That's what you get for waking up in Africa

                       

After being here about three weeks, you wake up with absolutely no expectations.

You wake up not knowing if the water will be turned on, if you will have power, if what you think you are doing all day is what you’re actually going to be doing all day.

You feel dirty all the time, even though Kigali is by far the cleanest city I have ever been in.

You wake up and dive straight into the obstacles to life here, even though you have an impenetrable advantage as a rich Westerner.

And all this got me thinking, “Why should I wake up in the morning and expect the water to run? Why should I wake up without the expectations of encountering anything outside of my own selfish little Stephanie Brown agenda? Should I not instead, wake up hoping that all those things work and be overcome with joy when I am allowed to go about my own plans? Ah, yes, perhaps I should reverse my thinking, and be grateful for absolutely every single thing.

Thursday, the power was out at the office literally about 95% of the working day. I did not hear a single complaint of any kind. I don’t know what other staff did, but Carmen and I sat at our desks for a while reading our books, talking with the other staff sitting at their dead desks nearby. I sat outside and read my Bible for about an hour. I’m not sure what this scenario would have looked like in LA, but I know it would have involved complaining, panic, chaos, laptops alive until their battery juice was gone, phone calls to complain to those in the position to bring back the power, and likely more panic. I didn’t see any of these things. Because this is a common occurrence, it’s simply part of life – the unexpected is expected. It is to be embraced. We were told we could go home, but we didn’t. We didn’t feel productive at all, but we were. Just not in the way we had anticipated.

Friday, again, there was about a two-hour stint without power. But that morning, when my computer was lit and buzzing, my fingers typed away, and I realized, this was likely the first time I’ve ever gone to turn on the computer and whispered “Oh, thank you!” that I could turn it on.

Let me tell you, what its like to live in Africa and appreciate the smallest, tiniest things.

I miss my microwave. Yes, you read that line correctly: I miss my microwave. I’ve never lived without a microwave, heated up food on a stove or in an oven every single time I want something warmed.

Killing any mosquito is a victory of epic proportions, worthy of at least 30 seconds of celebration. Killing the mosquito that magically entered the mosquito net as you climbed into bed, before actually beginning to fall asleep to her buzzing noise in your ear- now, this is the National Championship of victories.

All of the children on the street yell out, “Umuzungu!” as we walk by. This simply means, “white person.” And I’ve gotten use to it. What I haven’t gotten use to is the staring, the gawking, their eyes so interested in me and what I am doing as a muzungu in their country. Everywhere we go we hear the whispers, speculations, and comments in the groups nearby: “asdfksdflkjasdfj muzungu aslkdfjasldfjsf” is becoming a hum that I hear at all times. Many of the children will come up and say, “give me money.” I miss blending in. I miss being lost in a crowd. I miss no one caring who I am, wondering why I am walking where I am walking. I miss everyone around me too self-absorbed to notice me, much less call me out and talk about me three inches from my nose. Mototaxis honk as we walk by, and will even screech up an inch or two away and make a “tssss” sound to see if we want to hop on. This irks me to no end. I’m just walking along, minding my business, what makes them think that if I didn’t call them over in the first place, that I would suddenly think, “Oh yes! I suddenly really want to hop on your moto!” To put this awkward muzungu-status into perspective, at an ENGLISH-speaking church this morning of about 1,000 people, I counted six white people. SIX.

I miss water pressure. The water here trickles out at about the speed of the tap that you would get if you barely turned the handle at all. I have just learned how to effectively wash my hair in the most finite of streams of water. Standing in the plaster plate on the ground with a skimpy shower curtain circling on only one side opposite the faucet, this is showering, and it due to a solar-power water heater is certainly always one of the highlights of my day (a hot shower and communicating with my favorite people as the internet counts away, we pay per megabyte for internet usage).

Maybe the store a few blocks away will be open, maybe it won’t. Maybe it will have the milk that you just ran out of, maybe it won’t. Maybe the road you always walk on will be open, but maybe it will be closed and you’ll have to walk an entirely new route. Maybe the most reliable coffee shop for internet will have coffee, maybe it won’t, maybe the internet will never connect and maybe you have walked a mile there in the afternoon heat for absolutely no reason that you intended to justify such a hot, grueling walk. Maybe after playing charades with one our workers for about 15 minutes, they will have understood what we intended and maybe we will walk away not having communicated anything that we anticipated at all.

