And That's All... For Now

This is going to be an attempt at a conclusion to my blog in Rwanda, as I'm planning on making it my last post. Unless I go back next year, which is definitely possible.

I've been home for over a week now, and I still have no trouble writing about Rwanda. It's still pretty much always somewhere in my thoughts, and it's pretty easy for me to start remembering and missing the place. To sum up my experience, I would say I loved it. To be a little more detailed....

I loved the natural beauty of Rwanda, and the fact that I left Iowa expecting more exciting scenery than I lived in but totally unprepared for what I can only imagine is the most stunning place in the world. 1,000+ hills/mountains packed into a country 1/3 the size of Iowa, with sooooo much green and somehow so many people at the same time. Volcanoes, tea plantations, forests, rice fields....

I loved the gorillas. To experience so rare an animal in so natural environment, but to be treated as a guest by them. And to be close enough to a 450 pound silverback to pet him.

I loved Kigali. As beautiful as the countryside in Rwanda is, I found myself longing to see the rolling hills littered with little houses. The people walking everywhere, the mototaxis zipping inbetween traffic, the new roads and houses and other steps to development, the stares, the small-scale businesses, the energy, the safety, the feeling that this is where the movement in Rwanda is right now, and the feeling that this is my home.

I loved the mood of Rwanda. 15 years ago one tenth of Rwandans were killed by other Rwandans and the effects are still felt. It is far too common to see amputees walking along the streets, victims of machetes during the genocide. There are too many memorials to the genocide to be counted. There are orphans, AIDS, and intense psychological damage. But for all of this, you can't spend a day in Rwanda without catching the positive atmosphere. Despite the fact that there were 1,000,000 murders 15 years ago, the overwhelming sentiment is to move on. Reconcile the past, go forward, never again. And... it works. Incredible. Rwanda feels like an up-and-coming type of place, and so does every aspect of life inside it.

I loved the children of Rwanda. Seeing streetkids wandering around every day touches your heart, but not as much as playing with the kids at Gisimba. Every child was a miracle away from becoming a homeless, friendless, glue-addled victim, and they're all so full of promise now. How can one collection of people be so loving to each other and everyone who visits? If there is any image to represent Rwanda and the hope for the future, it would be Gisimba.

I loved.... the mixed emotions I have for the government of Rwanda. It's not perfect - spend enough time and you'll find the complaints. No free press... a portion of the people who live in extreme poverty without a voice and with little attention from anyone... made up government statistics. Then again, 15 years ago one tenth of Rwandans were killed by other Rwandans. Nowadays the victims have be neighbors with the murderers. Everything needs to be put in that context. How do you ever go about making a functional country from that? And Rwanda isn't functional, it's one of the leading examples of a successful African state. Yes, Kagame could potentially turn into the next Idi Amin or Mobuto if he chose, but he really truly doesn't seem to be inclined that way. In fact, he seems to be genuinely concerned with nothing more than the betterment of Rwanda. He knows exactly how he wants to do that, and he does it. He invents jobs out of thin air for the people, forces development to occur even at the expense of slum housing, puts the whole country into a local gov't organization system, tries sooo hard to change the idea of horror and tragedy the world associates with Rwanda. Above all, he educates... and I have never seen a better case for the importance of education. There are 1,000,000 Rwandans dedicating their lives to coming to a university in the USA, and I didn't even have to try to do it. Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of students entering universities in America will not finish their degree... how can I believe we deserve the opportunity to throw away opportunities simply because we were born in America instead of Rwanda?

Finally, most importantly, most unforgettably, I loved the people I met who made my time in Rwanda worth repeating again and again and again. The children who moved me. The teachers who charmed and inspired me with their dedication and motivation. The students who I made friends with, who told me about Rwanda, who gave me a perspective I can relate to, and a conversation I could easily have. The students who also inspired me with their dedication and motivation, and changed me so that I will never, ever, ever take my education for granted again. The hotel workers who were beyond friendly. The government workers who were so concerned with improving their country. The families who welcomed us into their homes. The woman who wished me peace in mass. The friends I made, for being friends. Our drivers... for, literally, everything. I have never felt so welcomed before in my life - 10,000 miles from home.

I could go on, but that would be fairly counterproductive to my goal of concluding my blog. Instead, I have stolen two quotes from my awesome friend and like-minded travel buddy to end with, pretty much summing up my thoughts on life right now.

"How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light."

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."

I won't stay away.

Can't Help but Compare...

So I guess there's still some blogging I'm supposed to do. As much as Rwanda dominates my thoughts of our trip in Africa, we did also spend some time in Tanzania. It was probably a necessary step in the process of coming home... it was hard enough to leave Rwanda for a vacation in Tanzania, it would have been just about impossible to leave for the US.

Our time in Tanzania was pretty much one big safari, so rather than give a boring day by day account of 'we went here and saw this' on repeat I'll just give the highlights.

- The list of parks visited: Tarangeri National Park, Lake Manyara, and Ngorongoro Crater

- The list of animals seen: elephants, giraffes, zebras, lions, hippos, rhinos, wildebeests, warthogs, baboons, hyenas, impalas, a few other antelopes, and lots and lots of different birds

- The list of animals missed: leopard and (most disappointingly to me) cheetah

- We really stayed in luxury in Tanzania. The two lodges we had both provided 4 course dinners, shows of some sort for nightly entertainment, big and fancy rooms, and people to carry your luggage wherever you go. Not really what I had in mind for a trip to Africa.

- The landscape of Tanzania is pretty beautiful (although nothing close to Rwanda). I think that Disney's Lion King is inspired 100% from Tanzania. Everywhere we went made me think of the Lion King, which was a little funny I guess. The open, empty countryside was a totally different change from the population-dense Rwanda.

