Where I'm going, I don't really know. The road is calling, so I've got to go...

So… this is it. I’m past the home stretch and in the last few feet, getting ready to literally fly into home. Exactly two years ago today, Cinco de Mayo 2011, I and 19 other potential future Peace Corps volunteers walked off of the plane into the muggy Rwandan night. Now, ten of us remain, and just completed our close of service conference in Kigali, meant to prepare us for saying goodbye and whatever is supposed to be coming next. I do feel more prepared, yet somehow less prepared as well, maybe more overwhelmed with what is to come rather. The conference was successful, although strange to be sitting at the u-shaped tables with only a few of us listening on as we discussed what this whole thing has and will be. It was strange to look upon these people who I have come to know and understand, in a way that will never be shared with people outside of this experience, yet really not know that much about them. It was a strange finalizing experience. So now I return to my village, about six weeks to go, and I thought to myself that over the course of the last two years, I’ve posted mostly about differences between home and here, specific experiences, and often times complaints. So in this time of reflection and subtle panic, I found that I want to share some of the things that I’ve really loved and am going to miss immensely…. So here goes.

 

I love sitting on my door stoop and watching the sky change over the mountains in Nyungwe, the sun setting and having a giant cup of tea in my hand, playlists that inspire the world around me echoing from my one room house. I love the way the eucalyptus trees’ blue leaves contrast with their coniferous counterparts, how the oily leaves smell when you rub them between your fingers, and the sweet smell of their smoke when being turned into charcoal. I love the giant flowers that bloom outside my house in bright red and white, and the tree that stands outside my old house with huge flowers on hit inciting the buzz of hundreds of bees. I love the steep hillsides covered in bright green tea plants, spotted with workers carrying big woven baskets on their heads with today’s pickings. I love my one room house, that I have somehow turned into a home, US national park pictures hung on the walls, and a Christmas tree up year round. I love that Rwandans paint bricks red and the mortar lines between them black, creating a wonderfully weird cartoon version. Scaffolding made of wood scales buildings being constructed everywhere in this constantly growing country eliciting respect and awe over their successful craftsmanship.

I love learning how to dance with my host sisters, and the way we’ve developed to distinguish between a boyfriend and just a friend. These women, my four host sisters and host mother, are so inspiring, enlightening and informative on what it is like to be a woman, how to become a woman, and the immense power of being a woman. I love simply being with them, sitting, having a pea fight when preparing them for dinner, sitting over the fire, listening to my host mother as she hands me corn on the cob pulled straight from the fire. I love speaking Kinyarwanda and walks with Immaculee. I love that I put in the time of going to church almost every Sunday for a year, and the warm reception that it elicits from random villagers walking through the hills. The full body hugs and strong slaps on the back, high pitched happiness squeals, and huge beautiful smiles. I love how proud of me my community, my village has become, how they tell me that they don’t want me to go, how they tell me that I am a good person. I love that I feel the same way about them, no matter how different our cultures or our beliefs are. I love my counterpart, who was rightfully suspicious of me for so long, and somehow became one of my best friends in Rwanda, full of life, intelligence, motivation, drive, and laughter, she has been the saving grace of my “days in the office.”

I will always remember the time I woke and heard singing in the distance, not unusual singing, as the sounds of song are heard so frequently here (another thing I love). The singing echoed from the valley where a creek had been dammed and hundreds of colorful people were singing with all their spirit as many more joined the ranks of the baptized.  Each birthday I spent here in Rwanda, the first buying pineapple with my host sister eight days after I met her and before I knew how to talk to her, the second with my mom arriving with me in my village and at my brand new house, the third with anticipation. I will always remember International Women’s Day, being pulled into a mob of beautiful, brightly dressed women and forced to “cow dance” with them, being surrounded by love, openness and acceptance. My favorite shopkeeper, and participant in my animal husbandry project, sharing with me, talking over the vegetables about struggles, hardships, the similarities of our worlds and smiling, always smiling, hugging, happy to see me, beautiful. Peace Corps conferences, seeing my group mates dwindle and stay together and come together after lengths of time, seeing us change, seeing us not change, being a part of something, and understanding each other. Meeting new groups, faces, people from all over the United States, and the world. Ice cream at Inzozi Nziza and foreigner food in Butare, the day I first had Meze Fresh, Mexican food in Kigali.

