Rwamagana: A Field Journal

So it's time to get real. 

After the first month (??) of living in Rwanda, I am finally settling into my home and routine for the year. I want to start exploring stories, challenges, and lessons learned from this community, but that's hard to do without giving you an idea of what my life is like day to day.

So in the interest of creating a true jumping off point and also just to appease my mother, I would like to cordially invite you to experience a day as a YAGM in Rwamagana, Rwanda:

5:45 am – You groggily half-wake to the muted shuffling of your roommate, Katie, leaving for her morning run. She’s training for a marathon…you go back to sleep. Good start.

My bed! As you can see I literally roll out of it and into the world. 

6:50 am – After a third alarm, you finally roll out of bed. You pick the first skirt/v-neck/headband combo that will pass for matching. On good days you remember to put on deodorant, but you always put on sunscreen. I repeat: always.

7:00 am –You stumble into the kitchen and start boiling water immediately. Your only thought is for coffee-some things never change. When the water is ready, you pour it over the single-cup filter perched precariously on top of your favorite mug, the one with the picture of the seductive lady. You grab last night’s leftover chapatti, two small bananas, the coffee, A Mercy by Toni Morrison, and voila! Breakfast of champions!

The seductive lady, also known as the bigger
of our two mugs.

7:35 am – You rush, last minute, to fill your school bag with things you’ll need for the day: poetry journal, water bottle, rain coat, Kinyarwanda flashcards, and head out with Katie, locking the gate behind you.

8:00 am (ish) –You complete the 1.4 mile walk to school wherein you say “Maramutse” (Good morning) NO LESS THAN 30 times as you are met with choruses of “Muzungu!” (white person), “Good afternoon”, and of course, silent stares. You enjoy this time of neighborly greetings and gazes interrupted by smiles as you wave-plus it’s a good morning workout.

Rwamagana Lutheran School, my workplace for the next year.

8:15 am – First order of business, procure that sweet morning nectar, African Tea. It’s basically milk with a side of tea wrapped in a blanket of spicy ginger. You pour yourself a plastic mug full, add sugar at will, and get to work.

8:30 am to 12:15 pm – You attend Biology, Chemistry, and Physics classes as they are offered. You help the teachers monitor the rooms, answer questions, and brainstorm ways to make their science classes more experiential.

12:15 pm – Lunch. Good, because of course you’re already hungry; that baby banana didn’t hold you over like you thought it would. Lunch consists of the following: a starch (rice, corn ugali, sweet potatoes, or matoke) and a bean/carrot/eggplant soup. Except Wednesdays which are magical fairy dust days that involve a mid-morning snack and fries for lunch. Regardless, you are thankful for the meal you’re given-Lord knows you can’t cook to save your life and these meals are warm, tasty, and free.

1:25 pm to 4:00 pm - Player’s Choice: You write the occasional poem, sit in more science classes, chat with students, help teach music classes, or fulfill your duties as a school librarian.

4:00 pm – You hang around for one of the many after-school activities (student Bible Study, rehearsal for Graduation performance, giving guitar lessons, choir practice) where you actually start getting to know students.

5:00 pm – You and Katie start the walk home, stopping by the market or a store on the way to procure an edible item you will try to make into dinner.

Our beautiful, banana tree-lined street.

5:45 pm – You’re home! You hear the incessantly aggravating yet comforting beep of the electricity meter that indicates that the power is still on. You greet the night guard, Mose, and walk in the house to find that your house mama, Mama Eric, has cleaned your clothes and folded them neatly on your made bed. You thank the good Lord for her, and question once more whether or not she is actually an angel.

6:30 pm – Dinnertime. When you’re feeling really domestic you chop up whatever is available and sauté it or boil some noodles, most days you grab a chapatti from the corner store, slice up an avocado, add some salt, and call it good. You eat dinner while chatting with Katie about something or other; luckily she’s not judgey about your shoddy cooking practices, bless her.

