face this on a larger scale, and I can’t image how they feel. 

But don’t we all feel this way?  As human beings, we weren’t even made for this world.  Living in one place for one’s entire life doesn’t take away that feeling in us that we’re not completely home. And it’s because we’re simply not, and while we’re living here in our earthly bodies, we never will be.  In reflecting on this concept of home, I was instantly hit over the head with this line from scripture: “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Philippians 3:20-21).  Our citizenship is in heaven, and we’ll never fully feel at home until we’re reunited with our Creator and Savior in His heavenly realm.

It’s a strange thought that I will most likely only keep making “homes” as life goes on and that these feelings, which have really only intensified since returning to Rwanda, will continue.  But the knowledge that this isn’t even my home at all is somehow… comforting?  I didn’t know how I could handle being so far from Rwanda and so long from being back, and yet, with time it has gotten better.  And furthermore, that is an innate feeling we have of being separated from our eternal home in heaven, and something we all know and feel.  Knowing that someday I will be completely whole and will have such a strong feeling of belonging is an exciting and comforting thing.

I really hate to end a post like this, because I didn’t really get anywhere. And yet, I did?  I finally felt as though I could articulate many of my feelings from being back this semester, and since this blog has been all about my journey being away from “home,” this seemed like the relevant place to share this saga.

"Just know you're not alone, cause I'm gonna make this place your home."