 

I love walking along the dirt roads of my sector, seeing how fast the landscape changes and how often it has changed in two years. Walking to the sounds of the village, kids playing – rolling rings of metal down the hills and roads using a stick, people working, men chatting at the banana beer bars, singing, too loud radios with too much static, motorcycle taxis. I love blue bars, bars painted completely in the color schemes of African beers – Primus blue, Mutzig red. Ordering barbecued pork by the kilo, and it arriving on a literal silver platter and just digging in with forks. The markets, seeing all the fruits and vegetables laid out, and smiling women greeting me, remembering me, lowering their prices because we have become friends, cauliflower, green beans, peas, carrots, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, green peppers. Eating three pounds of passion fruit in one sitting, or two pineapples in one day. The biggest and most delicious avocados I’ve ever seen. Bags of hand roasted peanuts for about six cents. Chickens wandering everywhere, across the road, through the shops, into the maternity ward. Sheep that look like fuzzy goats, and goats that sound like yelling children.

I am going to miss all the singing, dancing, and celebrating, the love of secret Santa parties, and the love of excessive outfit changes for weddings. I will miss my co-worker singing my name as he walks through the health center, and my co-workers laughing every time someone says “sinzi byose” (I don’t know everything) or “tuzareba” (we will see) as these are my catch phrases. I love that my co-worker refused to name his new son Sawa (which means “ok”) but calls him that regularly because it is our joke. I love that everyone has some connection, and although they may not know everyone, Rwandans live in one big village, they help each other, they are together. I will miss my site mate, and his school, where I always forget that they speak English and I have had such impassioned conversations about gender equality, the future of the world, and why the copier still isn’t working. Letting me come use the US-like internet they boast, and standing at the top of the college stairs for the millionth time seeing the tea fields slip right into the jungle.

 

I will always remember having tea with the director of the tea factory, and learning how tea is made. I will never forget helping out in maternity, and learning the differences between Rwandan health care and US healthcare and learning in a new way the value of good health and equality. I will always remember the five camps I participated in and teaching young boys and girls how to put condoms on wooden penises. Listening to the girls give their potential answers to someone pressuring them to have sex before they’re ready. The camp talent show. Gangham style and Call me maybe.  Butare weekends, being with people of my own culture, and weekends in the village, quiet, relaxing, and rejuvenating. Hours of television and movies I would have never ever watched if I didn’t have so much time alone. Reading books by candle light every night. So much time for introspection and all the things I learned about myself, who I am, where I want to go, who I want to be, and what I want to mean to the world. Implementing surprising, successful projects in my village and earning the respect of my community.

            In my last two years, I climbed to the top of Africa with my 60-year-old father, and shared this world with all of you, and I was welcomed into this world by everyone here. I will miss being greeted by everyone I pass on the street by name, children telling me “good morning” at any and every time of the day. Explaining what freckles are, and that the sun “hurts” me if I am in it for too long. I have learned about and immersed myself in a truly amazing place with truly amazing experiences. It’s so easy at times to focus on the negative, the things that I let exhaust me and take over my mind and heart for stretches at a time, but there are so many reasons that I am still here, and so many reasons why I am happy. I’ve seen some of my highest highs and my lowest lows. I have become a part of this community and this world is such a part of me now. The time has come for this piece of my journey to end, and my heart will anguish when it does, but I am happy to be moving forward, taking all of these amazing things, and so many more with me into the rest of my life, and sharing all of it with all of you.
 

So thank you all for following me and sharing this with me. I’ve really loved all of your support and loyalty through this experience. It’s all a part of who I am now and who I want to be, and I feel immensely fortunate that that is one thing I will never have to miss or long for. I feel immensely fortunate that I am able to see the beauty in those lowest of lows, and the perfection in the highest of highs. I couldn’t have predicted this, any single piece of it, but it has been a beautiful journey with wonderful people in a surprising world, where I have found and experienced and relished in its unique love. I can only say wow.

 

Pictures: 1. Drawings from COS Conference. 2. My great friend in my village, Justin. 3. A view of a carrot garden and the mountains in the distance outside my house. 4. The sky darkening as I watch the hills from my stoop. 5. Street graffiti in Kigali. 6. The Health 3 group with the country director and the program and training director.