Psalm 28:7: December 2012

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.