Live 2 Break

Happiness. Joy. Hope.  Those are the words I would use to sum up the last 10 days at Les Enfants de Dieu. 

If there is one thing my boys love more than anything else in the world it is to dance.  Sun up to sun down they will dance.  As soon as they get the chance the boom box is rocking and they are grouped together in synchronized routines.  Many an afternoon, I have spent twirling in circles, shuffling from side to side, and getting down with the boys in our dining room as the music cracked in and out on the sketchy stereo.  So much joy has come to the center through dance, a language and an understanding that needs no words.

So of course if they had one wish it would be to have real dance teachers, not just the pirated music videos they watch to perfect their skills.  Thank god for Catalyst Rwanda and the Live 2 Break Crew who came and spent the last ten days teaching the boys to pop, lock and drop it.

As I watched the boys transform into break dancers this last week I felt so happy.   Their smiles never faded and their eyes lit up every time Pervez (the break master) tied his bandanna on and showed them a new move.  Each time Kate or Bret (the rest of the crew) slowed down to help a boy until he got it, I saw that glint of pride radiate from his soul.  This week the boys saw that they mattered.  The Live 2 Break crew had come all the way from London just for them because they are just as important as any other child.  They will never forget those ten days, they will treasure them forever-- just as I will cherish the moments I got to sit and watch them smile as they spun in circles and hopped back in forth.

There are not enough thank yous in the world but it's all I have; so thank you Pervez, Kate, Bret and Nicola for making my boys know how special they really are!

The Live 2 Break Crew

Elena and I "breaking it"

Heads or Tails.

Driving through the hills this weekend in our rented Rav4 on the way to Nyungwe National Park (one of the only rain forests to survive the last ice age) I couldn't stop thinking about how I was sitting in the front of a car while all around me hundreds of people were climbing up hills in bare feet on their way to market or their terraced tea plantains. What made it so that I was the one sitting in the car not the one out in the elements?  And I realized so clearly, maybe really for the first time, that life is determined by one thing, that one thing is chance.  It really is left to a coin toss it seems.  Because I was born in America, in a hospital to a white middle class family, I am able to drive my Rav4 through the hills of Rwanda but the people we passed on the road were born in homes in southern Rwanda and so they spend much of their lives living and working  and walking the land of their birthplace. It is all rather funny to me that the conditions in which we enter this world can be so different and based on nothing at all.  I am feeling quite conflicted about it, what right do I have to receive a university education and live a privileged life--while my brothers and sisters here spend their days in the fields and fighting to afford an education? What makes me different? I am no different than my Rwandan countrymen but I have been born into a life where I have more opportunity and choice and complain when I do not get what I want, but why???

It was hammered home ever more today at work when I sat with one of my boys and listened to his concerns and hopes and fears.  He is in secondary school and time is coming for him to return home but he is worried because there are problems at home. His father is very poor and unable to work and all this boy wants to do is to help (because family is everything here) while continuing his education.  He is brilliant and he must continue to study (which the center will pay for) but there may not be food at home and his father has no means to support him.  This boy could very well be in the United States or the upper-class of Rwanda where these problems do not exist but chance has landed him here; with hopes and dreams but a seemingly impossible road to reach them.  He told me he wants to be a doctor.  He is smart and hardworking, more than students I've encounter in the states.  He is determined and strong-willed, more than anyone I know.  But I couldn't help but think that this dream could very well not be possible, with the demands of his home and with very little to make this a reality.  It broke me.  In the US a child wants to be a doctor and so he becomes a doctor, but because the randomness of human existence put my boy here, where life is layers of complexities and circumstances, he may not become a doctor.  Even with my tinge of doubts, I turned to him and told him he would become a doctor.  He will be a doctor.  I have to believe this because if I don't have hope how can I except anyone else to and hope is what keeps us alive. 

Our world is complex and diverse and random and I'm just trying to make sense of it all.  Ha! Who am I kidding, I suppose man has been trying to do that since the beginning.

Happy Anecdotes

Anecdote #1:

My wonderful co-worker Josieanne shared a beautiful story with me today at lunch that I wanted to pass along.

Josieanne, like so many, was orphaned by the genocide here in Rwanda.  Shortly after it ended she met an old man who was able to keep her parents legacy alive but sharing this story with her...
He asked her name.  She told him her given name, the name her father bestowed upon her at birth as is customary for the father to name the child.  The old man told her her name meant "best wife, good mother."  He asked her siblings names.  The eldest's name "to be beautiful" and the middle "to always be clear."  He explained that a father names his children to honor the mother, to express to his wife how he feels. The old man told Josieanne that her father wanted her mother to know how much he cared for her.  He saw her as a beautiful and clear woman who made the best wife. Seventeen years later, Josieanne carries the legacy of her mother and the love of her father.

