You are very TALL

There is an intriguing cautious line that has been taunting me at work. I try not to be overly reflective, but it's been difficult for me to ignore where I was this time last year. This time last year I was in Rwanda, a country that taught me so many things, challenged and stretched me. I suppose this is the value of a true experience - a gift that keeps giving, keeps teaching.

Working for IJM, I learned to be bold. I learned how skilled I actually am. I learned to appreciate that I am a valued asset to an office. I learned that I did not need to be told what to do; I needed to seek out things to do. I observed a group of people that worked tirelessly toward improving anything and everything around them despite the odds and challenges fighting against all their efforts.

Our clients at Christian Legal Aid have no other resource or other option.

On one hand, I am a stupid law student with mediocre grades at a run-of-the-mill law school. I have little experience, and I have absolutely no clue what I am doing. I am not bar certified, I have not taken several key required courses. I have little experience with the California court system. I have never been in poverty or in the awful situations my clients are in. I am impatient and get frustrated when speaking with a mentally ill client who cannot express herself very well. I am not an attorney! I have a long ways to go.

On the other hand, I am an American law student with a lot of experience. I survived Rwanda for Pete's sake! I know how to Google. I have a computer and a working printer with ink and paper. I can read a court document and begin to fill it out. I can encourage a client. I have a smile to offer. I can ask questions that lead me to answers as I continue to research for a solution. I can learn. I am more of an attorney than I am not an attorney. I have no straightjacket on.

Our clients have no other resource or other option. If I can't do it, nobody can. And so I am a can-do almost- attorney. There is no other choice. Thus, you also are a can-do person. You are a person of great assets, of great resources, who can be of great assistance. Get out there and give someone whatever you have to offer. Don't say 'oh well.'  Further, we believe in someone who is the great I AM. And so, when you are feeling crippled by all the things you are not, hold fast to your believe in the I AM. And through Him, you can do ANYTHING. This is how law school teaches you- by throwing you into the deep end and watching you struggle to doggy paddle until you wake up to realize you're actually swimming just fine in an olympic race.

So this is a plea for you to fight the line between feeling like you "can't" and just standing up and getting it done. A few travel friends and mine always say, "Figure it out!" when we are traveling. Whatever challenge, obstacle or bridge you have to cross, you CAN DO IT.

And for those out there who you think you cannot help, the smallest thing you have to give could be the greatest thing they've ever received.
It is a powerfully humbling thing to be a part of.
Join in.

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