A box of cereal costs about $10. Cheese is also around $10. Bread is made without any preservatives and so it gets moldy in about three days. 

In all my travels, I’ve never had so many problems with my phone working. I’ve never encountered such a barrier to getting cash out of an ATM. I’ve never been somewhere for three weeks without seeing a single clothing store. This is the first country I’ve been to without any fast food chain.

That’s what you get for waking up in Africa (intended to be read in the tune of Katy Perry’s song).

And, I get to dust the glitter off my clothes and do it all over again tomorrow. The intensity of gratification I have for the smallest of these things will fade, it always does. But it’s going to last longer this time. I am determined to sustain the gratitude.

Three weeks down, six weeks to go.

“Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place;

maybe you had to travel to figure out

how beloved your starting point was.” –Jodi Picoult, Handle With Care

You can catch me on the 5:00 news

It’s indescribable, the Rwandan history and its ink-stain on the lives of these people. At the Rwandan’s core, they are survivors. They are battlers. The Spanish verb for “to survive” sort of means literally “live OVER” and that’s what they have done is live OVER years of pain and suffering and live THROUGH. It’s only mentioned briefly when it’s absolutely necessary, and no muzungu (white person) is stupid enough to be the one to bring it up. But it’s still very much so here, and it’s still very much a part of every day life. As, it should be.

Every day I stare into the obstacles preventing our office from securing perpetrator convictions and get so frustrated by the poorly written laws, the loopholes the perpetrators take advantage of, the lack of resources of the doctors who write the medical reports, etc. But, in fact, all things considered, it is simply miraculous that the country has anything organized, much less written laws or functioning courts, or a community spirit.

This morning, Carmen and I woke up at 6:30 am and walked along the deep red Earth (as Ann Voskamp called it) to the office. We were expected to participate in building a house as part of Rwanda’s Umanganda.

The last Saturday of every month, every single Rwandan is required to participate in community service. From 8 am until noon, no store or business is open, the roads are closed, cars must have an official government permit to be on the road and is required to explain to officers where the car is headed and why. If you do not come out from your house to participate in Umanganda, you risk getting fined. You’re required to work in your own neighborhood where you live doing something toward the development of the country- planting, watering, cleaning trash, sweeping, etc. Isn’t this the most incredible thing you’ve ever heard?

So IJM partners with other non-profits to do work outside of Kigali city in the poorer communities. I read that IJM was planning to send the director of administration for the day, and I invited myself. Jean Pierre was like, “you want to… go?” Carmen and I were like, “YES! Absolutely!” Shocked, as a grin started to grow on his face, he said, “Okay, be here at 7:15.”

In a typical itinerary in Africa, we didn’t build a house. We didn’t even almost maybe build a house. But we did do umanganda.

We joined about 1,000-1,500 Rwandans in what was chosen to be the “national project” for the day. The President attended, worked a bit and then gave a speech followed by singing of some Rwandan national songs. We first arrived to a huge mass of people, each carrying a tool of some sort. From IJM, each of us had a hoe. And not like a wimpy garden hoe you’d see in the US, a hoe that is serious.

We were corralled over to the women’s line where we were patted down, our bags inspected and then we were motioned over to a long line about 5 or 5 football fields long of people hacking away at the earth with whatever tool they brought. Along this dirt road of deep red, Rwandans were standing hacking away at an edge of dirt about 3 feet tall to a line floating above the ground pulled with string. We joined at the end of the line and were expected to begin. For the first minute or so, I just watched the man next to me. He lifted the hoe high in the air with both hands, and bring it down into the dirt and then just rip back as huge chunks collapsed and fell onto the lower section of dirt. Okay, I got this. So I did what I thought was the exact same thing, and not the smallest pebble of dirt even thought about moving. Hmph. So I did it again. Naturally, the guy next to me started laughing. He tried to teach me how, but I was simply incapable of investing 1/8 of the strength that he had. So I raked the dirt with the hoe instead. This, I could handle. About ten minutes later, but what felt like thirty, my hands were beginning to hurt, it suddenly felt like 100 degrees outside and it was time to do that whole hacking-away-at-the-rock-hard-dirt routine again. Not five minutes later did Carmen and I have an enormous crowd of onlookers, laughing, whispering about how pathetic muzungus are at doing absolutely any hard work. It was a scene.