Anecdote #2: 

Sharing is caring....Today I gave the boys lollipops (courtesy of my mom).  Eric was going on a home visit in the afternoon so he saved his lollipop and gave it to his baby sister, who then shared it with her friend :)

 

Give a man a fish...

About a month ago a young mother walked through the gate at work with her five day old baby girl.  My co-workers knew her well, months before she had stood at our gate in tears.  Her husband left her when she was 7 months pregnant, without resources and with their two other children.  Josieanne and Charles consoled her and did what they could to help her; paying her rent and health insurance to make sure that her baby would be healthy. 

On this day she was returning to show us her new girl and was looking for more support.  Her rent was due and with a new baby, working was not an options.  I offered to take care of her $2 rent for the month because a mother of three needs to have a roof over her head.  Over the last few weeks I have returned to visit her and her children, bringing clothes and offering my hand as a friend.  But this has presented an all too familiar dilemma, how do you give a hand up without giving a hand out? I am troubled by this as I face poverty daily in Rwanda. 

The proverb, "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime," rings in my head quite regularly.  I have a strict personal policy of not giving beggars money or handing over cash to individuals because I see this as merely temporary bandaid, tomorrow they will need more.  I believe this perpetuates poverty and creates great dependency.  But I am afraid I have created this dependency with the woman I was only trying to befriend and support.  She now expects things and after my most recent visit is  even willing to ask.  I want to pay for her eldest child to begin school because I see this as a solution to poverty but how do I pay for school fees with the understanding that she needs to work to afford them on her own? 

I am struggling with this conundrum.  The one thing I do know is that collectively we need to work on solutions not temporary quick fixes. But how exactly do we do this when there is so much need?

8 people, a baby and a compact car...Uganda

I have just returned home from a wonderful trip to Uganda.  I originally planned this trip in order to extend my 90 day Rwandan visa.  We traveled from Kigali to Lake Bunyonyi in the south of the country where we stayed on an island for the weekend.  

Although the border in theory is only about an hour and a half outside of Kigali, our journey ended up taking about 8 hours, 5 different vehicles and 4 modes of transportation.  We began in mini-bus that took around 2 hours to fill and leave.  We then walked across the border, picked up a small shared taxi in which we jammed 8 adults and a baby.  After arriving in the town of Kabale, we transferred to motorbike which took us up a long bumpy road though stone quarries and hills.  And finally we paddled in dug-out canoe to our island.  It was well worth the trek and hey, TIA [this is Africa]!

Cow by the lake

lake shore market

Catching crayfish, I later ate them and they were delicious!

the market, everyone arrives by boat

the dug-out canoe to the island

canoe school bus

our geodome where we stayed

national bird of Uganda, the grey crowned crane

dug-out canoes

The town of Kabale

 
Uganda is a lovely country with beautiful and kind people! I would love to return one day to spend more time.

Day 2 in the field

Danelle is an orphan.  His grandmother raised him.  He has been at the center since March and after visiting his home I cannot really understand why he left; maybe a curious young boy in search of adventure in the big city.

We waited outside Danelle's home surrounded by goats and banana trees and curious neighbors while someone from the village went to fetch his grandmother from a neighbor's home.  A little old lady hunched from years of working the land hurried up the road towards us.  She took one look at Danelle and tears welled in her eyes. 

She told us she had worried about him every second of the last months.  She had sent people to look for him and went to his school to try to find him.  She even called prisons to see if they had picked him up.  Finally she assumed he was gone forever, maybe even dead.  But now, she was just so happy to see her grandson!

She took us inside her little mud house and told Danelle to gather his things.  She had saved it all for him hoping one day he might return.  She told us she dreamed of him most nights.  At this point leaning against the door frame, tears began to roll down her weathered cheeks.  She had her grandson back, she knew he was ok, and for that moment all was good in the world.

As we prepared to leave, after promises were made for more visits, she scrambled through her purse looking for a pen she could give him for his studies.  I am pretty sure she would have given him the world if she could of.  It's an amazing thing to see- the power of love. 

Gorilla Trekking

Trekking the famous mountain gorillas in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park.  Thanks mom for footing the bill!!