An impossibly nice yet severely under-utilized kitchen

7:30 pm – You walk outside and offer Mose some tea. He accepts, and you chat with him in Kinyarwanda as the water boils. He tells you about his children and you tell him about school. You suck at Kinyarwanda so there is a lot of charade-like pantomiming involved in the conversation, but you both usually get the gist. When it is ready, you hand him his tea (with two spoons of powdered milk and one spoon of sugar), and tell him good night. He reminds you to shut your window so the mosquitoes won’t get in.

8:30 pm – You are WIPED. You chat with Katie some more, change into comfy clothes, and wash your feet, red with dust, in your small bathroom. You brush your teeth using filtered water from your Nalgene and retreat to your room for the evening.

9:30 pm – You untie the mosquito net hanging above the bed and drape it around you-your nightly cocoon. You turn off the light, read or check your messages for a few minutes by head lamp, and say a prayer of thanks for another day in Rwamagana.

There aren't words for the beauty of creation in Rwamagana.

*Editor's Note: As a YAGM, schedules may change quickly and without warning. See also being invited somewhere last minute by your pastor, receiving 20 pounds of meat on your doorstep, and/or teaching classes of students how to beat box. Anything can happen. 

First(s) and Last(s)

"What will you miss most?"

 It's a question my country coordinator asked me during my interview for a placement in Rwanda. Of course, I responded with a flippant "Tex-Mex and Clemson football" (both totally true), but over the past few weeks and months I have discovered that saying goodbye to home involves a lot more missing than I thought, it involves a lot of ‘lasts’. For me, this has included but not been limited to the last time I:

         Hugged my family

         Watched a Montana sunset

         Worshiped with my home congregation

         Went fishing with my brother

         Ate sushi

         Watched a college football game that I didn’t have to wake up at 1:30 am to catch

         Played music with my sister

The list goes on. I spent weeks leading up to my departure for Rwanda mourning the loss of these things that I was doing for the ‘last time’, struggling with the idea of living without them even just for a year (yes, Clemson football matters THAT much).

I started pondering (shocking, I know) this idea of lasts and goodbyes during my first few weeks in Rwanda. As I did, a bible verse I have known most of my life found its way onto my heart. It is a story from the book of Matthew, chapter 19 in which Jesus is talking to a young man about what it takes to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. At the end of the story, after he has told the young man what he must do, Jesus tells him:

“Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or fields for my sake will inherit eternal life. So the last will be first and the first will be last.” 

Matt 19:29-30

Now, when I was younger, I was under the impression that the story was just about money and rich people and needles and camels, but sitting under my mosquito net on my bed in my new Rwandan home, it occurs to me that it could mean more.

Today I see a call in this passage; we have to leave. To live life abundantly, we have to be willing to abandon whatever is most familiar and open ourselves up to the possibility of a world that is so deliciously diverse we could wade through the differences for an eternity. As I said in my blog when I arrived in Rwanda (shameless self plug), we are called to constantly walk through new doors. So now, I want to share with you now what I have found on my journey of stepping through those doors so far.

I have discovered this: When we leave what is comfortable for the sake of love we bring pieces of the Kingdom to us here and now, and Jesus tells us that the Kingdom we bring is like this: a place where last(s) will be first(s). And first(s) will be last(s). And so on and so forth forever.

All of the lasts listed above were difficult and painful because of the love I have for those people and places, but the pain of lasts has been accompanied by the joy of firsts in Rwanda, like the first time I:

         Devoured a fresh passion fruit embarrassingly quickly

         Was awed by the splendor of LITERALLY a thousand hills

         Drank African coffee (coffee/milk/ginger/chocolate/heaven)

         Saw someone’s face light up because I [poorly] attempted to speak Kinyarwanda

         Helped make my country coordinator laugh until she cried

         Learned a song in Kinyarwanda from my friend, Ngabire

         Left the doors open all day to feel the breeze (not possible in Texas, friends)

         Attended an international soccer game with friends from 3 countries

         Made pesto by hand

         Was greeted with “Karibu”, “You are most welcome”

Proof positive that I made pesto. 

These hills.