The crowd of interested parties was boldly talking about us. Carmen and I were laughing at our own inability and pathetic-ness right along with them. I know how ridiculous we must have looked. It is worth mentioning that in five hours we maybe saw ten other white people, amongst a crowd of over one thousand. Because this was the national service project for the day, the mayors of each district of Kigali, members of Parliament, city officials, etc were there working too. Jean Pierre is the one who attends all the government meetings and deals with those sorts of things, so he introduced us to Mayors, members of Parliament all day. The Vice Mayor of Kigali, a very nice woman, came over to “teach us” how to do it properly. Five minutes later, JP was informing us that we were on camera. Sure enough, there was a huge camera held by a man with his “PRESS” tag and the Kigali major news network. They asked JP some questions about who we were and why we attended Umuganda. There we are, learning how to hack away at the Earth with the Vice Mayor of KIgali, barely managing to move any dirt at all, next to people on both sides just destroying it, with a HUGE laughing crowd behind us and a headline along the lines of “Expats join in at Umuganda.”

I’m not sure I was able to accurately describe this scene for you, but I hope you got a good laugh out of it. When we finally accepted that we were being of absolute no use to the project, our hoes got traded to others to work while we were allowed to rest. About every ten minutes, a member of the Rwandan national police or military official would corral those not working and move them to an area where they could be working. Military men and police had tools and spent their own share of time at work, too.

Apparently, the were pushing back the dirt and leveling more space for the road in order to build a gutter so that during rainy season, the water would drain appropriately. This will make a huge difference in that community for the road, but also because the rain water will drain into a well that can be used for drinking water in the well. I thought about all the non-profits boasting bringing water to African villages and laughed out loud and me, shamefully attempting to BE the person helping bring water to an African village, so unsuccessfully.

After about two hours of this nonsense, we all walked over to a large field and gathered to hear the President’s speech and his gratitude for Kigali’s people helping to develop the country. On our way back to the car, we encountered another news crew, a Japanese network. This time JP took over the interview and I’m just standing next to him, covered in dirt and awkward. So in theory, I will also be on Japanese news tonight!  

It’s pure genius, if you really think about it. Bring everyone together, do something good for your country, renew your spirit of patriotism, improve the place where you live. Free labor! And the irony of this monthly event—the community’s eagerness to dig this gutter for strangers in juxtaposition with such brutality against humanity just ten years ago—was puzzling to me. Perhaps this is how they’ve rebuilt, how they’ve found reconciliation. This is a quandary I cannot answer, but I was thrilled to participate and observe something so remarkable.

So, Los Angeles, all 4 million of ya, Umuganda?

Atlanta, umuganda?

I’m thinking, Saturday, July 27.

You will have to close your business for those four hours, no cars allowed to go anywhere. Let’s start small, nothing intense like forming a gutter by manual labor, you can just start by picking up trash in your neighborhood.

Oh, and you’ll be fined if you don’t attend.

See you there!

from the field into THE field

There are some moments in your life that you look back on and think, “wow, that was a really defining moment in my life” and there are others that before they even occur you know they are going to be more impactful than you could ever describe. Last Friday was one of those days. On Thursday, one of the counselors in the office asked if the other legal intern (Carmen) and I wanted to go with her into the field for a counseling session with one of IJM's clients. Of course we wanted to go. Once it was cleared with our boss, we showed up on Friday morning eager but our hearts full of anxiety of the emotional roller coaster we were embarking on.

You cannot imagine what horrors this girl has experienced, and I will spare you the details of the abuse she suffered. Last week in one of our morning devotionals with the whole staff, the counselor assigned to this case told us, “I saw God today” when she described the transformation that had taken place in this girl's life because of IJM. Afterall, this exact sentiment is stated in Jeremiah 22:16, "He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. 'Is that not what it means to KNOW me?' declares the Lord." To defend the cause of the poor and needy, is to KNOW Him. And surely, I also saw God that day.

We drove almost three hours to see her at a facility for disabled children, where they can live, attend school, with doctors are on site. There were about 4 warehouse-sized buildings with just beds in rows – like something you would see from a war. For almost two hours, I didn’t see a single child with all four functioning limbs. Wheelchairs with broken wheels, worn crutches, children without any control over their own bodies. It was so heartbreaking, I cannot begin to describe the pain my heart felt. But the most disturbing thing of all, was thinking about these children’s future, and how they would possibly thrive in a country where 90% of the population works directly on the land to earn pennies for a living. Multiple kids were just laying helpless in their bed screaming. Tears streaming down their faces, like their face didn’t know how to look without crying.