       Welp, here it is. The end of my African Adventure. Much like after Practicum, right now I find myself sitting in my cozy house all decorated for Christmas, warm and snuggled in my moccasins as I look outside to the dreary Connecticut winter weather. But first, let’s go back…
       The last thing I wrote about was safari. When we returned from safari we had one final push for classes and two weeks left of our time in Africa.  We had a lot to do, but also tons of fun to be had as well! To commence that fun, we had a movie night where we watched “The Notebook,” making a bunch of us cry since we’re all, in my words, incredibly love deprived.  Yeah, The Notebook is a super sappy movie, but we all get choked up when the dogs snuggle, so our tears don’t really say much about the movie.  Afterwards, Kim, Chelsey, Mikey, Lindsay and I stayed up telling love stories, watching “Battle at Kruger,” talking about life, making pb&j’s at 2 in the morning, and just all around were ridiculous until we decided to call it quits at 3.  Since we stayed up so late, Mikey and I decided instead of going to the 9 am mass the next morning we’d check out the 11.  We woke up, had some breakfast, and walked to church, enjoying some good conversation on the way.  As we approached the church, we heard the sounds of drumming and the church bell and as we turned the corner found about 7 Rwandans playing the traditional drums along with a man ringing the church bell.  Mikey and I turned to each other smiling and said “I love being Catholic!” As we entered the crowded church, the thought crossed our mind that this might be a Kinyarwanda service and a few minutes later we found this thought to prove true.  Thankfully, mass is pretty much the same everywhere, so we could pretty much follow along and it was pretty interesting to see how mass was done in a real Rwandan setting.  A few minutes into mass a little girl came to sit next to me on the pew, and she was very interested in observing me.  At the end of a long homily where I didn’t understand anything except the revelation that Mikey had stolen my fuzzy socks and was presently wearing them, I was so happy when she rested her head on my shoulder.  Then she switched with her sister, who was also precious and helped me move my bag when I sat down.  Twenty thousand baby dedications later, mass finished and we caught up with Ross, Mitch, Kat, Adele, and Michael who were in the back, shocked by how long mass was.  Mikey and I shrugged until we looked down and realized it was 1:40, and then we too were shocked not only that mass was so long, but also that it didn’t feel nearly that long to us.  After some Meze, we headed home to put some effort into our last week and a half of school.
        Monday was a very special day… THANKSGIVING- GO-ED STYLE! We decided to post-pone our Thanksgiving celebration until Michael and Adele came to stay with us because Michael makes a mean turkey- uh… er … I mean because we love them!  So we moved it back to the 26th.  I helped Kim decorate cupcakes into little turkeys which was great fun, and others cooked tons of delicious dishes.  We ended up having a grand thanksgiving with about 40 people where we had chicken (couldn’t get our hands on a turkey in Rwanda sadly), rabbit, goat, mashed potatos, sweet potatos, green bean casserole, stuffing, rolls, vegetables, fruit salad, and probably more food, and then cupcakes, fudge, and no bake pumpkin pie.  So delicious, and a wonderful time spent with friends quickly becoming family.  With a full belly, and a reading of field notes, I slept soundly that night!
        In between late nights and lameness surrounding writing our 15 page papers for our African culture on religion class (mine being with Kat and Andrea on education’s effect on the socioeconomic, the male female relations, and the roles of women), we still found time to be… what’s the best word…weird.  Kat, one of our SLC’s, and Adele Pucci found a baby bird abandoned by our driveway and figured we should probably rescue it before our dogs ate it.  So, we adopted a baby speckled mouse bird! We named him/her (we’re not sure…) Agnes and she quickly became a house favorite.  At first she couldn’t do much but eat and poop like a real baby, but we still loved holding her and petting her one week old feathers.  As time progressed, she started flying and became even more fun.  The new favorite activity became standing in a circle and encouraging her to fly to people by giving her a lil nudge.  By the end of our time in Africa she had pooped on almost everyone, sat on most people’s heads, conquered bird fears in others, and been to classes, debrief sessions, movies, and dance parties.
In our last two weeks, we finished up classes and presented our oral literature project.  I’ve never so much enjoyed sitting through presentations as our oral lit projects which were stories, proverbs, songs, dances, and riddles we gathered at our practicum sites.  Our professor, Olive, loved them too, which is an added bonus! Once we took our final for Pastor Antoine’s class on Monday the 3rd and handed in those papers, we were home free! Such a good feeling.  We turned to a phase of late nights, movie nights galore, and adventures about town.  A bunch of us went to a traditional pottery class, where we made bowls and vases using a coil technique.  We were supplied with clay and slabs and tools and got to sit alongside women who were basically professionals.  It was a really enjoyable afternoon, even if we couldn’t take our creations home because they needed two weeks to dry.  Some other random adventures include: getting Chez Lando cheesecake with Kim and Emmie and slapping things with its plastic gelatin top layer, going on a field trip to Butare for museums and accidentally dropping my knife off the balcony roof at the buffet, drawing on Mikey's face with scented markers, hosting “Quiz Night- The Final Frontier- Powerpoint Edition", and a participating in late night prank battle/sister-brotherhood of the travelling pants night.  A lot of our last two weeks were spent just enjoying our time together as a group as we realized we were saying goodbye.  I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of things, since I’m trying to write this a week later, but this is the gist of everything! We also had three debrief sessions the last week with Michael Pucci, the director of our program, talking about our experiences the past 4 months and what we should expect upon returning home.  The sessions were extremely helpful in preparing us to return home and I’m very thankful for all Michael shared with us.
Our last hurrah before leaving was our Christmas party! Five or six types of cookies were baked and we all put on our nicest outfits to celebrate.  After a photoshoot, dance party, and listening to the terrible Christmas rap Mikey insisted on playing over and over, we watched the video montage of the semester that Cosette had made.  It was a wonderful movie filled with laughs and sentimental moments as we were preparing to depart, but thankfully ended on a hilarious point with the video Cosette and I put together of everyone (and I mean everyone - we even got our taxi driver) dancing in Mikey’s terrible- I mean wonderful!- sweater that I had stolen from his room.  We threw on comfy clothes and snuggled and watched Home Alone before our last day in Kigali.  For the last day, I woke up and walked to a free art gallery with Kim, Meagan, and Kat.  It had really awesome art, and it was cool to meet and talk to the artists.  After tomato soup and grilled cheese and a rainstorm, a few of us went out for one last walk around Kigali before retiring home to dye blond streaks in our hair.  After quiz night and Elf, I finished packing, and slept in my mosquito netted top bunk bed one last time.
On Saturday the 8th we woke up and had some fruit salad and cinnamon buns before praying, singing, and saying our tear filled goodbyes to Bubbles, TJ, Aidah, Jeanette, Celestine, Alphonse, and Michael and Adele.  It was such a surreal feeling to be standing on our compound with everyone for the last time (for now at least).  The fact that it was also super foggy that morning and looked like we were living on a cloud didn’t really help that feeling.  We loaded up, sang a little “na-na-na na-na-na hey-hey-hey goooodbye,” which some found funnier than others, and I proceeded to make a fool out of myself the whole way to the airport by saying bye and waving to every passerby.  I got a lot of waves though! We checked into the airport and found that our flight was delayed indefinitely because of the fog, which was just extra time for Kim and I to get beef sambosas.  We should have known better, because last time we got sambosas we got sick from them, but nevertheless we went for it and sure enough as they were making them our flight got called.  We grabbed them and scarfed them down before hopping on our plane.  Sitting between Lindsay and Andrea, I enjoyed a nice flight! Landing in Qatar was our first bought of culture shock.  Going from Rwanda to one of the richest countries was supah strange- but our dinner at the hotel was delicious.  Sadly the pool was closed, but we enjoyed one last girls night of dance parties, ramming each other with pillows, shake and takes, and just laughter and friendship.  Lindsay and I retired to our bed and chatted a bit before enjoying a few hours of sleep before our next flight.  We woke up at 4:30, had some breakfast, and headed to the airport for our 14 hour flight.  I sat with Andrea and Cosette and we enjoyed one last time of silliness together.  We synchronized movie watching, slept on each other, and stole snacks for each other  (thanks Cosette!).  14 longgg hours later (with little sleep thanks to Michael Patrick.) we landed in DC.  We found ourselves in two groups: frazzled because we had to catch a flight soon or frazzled because everyone else was frazzled.  We said our goodbyes at the baggage claim before heading off in our separate ways.  I came though the exit with Lindsay to find our families super excited to see us.  After hugs with my parents, we headed to the car.  A few stories later, we stopped at Messiah to pick up Timothy for Panera, which I thinkkk I slept through.  In my defense, I had in essence been up for like 21 hours already that day. Yiikes. Thankfully, I slept the rest of the way home, and made it home a little after midnight.
So yeah, I’m home! It’s insane to think my adventure it over.  I miss my Go-ED family way more than I was expecting to.  My body is still caught up on Africa time and I can’t sleep any later than 7 am.  It’s strange not to walk places.  Cold is ridiculous.  American culture seems foreign and not so comfortable. BUT home is still home.  I love having ridiculous days with my best friends full of burned smoking popcorn, running away dogs, and birds in the house.  It’s Christmas time, so the cold is okay.  I’m enjoying spending time with my parents and can’t wait to see my brother.  Home is cozy and is decked OUT with Christmas decorations, including a tree covered in pictures from my trip. Let’s just say the word “bittersweet” has never had so much meaning to me as it does now.  One thing that keeps running through my head is the song "Home" by Phillip Phillips.  Cosette used it as a background song and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since.  Besides the fact that it's catchy and a wonderful song, the words have been super encouraging in transition.  Africa has become one home, a home that I wasn't expecting. Coming to my real home has been really different, especially in it lacking my Go-ED family which feels like home.  Remembering though that I'm by no means alone, and that we can make any place our home, whether here or abroad, are things this song reminds me.  Maybe that was me rambling, maybe I'm tired, but it makes sense to me.
Anyways, I wanted to conclude with a thank-you. Thank you to everyone who read my blog and prayed for me over the semester.  Finding out people were reading my blog or asking my family how I was doing or praying for me throughout the semester was so incredibly encouraging. There were days that knowing that people were thinking of me and keeping me in their prayers gave me the boost I needed.  And while there were days I didn’t want to blog, I’m so glad I kept this up, and hearing that people were enjoying my writing- or even just reading it- was also a great encourager. So basically, thank-you!
Welp, last batch of pictures! Hope you enjoy one last time! Thanks to Kassi, Cosette, and Andrea, who are responsible for mostly all the shots with people or birds.