                                   

At the national museum, the sign is written  in Kinwarywanda,
but most people say 'Karibu" which is 'Welcome" in Kiswahili!

And today, another massive first: my first day in my new home in Rwamagana. It was the first time I saw the school where I’ll work. It was the first (though certainly not the last) time I had a group of students laugh at me for trying to dance. It was the first time I met the faces that comprise the community I will work to become a part of this year. It was the first time I walked through town, the first time I ate goat brochettes, and the first time I was shocked into silence by the beauty of a star-filled rural Rwandan sky. These firsts were accompanied by a last: my last day of in-country orientation with my fellow Rwanda YAGM, whom I love dearly. 

But that's just it! That is the promise of our God - if we push ourselves through new doors, the last(s) will be first(s), and those firsts will become new ‘lasts’ we love almost too much to leave.

Yeah, These fools were hard to leave. Love them to pieces. 

 My hope for myself, for you, and for the kingdom, then, is this short blessing I wrote upon reflection on my first month here:

May you let go of lasts with peace in goodbyes,

May you always find firsts with wonder-filled eyes.

And whenever the chance is presented to you,

May you suck all the sweetness from life’s passion fruit.


Love, Sav

One Bread, One Body.

Edward, a young Rwandan member of the Lutheran Church in Kigali, leans over to me every few minutes to translate parts of the service we're attending into English. In a low voice, he tells me a short summary of what the preacher just said in Kiswahili. I’ve been in language school for two days learning Kinyarwanda, and now happen to find myself at the Lutheran Church’s monthly Kiswahili service. I don’t mind. I probably would have understood about the same amount either way (about zero).

Lutheran Church of Rwanda Kigali Parish: my church home for the next few weeks!

About two thirds of the way through the service, Edward leans over, “Communion.” he says. I appreciate his help, but this one I had on lock. I watch as the pastor breaks the bread and pours the wine, something I’ve watched my own father do most Sundays of my life. I walk up to the railing (with a slight prod from Edward and an encouraging nod from my Program Coordinator, Pastor Kate) and kneel at the altar. I receive a wafer in my hands and place it on my tongue. This is the body broken for me. I don’t need a translation to know the pastor’s words. I am the body. I know. As the tray of wine comes by, I tentatively reach for a cup. This is the blood poured out for me. I say a short prayer and walk back to my seat. I reflect, quietly, on what just happened. I just communed with a Kiswahili speaking congregation…in Kigali...in Rwanda...where I live.

And suddenly I could be anywhere. I am everywhere.

I am finally across the table from my granddaddy again. I am breaking bread with my grandmother as she hums the hymns that quietly coax me to sleep. I am at Lutheridge in an Upper Craft Lodge on a Thursday, I am at Briarwood on a Friday afternoon, I am at Flathead on a Sunday morning-the sun spilling over my face like water. I am in a circle with 74 YAGM and the communities they are serving all over the world. I’m holding the hands of all of the best friends I left in the U.S. I’m in a pew next to my sweet family, my siblings and I trying not to attract too much attention as we make each other giggle. I am home. I am here. I am in the Kingdom of God. I am in Rwanda.

And slowly I realize that I have always been here, at this same table next to my new Rwandan friends. My whole life, I have been seated beside the kind souls of Edward and Veronica and Frank, speaking Kiswahili and Kinyarwanda and English. I have been surrounded by a communion of saints who-though I could not see them-were no less present with me every other time I took communion than they are now.

LCR Kigali youth teaching YAGMs Kinyarwanda hymns at church!

The service proceeds and I continue to understand nothing. I spend a few more minutes pondering my communion experience. I feel the breeze drift lazily through the church’s open windows. I am completely at peace. As the service concludes, Edward leans over to me one last time. The theologian, Veronica, just said something in Kiswahili. “You know what she said?” he asks. He knows I don’t, but I shake my head anyways.

He smiles over at me and says “She said ‘All languages are understood in heaven.’”

All are seated at the communion table in the Kingdom. All are understood.

Amina. Amen.