- The highlight of the time in Tanzania was probably watching the Champions League Final (kind of like the Super Bowl of soccer) at one of our lodges. I'm a Barcelona fan, and they won 2-0 over Manchester United. I made a few friends from Spain and maybe a little hostility from a British couple.

- The highlight of the safari was in Ngorongoro Crater, when we came across a male lion. At first he was just laying around relaxing, but after a while he got up and started to wander around. He walked right next to our jeep... dead serious, if I would have reached out the window I could have petted him. Pretty cool.

- Simba's lack of interest in the humans surrounding him also kind of illustrates a problem with the whole safari thing. Supposedly this was us seeing a lion in its 'natural environment', and yet he just walked around and through a crowd of jeeps with people leaning out to take photos and gawk at him like he didn't even know we were there. The wildlife is obviously completely accustomed to the presence of humans, which seems to not really be a 'natural environment' to me. Apparently they're discussing closing off the crater for a few years in order to remedy this, which I'll admit I can definitely understand.

Really Tanzania the country was overtouristed in my opinion. Gone were the constant stares of people at the sight of a group of muzungus; in their place were swarms of hawkers harassing us into buying necklaces or whatever souvenir every time our jeep came to a complete stop. Everywhere we drove, I could not believe the number of tourist shops that existed. Can an entire country exist where the only real source of income is tourism?

I couldn't help but compare Tanzania with Rwanda, especially since at that point in time I was pretty much dedicating every waking thought to Rwanda anyway. I have to say, the comparison didn't go too well for Tanzania. I'm sure that a major reason just had to do with our purpose in being in each country, but I also think that reflects the country itself. Tanzania is a country of tourism, and as a result our time there consisted of lots and lots of animals and luxury. Tourism is basically nonexistant in Rwanda outside of the gorillas, and as a result our time there consisted of working with people and making meaningful connections. Even though we were more detached from the daily life of Rwanda than I would have preferred, I still feel as though we really had the opportunity to see the country for what it is and learn about this wonderful place. The attachment I felt to Rwanda was obvious when we were getting ready to leave Tanzania in the airport. I had no trouble leaving Tanzania, I just couldn't believe that we weren't getting on a plane to head back to Kigali. I definitely wasn't ready yet.

I think the best way I have of summing it up is what I told our program director as we were boarding our plane, when she asked me what I thought about our vacation in Tanzania.

"I have nearly all of my souvenirs from Tanzania, but all of my memories are from Rwanda."

Left Behind

Luckily I was too busy most of the day on Tuesday to be depressed about it being my last day in Rwanda. If I had been given too much time to think about it, my passport may not have made it all the way to the airport.

I spent the whole morning getting packed up and preparing for the presentation we would be giving that afternoon at Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) to university students about what we had learned on our trip. Not surprisingly, we returned to Bourbon Coffee for lunch and finalizing the presentation. Somehow I was delegated the responsibility of putting together the whole thing over lunch, so I can't really say it was a relaxing time.

In a perfect summary of our experience with 'African Time', we were rushing to get everything finalized for our presentation and ended up arriving at KIE about 45 minutes later than planned and about 15 minutes after we were supposed to have started presenting. Not to worry, though, because John, our contact at KIE, had made absolutely zero preparations for us to present by the time we got there. We had to tell him again everything we needed for the presentation and he went about making arrangements. The students of KIE seemed to be the truly informed ones, as everyone showed up about an hour after we were supposed to start presenting, just a little bit before we did actually get around to starting.

When we finally began, it was really a little bit awkward. What do we tell Rwandans about Rwanda? I felt like we were walking a fine line between being interesting, insightful, condescending, and offensive. More like balancing at the top of a pyramid I guess. I was particularly unsure for myself, considering I was comparing American healthcare to Rwandan healthcare. It didn't make me feel any better when we were grilled with some really tough questions afterwards, including some instances of being told that our information was totally wrong (such as not knowing the correct number of districts and provinces in Rwanda...oops).

I was really afraid we had done a poor job, so I was amazed and delighted when all the people I talked to afterward during our 'mingling time' were all very pleased and thanked me for the presentation. Maybe we had managed to balance after all. Anyway, I was really glad not to have offended anyone, and I even made a few friends in the process.

We said our goodbyes to our new friends at KIE only to head to Gisimba in order to say our goodbyes there as well. While I don't think we connected with the orphanage as much as last year's group might have, it was still really hard to leave. One moment that really got me was when a boy I had played with quite a bit walked up to me. He hardly knew any English, so he just outlined tears on his cheeks with his fingers and stared at me. Ouch.

As I was talking to Ashley she brought up another pretty sad reality: the depth to which all the kids understood what was going on. They had gone through it many times before - everyone that comes and helps out at Gisimba eventually ends up leaving too. It gave me an even greater understanding and appreciation for the relationship all the orphans have with each other...

... And before I knew it we were driving away. We went to the Hotel Des Mille Collines (from the movie Hotel Rwanda) to spend the evening since our plane wasn't leaving until 4am and we had already checked out of Chez Lando. I got a few humbling lessons in igisoro, my new game, from one of drivers Guillaum. As a group I think we really bonded with our drivers/translators/fixers, and I know I'll really miss them.

They took us to the airport around midnight, and I had to say goodbye to both our drivers and the city that I'd spent the last few weeks falling in love with. It was a little unreal... I felt like I was just going on another weekend trip and would be coming home before too long. Instead I was moving on, but not without leaving a part of me in this little country in Africa.