During our Thanksgiving jokes- predinner!

Kim and my cupcakes. Aren't they so stinkin' cute?!

Hi baby baby bird! Agnes

Just coloring Mikey's face...

Mikey and I relaxing after our rough field trip.
Museums are not my thing.

Pottery

Aww! Group shot at the Christmas party!

Art Gallery

Last day in Kigali- walk with Kim, Chelsey, and Kassi

Jeanette and Aidah. Miss these women!

Kim and I boarding the plane in Kigali!

oosh.  at the end of our 14 hour flight.

Had to end with a group shot. All of us, Mama Grace,
Kat and Mitch, the Puccis, and Agnes. Love this group.

The Adventures of Eliza Thornberry!

This past weekend, we all had the incredible opportunity to go on a real life African Safari.  I’d be lying if I said we all hadn’t been looking forward to the safari the entire trip- heck, most of us had been looking forward to it since we got accepted to the program! We had safari-itis all week and once we got through a long week of school work, we had our bible study Thursday and topped it off with The Proposal and Definitely, Maybe before going to bed with visions of zebras and giraffes dancing in our heads.

On Friday we woke up bright and early to leave the house at 6.  I wore my white canvas safari hat, Andrea’s fake binoculars, Emmie tan capris, and my Tevas. Hashtagsosafari. We all packed our lunches and got our backpacks to load into the safari cars waiting in our driveway.  There were three cars of a lovely variety of green shades, and I ended up in the dark green smallest but roughest and toughest car with Andrea and Emmie and our SLC’s Kat and Mitch.  We started our journey and got to Akagera National Park around like 9ish, and the first thing we saw before even entering the park was a ton of zebras! We stopped the car and our driver Jean-Lui opened up the roof so we could get on top.  In our car, the room popped up about a foot and then had a rack on the front you could sit on, and then a little ledge on the back of the roof you could sit on.  After climbing up, we all looked at all the many zebras surrounding us.  They were so beautiful, and their stripes are such an incredible design by God. After snapping some pictures, we rode into the park, spotting some African Crowned cranes and Maribou storks on the way, and then signed our lives away, and began the rest of the safari.  Cosette came out of her very crowded car to sit on the roof with me, since Emmie and Andrea were sitting on the back and I was all alone.  The rack was just bars and the roads were pretty bumpy, so we were continuously caught between holding on for dear life, talking about how awesome this all was, and getting bruises on our butts.  The park was BEAUTIFUL. The scenery was almost even better than the animals! We started out our journey in the park with seeing some impala, which basically just look like deer from home with black stripes on their butts.  We drove on, spotting little monkeys and warthogs before going off roading (Side note, being in the front of the first car was so amazing.  We got to see more animals than everyone else-sorry!- because our car got to see them before they got scared away).  Our car went off the path into the distance to see the animals found there.  Holding on for dear life over the bumps, we saw tiny blotches in the distance turn into water buffalo, water buck, impala, zebras, and tons of white birds.  It was incredible to be so close to so many animals, but the best was yet to come.  Our driver, Jean-Lui, told us that the tiny dots in the distance were giraffes and that we were going over to see them.  Cosette and I were so excited, and spent the drive there trying to differentiate between the blobs to figure out how many giraffes we would see.  Our three cars split up to surround the four Masai giraffes, and seeing these huge creatures in this valley of the park was one of the most amazing experiences on this trip so far.  I never realized that giraffes “shoulders” are higher up than their “hips” or how insanely awesome their spots are.  After taking pictures and just admiring the beautiful creatures, we headed back.  We spotted tons more impala and warthogs, which are hilarious creatures.  First, they look exactly like Pumbaa. Well done Disney. Second, they’re fast, and their run just looks like they're trotting along very hurriedly.  And third, their babies are SO cute.  So we saw them, some colorfully cheeked baboons, and many antelope- who have awesome antlers! After that, we began a very exciting part of our journey- elephant chasing.  First of all, I love elephants.  I’ve really wanted to see an elephant on our safari, even though we were told many times that it’s really rare to see them. So when our driver said that he was on the track of elephants and we passed multiple piles of elephant poop, I allowed myself to get a bit excited.  All of a sudden, we saw two blobs in the distance that were ELEPHANTS! AHH! So exciting.  While we couldn’t get too close, we were so lucky to see them, and I was extremely overjoyed. They were so incredible to watch munching on the grass and just being elephants.  After watching them, we began to drive to have lunch somewhere, and our car chased muddy warthogs! Cosette and I either thought we were going to fall  off the roof or kill a warthog, but thankfully neither happened and we just had a great laugh at the panicked muddy creatures.  Then we passed many hippos poking their heads out of the water and stopped nearby to have lunch.