Please keep IJM's client's recovery in your prayers. For her health, healing, strength, and faith. IJM needs to raise enough money to keep her at this wonderful facility and for her medical treatments. I beg you to keep the IJM staff in your prayers from all aspects of IJM’s work. The investigation team is still looking for the second perpetrator in this case, as he is on the run, and his location is unknown. The legal team needs prayers as they work to prepare and build a strong case against the principle perpetrator to ensure a conviction. The IJM counseling team also needs your prayers for discernment in her trauma-focused therapy, courage, and strength in sharing love with her.

This is the “field.” This is the work that is to be done. The people to be loved. And there is so much out there. Of the thirty cases or so that I’ve read in my first two weeks of work, hers is certainly one of the most heartbreaking of all the stories, yet it is only the smallest fraction of the heartbreak that is in this world. But I refuse to end this heavy post on anything other than the BOLD courage that this girl has. Her radiating beauty, the huge smile cemented on her face that we had come to visit, her chattering away about how happy she was just to be in a better position than so many of her new roommates, how thankful she was that she was alive, and that IJM had intervened in her life.

As we drove away, it was well-past lunch time, the car was hot, I was in the far back trunk of the SUV on a very bumpy road as I was getting jerked around, one of the staff said, “so are you guys hungry? Tired? Ready to go home? What?” But as I sat in the back of that vehicle, reflecting on the last two hours, all I could manage to reply was, “I am… blessed.”

defend the silver lining

“Pain throws your heart to the ground, 
love turns the whole thing around.

No, it won’t all go the way it should. But I know the heart of life is GOOD.

You know it’s nothing new. Bad news never had good timing.

Then, the circle of your friends will defend the silver lining.

No, it won’t all go the way it should, but I KNOW the HEART of life is good.

-John Mayer, Heart of Life

Today, one of the IJM employees said to me out of absolutely nowhere, "You're so lucky in the US to have both parents." 

Five years. It will soon be one fifth of my life. It has been five years since I stood and made a speech about my mother’s life, her beauty, and the love that poured from her heart to everyone around her. Five years that I have been without her hug, her soft hands to wipe a tear from my cheek, without hearing her call, “Stephanie!” when it was time for dinner. It’s a strange amount of time- it feels like its been so long and yet it is still just a strong of a feeling as if it all happened yesterday.

For some of those reading, you knew my mother well and you miss her too. For others reading, you never knew my Mom. I've struggled for several days now with what words to write that would accurately portray my reverie on what life is like without my Mom alive, but what it is like to have her spirit and her angel surrounding me at all times. I know that she would be proud of me, and though incredibly worried about me in Africa, leaning steadfastly on her faith that I would be just fine. Mom always had the gentlest way of dealing with everything and spoke in only the softest tone of a Southern woman. But then I also wonder if I would even be in Africa right now, at all.

So I write this post two days late yet still premature, because I have not carefully crafted words that are fitting for the occasion, that accurately express something so deep in my heart, words that could comfort the others that miss her too, words that would convey her unbelievable spirit to my friends who never had the chance to meet her. In fact, I feel that attempting to write something that accomplished such a lofty task would just result in a lot of wasted hours.

In five years, a lot of things have changed. I’ve experienced dramatic ebbs of grief and the widest range of emotions. I have directed words of confusion, anger, and pain toward the God that she worshipped so wholeheartedly. I have dreamt horrible nightmares then thumbed through thousands of photos to attempt to reconcile what my evil recesses in my mind crafted the night before. I’ve held others hands in a shameful attempt to encourage them through the loss of their parent simply because I had lived through it yet sat silently lacking any adequate words.

I no longer expect any of those things to change.

I still certainly don’t understand why, but I accept it.

I accept that she is dead but she is by no means gone. My story, of which her battle and her life is absolutely integral, is evidence of God’s faithfulness. Everyday I relearn the importance of His plan over my own.

This is the way it was supposed to be.

And, five years later, everything about this plan works.

Albeit, unconventional, it actually works quite beautifully.

Perhaps we all needed her angel more than I needed anything I prayed for five years ago.

So, Mom, here’s to you, a celebration of your life that I am thankful for everyday, and June 23, 2008, the first day we all got your angel.