After lunch, we loaded back up for some afternoon safari-ing.  We saw three more giraffes and a bunch more impala before driving around for a few hours towards our camp site.  We didn’t see much in that time, the road was super bumpy, and we were dodging sharp tree branches left and right, and when we went over a bump and my whole spine cracked, I got back into the safari car.  After driving around and seeing some birds (plus a rainbow!), we got to our campsite. Holy guacamole! It was this absolutely gorgeous site with a fire pit and gazebo and plenty of room for tents overlooking a lake.  Emmie and I went to work setting up our two person tent, as the other girls sent up their one minute set up mansion tents.  Emmie and I looked down at our confusing tent that is clearly made for one person and just started laughing, and moved our stuff into the giant brand new tents.  After a quick nature walk with Mikey, Ross, and Andrea, we all sat down by the fire to enjoy delicious potato soup made by Aidah and naan by Andrea. Yum.  To conclude the night, we had quiz night safari edition, some popcorn, and snuggling.  The next morning, many of us woke up to watch the sunrise over the lake, which was pretty blocked by clouds but still beautiful, and then we rewoken up by Aidah letting us know the porridge was getting cold.  We had some breakfast and packed up our site and headed off for safari again.  We drove through incredible scenery, with Andrea as my safari friend this drive, and saw more animals, including an ADORABLE baby baboon. We saw one of the old president’s vacation home in the park, and had some lunch by a lake surrounded by Maribou storks- those terrible things found all over Kampala.   After our mayonnaise and mustard or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, we said goodbye to the baboons (“Those people throw their food to the baboons.  I throw my bottles to beat them.” –Aidah) and all the other animals, and headed back to Kigali- not without having a contest to see who could stand up out the roof the longest.  We got back to Kigali to find Michael and Adele Pucci, the directors of our program, back at our house, which was joyous! …. And then Ross broke the hammock chair.

So here's some pictures! The group shot and picture of my car are thanks to Lindsay and the one of me is thanks to Cosette.  PS and by the way, choosing pictures for this blog was SO difficult, and I couldn't put in near as many as I wanted. That being said, when I'm home, if you want to see my safari pictures, I'd be more than willing to show you... Here's at least some though!

Emmie, Andrea, Cosette, and me
 in our safari car!

ZEBRAS!

Water buffalo!

Yesyesyesyes. Giraffes.

Elephant (obviously...)!

More giraffes!

Hungry Hungry Hippos

Baboon and a snack. I'm pretty proud of this one...

Storm on the left, beautiful day on the right!

Sunrise over the lake at our campsite.

Baboon and baby baboon! ahh!

Group shot! Us all, our SLC's, and Aidah!

Ready for Safari!

Aidah, Mikey, Andrea, and me at our campground.

"That'll be 40,000 a bounce."

So even though I just wrote a post this weekend definitely warrants a blog post.  Last week sometime, we realized we only have three weekends left here in Rwanda: this past one (17-18), the coming one (24-25 = SAFARI!), one more (1-2), and then we leave the next Saturday the 8^th!  Once we realized time was quickly ticking away, a few of us decided that we should travel for the weekend, since no one had all semester. So Andrea, Kat, Emmie, Kim and I made plans to go to Gisenyi for this past weekend! But first, let’s start with Friday…

            Friday was the fifth annual tee-shirt competition.  We all gathered in the living room after class and lunch, and Mitch and Kat explained the festivities: we would all head to Nyabugogo bus station and walk to the market nearby and had from then until dinner to buy used tee-shirts.  They would later have to be modeled by us and entered into the following categories: most hilarious, most hideous, most bizzare, most politically charged, and closest to home.  We all went searching through the market for tee-shirts that would fit the categories, and after dinner we had the fashion show.  I bought an “I had a blast at Michael’s Bar Mitzvah June 16^th, 1990” shirt for most hilarious and then a Taco Bell shirt with the Chihuahua on the front for most hideous.  Everyone bought some pretty awesome shirts, and it was a great time of laughs.  My two favorites of the night were Lindsay’s Messiah College Oakes Museum shirt which won closest to home, and Kassi’s “This is what a COOL Grandpa looks like” shirt.

            Back to travelling.  Thanks to Kat, Emmie, and Andrea’s connections through their practicum site, they got details about guest houses, bus stops, and fees.  So knowing as much as we could know, we headed off early Saturday morning with our backpacks, PB&J’s, and tortilla chips.  We rode our mutatu (which insisted on stopping at every stop along the way and constantly losing the conductor guy) to Nyabugogo bus station and reached our first obstacle, finding a bus to Gisenyi.  We started walking around and a second after I reminded Kim of the name of the town, a man came up to us asking “Gisenyi?” Shocked we all replied yes, and he brought us to his little booth where we bought our tickets to Gisenyi for 3,000 rwf (about 5 dollars) and then were led to the bus, which left within minutes.  It was humorous how strangely perfectly it worked out, and we began our 3 hour drive to Gisenyi! Now, if you’ve never travelled with me, you don’t know that I’m a professional sleeper on road trips.  This is only a bit complicated on mutatu rides where we’re whipping around corners, so I slept most of the whole way.  I did wake up at a stop in Musanzi where Emmie pointed out to me the huge Volcano found there, which looked sweet in the midst of the fog. An hour later, when we were very close to reaching our destination, the bus stopped and we looked out the window to see shops with “Gisenyi” written on them. Uhhh… are we supposed to get off? we all pondered as we looked around.  Thankfully the girls remembered that we’re supposed to get off at a bus station, so twenty minutes later when we pulled into one, we were glad to see we made the right decision.  We thought it would be a good idea to buy our tickets in advance, but when Andrea went to talk to the woman, she only spoke French.  Everyone looked at me and I stretched my French muscles to ask for the tickets.  After a pretty solid conversation, we found that we were supposed to buy them the day we were leaving, and I felt pretty good about my French, unlike other conversations I’ve tried to have…

            Here begins challenge number two: finding the guest house.  We had reservations (made in French back home) to the Havana guest house, but we had no idea where it was.  Over the next thirty minutes, we made the acquaintance of probably half the moto drivers in Gisenyi asking for directions to our guest house.  My favorite was when one of them later passed us with a passenger, pointing his finger to indicate to us that we missed our turn.  One attempted French phone call to the guest house and many confused conversations later, Kat spotted our guest house. YUS. It was actually really nice!  It had a gate, which is always great, lots of TV’s, a really nice living room, and a super sweet woman running it.  We put our stuff down, paid the 20,000 for the two rooms (split by 5 people=4,000 each=so cheap), and got directions (kindof) of how to get to the lake.  We grabbed our swimsuits and headed to the beach!

            We followed the “it’s just one road you follow it to the main road you take a turn you walk down that road you’re there” directions we got from a man at our guest house, and found our way to the beach.  There’s something altogether wonderful about standing on a beach in Africa in the middle of November with some fabulous friends.  After enjoying that feeling for a while, we decided to find the Lake Kivu Serena Hotel, which we were told would be a good place to go as you can pay to use their pool and private beach.  As we walked there (passing a wedding on the way), the first sign that we were going to be out of place was the fact that they were checking the undersides of the cars with a camera.  Ignoring that sign, we marched into the hotel, shocked at how fancy it was.  As we paid to use their beach, we laughed and made bets about how much it costs a night for a single room.  With our bets ranging from 40,000 – 100,000 a night, we came to find out that it was 175 USD a night, which is over 100,000 rwf a night.  Walking away, we laughed about the fact that we were sleeping two and three in a bed to only have to pay 4,000 rwf a night, and then felt a bit out of place amidst rich mzungus.  We got to the beach and plopped our stuff on chairs, and a man came to bring us cushions and take our receipt to get us towels.  A few minutes later a woman came up to us asking if we knew we had to pay for the chairs and sitting on the beach and everything.  Extremely confused, we thought she meant we had only paid for the swimming, not for using the beach (which wouldn’t be too much of a stretch considering you had to pay for pool and beach separately), so we awkwardly went to move our stuff.  After a few more minutes of a confusing conversation, we realized she didn’t know we had already paid and figured we had walked in without knowing any better.  With that settled, we made jokes the rest of the day about only paying to use the water or the sand, or how much each bounce on the kid’s trampoline was.  After swimming in Lake Kivu, napping on the beach, taking hilarious pictures, and getting some great group shots, we left, beginning the next part of our journey entitled: “in pursuit of food.”

            This was probably the hardest part of our journey.  We stopped to have some soda’s and then took a very round-a-bout route to try to find food, staying along the main road.  I did not think we’d have this much trouble finding food.  We saw very few places, but those we did see were either not serving food yet, or a bit too sketchy for the 5 of us girls to feel comfortable in (although the new “Romantic Fast-Food Restaurant” was very close to winning- sadly it didn’t have enough food for all of us).  After stopping at a grocery store to pick up 3 loaves of bread for less than a dollar each for our breakfast and getting startled by the call to prayer, we ended up heading to a fancy hotel we saw on the way to our guest house.  It was close to our guest house and probably wouldn’t be too sketchy, and once we got there we found they had a super cheap buffet. Yes.  After we ate our fill in a sweet outdoor seating area, we were leaving when we heard “We have a night club, come see.” Shrugging our shoulders, we followed the waiter there, only to find a really cool colorfully lit up and completely empty night club.  Laughing, we headed back home and snuggled watching TV.  While all the rooms had TV’s, we found out that the TV in the living room controlled what the room TV’s watched, so we started on music videos, moved to French news, and then eventually back to music videos.  We got a real kick out of the fact that even the volume was being controlled, and we very vocal about our feelings from when music videos turned to French news.  We then headed to bed, Emmie, Andrea, and I cozily sharing one double bed (I had the middle- Here’s a conversation Emmie and I had about it: “I couldn’t roll over because your face was right there so close to mine!” Well I came back from the bathroom and both your faces were facing in and I had to lie on my back! “Yeah, that’s when I finally got to roll over!”), and Kim and Kat sharing the other. 

            We woke up in the morning, ate our loaves of bread, and headed out.  We went to see the craft co-op store down the street, and after looking around for a while, found 4 really nice padded duffle bags.  We asked the man how much they were and he said 5,000, but we got him to offer 4,000 since we wanted to buy all four.  Such a good deal, especially since I got my first purse for that much and it’s nowhere near as nice, and we’ve seen people selling virtually the same thing for 10,000.  With our bags in hand, we headed back to the bus station, bought our 12 o clock tickets, had some lunch, and jumped on our bus.  We then began the three hour journey home, with bread and sambossa snacks on the way. Yum.

            So yup, that was our weekend.  It was really great to get out of the house and feel independent, and also to see a new part of Rwanda.  Attached are some pictures, the first one is thanks to Emmie and the last three are thanks to Andrea. 

Tee-shirt contest! All of us (except Emmie.sad.)!

Beach in Gisenyi

Our fancy beach at the hotel.
Doesn't look like Africa at all...

Aww. Andrea, Me, Kim, Kat, and Emmie at the beach!

The joys of self timers.  A failed attempt at a jumping pic.

YAHOO! Weekend in Gisenyi!

A poorly written update!

Welp! I’ve been back in Kigali for almost two weeks and a lot of stuff has happened and I haven’t blogged about anything.  Whoops.  Well, here goes nothing!

So, we got back from Practicum on the 30^th, right in time for Halloween! Normally, I’m not big into Halloween, but I knew that there was a Halloween party being planned, so I decided to get into.  The one problem was that I could not think of a costume.  Eventually after many failed ideas, I thought up being Waldo from “Where’s Waldo?”  With my limited access to resources, I tried my best to pull together a costume.  When a few of us went with Rasta to buy his radio, Madi and I went into the used clothing section of the Rwamagana market to find my costume.  My highest expectation was just finding a red tee-shirt that I could paint stripes on or something, but I ended up finding the perfect red and white striped shirt. YUS.  Back at the Kimironko market near our home, Mikey, Andrea, Kat, and I went to get our Halloween costumes, Andrea finding a zebra shirt, Mikey his Ace Ventura shirt, and me finding a red hat for Waldo.  This guy kept running back and finding them for me and running them to me, and after some intense bargaining, I ended up with a red hat that says Obama on it.  Add some paper stripes and pompom, throw on some jeans, get a big stick cane that Aidah had at her house, and put on my glasses and BOOM- Waldo. Other costumes included: nurses, Dorothy, Jack Sparrow, a zebra, a bear, a princess, Miss Rwanda, a pregnant Rwandan mom, a peacock, Field Notes, Justin Bieber, Ninjas, Ace Ventura, and (my favorite) our SLC’s dressed up as our dogs Bubbles and TJ.   We watched Hocus Pocus, played games (so fetch.), and ate lots of candy.  Good day for sure. 

On Saturday November 3rd, I went to ABC Bagels with Kat, Emmie, and Andrea, who had their fundraiser there.  For their internship, they worked at Les Enfants de Dieu, and decided to arrange a fundraiser to raise awareness and money for the orphanage.  I got the opportunity to visit Les Enfants the weekend I came home during practicum, and it’s really an amazing place.  So I boarded the pickup truck with the girls and headed to ABC Bagels at 8:30 Saturday morning to help them set up and keep them company all day.  13 hours, a bagel, salsa and chips, forty thousand cookies, two pieces of peanut butter fudge, The Lion King, traditional dancing by the boys and girls, setting up a ton of chairs and a projection screen, popcorn, washing dishes, taking pictures, chatting, and one African Crowned Crane in the neighbor’s yard later, we were back at home, eating in the kitchen and talking about the fundraiser and then snuggling and watching Avatar The Last Airbender.  The girls did and amazing job, and raised a lot of money and support for Les Enfants!

Some more fun from this week:  We had the fifth installment of quiz night which I started with my Kim, and this time was led by our fantastic SLC’s Kat and Mitch.  I learned a lot about Canada, got some good laughs in about “Hurricane Aidah Meets the Jersey Shore” and Aidah as Tony Perkis in Heavywieghts, and *cough*wonagain*cough*. Another solid quiz night. Another solid event was playing Ultimate Frisbee this past Sunday.  I did this one of the first weeks I was here and hadn’t yet been back, so Mikey, Lindsay, and I decided to go along with Mitch this week.  The teams were 6 on 6, which was a great size, and then, in typical Rwandan fashion, it began to absolutely pour.  One of those “heaven opening, can barely open your eyes and it doesn’t matter anyways because you can’t see more than a foot in front of you, rain in your eyes, OH DANG I DON’T HAVE A JACKET” kind of rainstorms. But I’m not gonna lie, being completely soaked playing Ultimate Frisbee in a big muddy field was pretty fantastic … and a warm shower after was the cherry on top. These past two weeks also consisted of: watching The Vow two nights in a row, going for a late night snack run (I bought peanut butter. What am I becoming?!) with Kim and Andrea complete with a great talk outside our house, a run downtown to visit a craft market, many trips to the Kimironko market, a trip to Juicilicious, several coffee shops, Slumdog Millionaire, hair styling, walking around downtown with Andrea, snarky comments to The Last Song, playing telephone-pictionary with Kat and Mitch’s Korean students, HeavyWieghts, Dutch Blitz, ear piercings in the kitchen (Don’t worry Mom, I didn’t get any!) and the sleeping bag. Side story of the sleeping bag- Kim and I found this orange fleece sleeping bag in one of the closets here and both got in it and were running around the house and being annoying. The thing is SO comfortable though, so I started sleeping with it, and when I asked the SLC’s if that was okay, they said they thought it was mine all along. Bummer, I almost got a free sleeping bag! A picture of us in our sleeping bag is obviously found below… Wednesday we went to play sports together at the Amahoro Stadium, and then found out there was a game of Rwanda’s National Team versus Namibia, so we had to go along. Actually, Andrea and I weren’t going to go, but at the last minute we threw all caution to the wind and ran to catch up with Celestine, our guard, and Mitch, and eventually the rest of our group.  We missed the first half, but it was 0-0 when we got there.  Then Rwanda scored two goals (which everyone gets SO amped up about), and then Namibia scored one and then in the last minute, literally, scored another. So 2-2. Oh well. It was still a ton of fun!

            Some more serious thoughts: Tuesday of this week I went to the German Cultural Center with Kat, Mitch, Lindsay, and Andrea (choose your stronger butt cheek!) to see a movie entitled The Big Sellout. They had one story from the Philippines about the privatization of healthcare and hospitals and such, and one very poor woman’s fight for dialysis for her son. Then a story from a train driver in Great Britain about their railroad privatization and how it’s terrible and dangerous. And then one in South Africa from a man who was helping people get electricity illegally because the electricity has been privatized and was so corrupt and turning off people’s electricity left and right (he later mysteriously died after filming, which was scary and sad all in one).  But the last one was probably the most moving, and it was about a town in Bolivia whose water supply got privatized and it was illegal for them to use their water sources and even collect rainwater, and they fought against the police and military for months and finally won.  It was terrible to see the scenes of them fighting, but so inspirational that they won.  It was something that’s gotten me thinking this week.   It’s so sad to see what greed does to people, but furthermore, how people can sit by while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and do diddily squat about it.  Makes you really think about what we’re called for as Christians, and even just as human beings.
So that's the past two ish weeks! I know it's been a while and this post is a bit short and not too exciting, but I did my best! :] Hope you enjoyed! Thanks to lots of people for all these pictures!

Halloween with the Go-Ed Family!

The African Crowned Crane that was
casually in someone's back yard...

yesyesyesyesyes. The sleeping bag.  Kim and I
plus Andrea in her lil blanket.

Mmm, a view Kigali from downtown

hahaha yesss. Hairstyling night with Cosette and Kimmie!

Andrea and me at the soccer game

WOOO. 2 for you Rwanda, you go Rwanda.

"No fear, because God knows my life."

Well, this past week was the last week of practicum.  I waited a little bit longer than normal to write this one because I wanted to be sure to get all of my time in Rwamagana into this post.  So as I write this, I’m back swinging in the hammock chairs on our compound in Kigali, listening to birds, music, and Aidah yelling. Ahhh, it’s good to be home. 

So when I last recounted my life, I believe I left off on Monday, and had finished my tree.  I decided my goal for the week was to have the library completely done for Saturday, which was Champions day, so we could announce it then.  We’ll see how that went later…

Tuesday as I was working in the library, the sound of a goat bleating was a bit deafening.  More than the usual sound of goat one would hear constantly in Rwamagana.  As I was thinking that Mikey came in- “We have a goat?” Wait, what? “There’s a goat here!” Here? Like on the compound of the center? “Yeah, it’s up by the classroom!”  So we obviously took a walk up there and Mikey proceeded to chase it around the compound.  Just another day in Africa.  I also went out for sports time, which was basketball, and spent much of it playing 1 and a half on 1 of Shema (the three year old who lives at the center because his mom, Sebina, lives and works there) and me against Edy.  After that, the boarding boys had a parkour/gymnastics/pull-ups/whoknowswhat time with the basketball hoop.  Very impressive.  Later that night, Mikey and I went to go visit Jonathan and Jonas, the two German interns who are working at the Center as well, at their house.  We have a nice twenty minute zombie apocalypse walk there, and once we got to the point where we were supposed to call Jonathan and have them bring us the rest of the way from the road to their house, we gave them a call.  But instead of a German teenage boy picking up and speaking English, we got a Rwandan woman speaking Kinyarwanda. Darnit.  Frustrated that we had made it so close but didn’t know where else to go, we proceeded to ask people “Muzungu house?” in hopes that someone knew where they lived.  Strangely enough, I heard “Allison!” and out of nowhere popped up Denny, one of the catch-up kids, who led us to Jonas and Jonathan’s house.  Yus.  The four of us had a lovely time talking about the Center, Germany, America, and eating some popcorn- and then getting talked to by drunk men at the gas station supermarket.  “Are you married? You are small, be careful, you are small. I visit you.” Uhhhh... we just wanted water. Thank goodness for Mikey’s presence…

Wednesday I worked more in the library prepping it for completion.  I started sketching out the quote that I decided to paint on the wall to tie together the grow tree and the library.  It’s by the author Joan Bauer and it reads: “We read to learn and to grow, to laugh, to be motivated, and to understand things we've never been exposed to. We read for strength to help us when we feel broken, discouraged or afraid. We read to find hope.”  I think it fits the Center really well, and it’s also just great.  So I decided to put it on the front wall, but couldn’t decide how to do it.  First, I measured it out and wrote it in straight lines, but I couldn’t get all the letters to be the right size, so I erased it.  Then I wrote it out in a semi-circle like fashion, but halfway through that proved to be really frustrating, so I ditched that too.  I finally decided to just freehand it in a wavy fashion, so that it looked cool AND if the letters weren’t exactly all the same size you wouldn’t really be able to tell.  So, that’s what I decided on, but before I got to start, I helped Mikey out with painting the classrooms.  Like I said in my last post, a new program was set to start up with 100 new students, but the classrooms were nowhere near ready, so painting and prepping the rooms became the job of Mikey and Rasta, a former Center for Champions boarder who Carrie hired for two weeks to work with Mikey.  While painting white paint around chalkboards and window sills isn’t exactly as fun as painting a colorful quote in the library, it was nice to have some human interaction while I painted.

Thursday was just another day at the center, and I started painting my quote and helped in the classrooms too, since they needed to be done by Friday.  In the evening, Mikey invited me along to go visit Rasta at his house.  I was going to stay behind because I was tired and felt a bit like I was intruding since I wasn’t invited by Rasta, but ended up going along.  Rasta met us at the center, and we began the trek to his house.  It was rough terrain and we didn’t really have a light, but thankfully the moon was so bright that night and lit our path pretty well! Halfway to Rasta’s house we met up with his best friend and roommate Imyani, and continued with him.  On the walk there we tried asking Rasta some questions like how long he was at the center, how long he’s been out, and how long he’s been at his house, but he didn’t understand what we were asking.  Mikey said that his English has really improved after the two weeks he’s spend with him- he’s pretty good at expressing his own thoughts, but he still has a lot of trouble understanding others.  We got to his house, which was a very tiny house connected to another house.  He had electricity but no lightbulb, so we lit a candle to see everything.  They have one tiny room and then another as their bedroom.  They gave us a little tour, which we got a video of, and Mikey gave Rasta and Imyani the shirt and shorts he brought for them.  They were so excited and thankful, and we had a little photoshoot of them and their new clothes.  I think this is where the first round of tears started, beginning with Rasta and Imyani and then spreading to Mikey and myself.  It was just so simple and happy, while heartbreaking at the same time.  Rasta then proceeded to tell us his story, which was so difficult to hear.  His mother, father, and brother were all killed in the genocide, and Rasta was orphaned at the age of four.  He spent some time in Uganda, and then returned to Kigali and lived as a street kid (I wish we could have gotten more details about that, but the language barrier really prevented it).  While a street kid, he was beaten and arrested, and eventually ended up in Rwamagana at the Center for Champions, where he was a boarder and went through Catch-up school.  After that, they sent him off for Mechanical vocational training, which he didn’t want to do, and didn’t finish.  He’s been in between short stints of labor since then and living in this house with Imyani paid for with money God has given to them.  Hearing Rasta talk was the most amazing thing ever.  He has no family left, but goes on to say that Imyani is his brother and all that he needs.  He said he used to cry and cry but now “No fear, because God knows my life.”  To see someone who has lost so much and suffered so much in his life talk about God like Rasta did, literally brought tears to my eyes.  No fear, because God knows my life.  How powerful is that?!  And we fall apart when little things happen and we can’t see God in them.  He has books filled with songs he wrote, and says that he imagines a Rwanda with peace where rich and poor are all treated the same.  He views people by their hearts, saying if they have good or bad ones, and tells us both that we have good hearts because we came here and calls us “inshuti” or friend in Kinyarwanda.  We stay for a while and talk, and then eventually walk home, laughing to flatulence the whole way home.  By far my most amazing time so far in Africa, and potentially in my life. 

Friday, I finally hunkered down and finished the library! Yesyesyesyesyes.  Trying to race to get everything done before we had to leave for dinner I said I felt like I was on Trading Spaces or Extreme Makeover Home Edition or something where you’re racing to finish the room before the time is up.  Stressful, but so great to finish!  Mikey, Madi and I also went to the market with Rasta so he could buy his radio, which he’s been saving up for.  Music means so much to him, and after all he’s been through, it’s been something that he’s really loved through it all.  He was so excited to buy it, and it was fun to be with him.  I also got the perfect shirt for my Waldo Halloween costume, which was such a lucky find in the used clothing section of the market.

Saturday, we got to sleep in for the first time ever. SO great.  Then, we had Champion’s Day in the afternoon.  It was essentially a field day type event arranged by Aleaha complete with relay races, Chubby Bunny, a talent show, a message, and sambosas and fantas. Sadly, it’s the rainy season, so a rainstorm threw a wrench into the plans.  We couldn’t have relay races outside, and we lost power so we started late, and the catch-up kids got delayed by the rain.  But we made do, and had a fun day.  Mikey competed in Chubby Bunny, I did the egg on a spoon race, and Madi did the cookie from forehead into mouth contest.  I think the kids had a really fun day, and we got to enjoy some amazing potato sambosas.  We got to announce that the library was finished, which was really satisfying, and I apologized for the many times I couldn’t give the kids books in the past and encouraged them to please read now that the library was open!  Yay! Sadly, the end of the day took a turn for the worst.  With leftover Fantas and sabosas, boys were refusing to clean if they didn’t get seconds, and were continually asking for more.  Carrie left us to give the leftover opened Fantas to the boarders, which was a rough time.  Mikey and I brought them into the dorm and gave them directions of a line and one each, and they got back in line to lie and have more than one, swarmed the soda, and were all around disrespectful. We ended up angrily having to take the sodas away and lock them in the library, and it was a bit of a sour end to say the least.

Sunday, we had church and the rest of the day for ourselves.  After dinner, Nancy Drew, Watson, and Sherlock (Mikey, Madi, and I) went on our secret spy mission and peeked in and watched a wedding reception at the center, but when the bride looked over and saw us, we quickly scrambled to instead have confiscated leftover Fantas in the library.  After some 100 franc greasy oily gas station supermarket donuts, we concluded a good day.

Monday was our last full day, and I spent it putting finishing touches on the library, playing volleyball and basketball in the extra-long recess with the catch up kids, and having our goodbyes with the boarders.  Carrie said some words, we got our Rwandan names (It wasn’t a good sign that when Carrie asked what I should be named kids were asking what my real name was…I can’t remember what mine was anyways…), the boys got to say things to us, and we got to say something to them as a group.  Mikey and I went into the cafeteria where they were eating dinner after and got to joke with them and eat a little poshel and beans, and then we went to our guesthouse to have our last supper and say goodbye to the staff there.  It was sad to leave Amina, who took amazing care of us over the month, as she was very sad to see us leave as well. 

Tuesday we headed off, after saying goodbye to the catch-up kids and Carrie, and getting surprised by Aidah, our cook, picking us up in Rwamagana!  As we were leaving, I was sad to not be able to say goodbye to Rasta, but thankfully there he was right as we left the gate.  Happy surprise!  We said goodbye, he touched our hearts saying they were good, and we got out last hug and handshake in.  Sadly, he told us that his house caught on fire from the radio, which was heartbreaking.  But he was at peace with it, said his stuff was okay, and later we found out he got hired to do some cooking at the AEE guest house where the nursing girls stayed, which is what he wants to be doing.  Again, he’s just such an amazing and sweet guy, with a really sad story.  But that doesn’t define him, and he knows that.  Very sad to leave him, but hopefully we’ll be able to go back and visit him.  We hopped into our bus, picked up the nursing girls, and headed back to Kigali.

So here I am, safe and sound and happy.  So thankful for the month and so glad to be back home.  To conclude, I wrote a little “Ode to Avega,” our guest house we stayed at. Below are some pictures as well. Thanks to Mikey for the first picture and Aleaha for the next 5, and then the rest are all mine.  Sending all my love back to everyone!

Ode to Avega:

Thirty-one days together we’ve spent

Let me try to capture all that it’s lent

Our toilets had no seats to sit

Though my bed quite was a lovely fit

When we had water ‘twas never hot, nor even warm

Except in my hot chocolate every morn’

The checken sandwich was simply superb

But it being different every time was a bit absurd

Shower spouts at waist level made me glum

I didn’t shower very much at practicum

I’ll always remember the nights outside getting internet from Avega East

I tried oatmeal for the first time and thought yours was beast

Sweet Amina took amazing care of us

I wish we could take her home on our bus

The times we got cake or apples on our fruit plates were the best

Trying to track down our room keys after lunch put my searching skills to the test

Well Avega, I guess this is goodbye
Saying I didn't enjoy my time here would be a lie.

Shema and me. Yes.

Mikey and I. This kindof explains our practicum...

Alain, one of the boarders, displaying
his strength and parkour/gymnastics/
pullups/whoknowswhat skills.

Shema and Edy. So great.

Me and Mikey, while he
was competing in Chubby Bunny.

Some of the kids and boarders during champions day.

Baby goats!

Library sign I made with pages of books
 that were already being thrown away

Finished! Textbooks and a bit of the
 back wall.

Finished back wall!

Finished front wall! The quote I painted and library rules.
Left side Knight, right side me.  His looks way better...

Finished! Right wall/back wall corner

Another shot of the finished library.

Ceremonial removal of the "Library under construction.
Will open November 2012" sign!

Mikey and Rasta

Madi, Mikey, Aleaha, and I with Amina and
 the Avega Restaurant staff.