Heart of the [Meat]ter

Muhire dropped the blood-soaked bag at my feet.

“Sorry it took so long,” he grinned, “we spent all day cleaning it.”

I smiled and tentatively reached for the bag. With considerable effort, I lifted it from the ground, blood droplets pooling on the pavement. No cigar-the bag was too heavy and too bloody for me to get in the house by myself. “Thank you so much!” I exclaimed, trying to both hide my alarm and breathe through my mouth.  I waved Mose over to help, said goodbye to the teachers, and turned toward the house.

Mose got the 22 lb bag to the front porch where I took over and dragged it across the living room to the kitchen-leaving a gruesome crimson trail behind me. I plopped it on the ground and peered inside. The metallic smell of raw meat slapped me full in the face, and as I quickly stepped away from the bag, I felt panic bubbling up inside my throat again. Mose, seeing my helpless face through the back door, immediately hopped to action.

Katie, Ben, and a blurry Mose cooking last week
(not raw meat night, it was just Mose and I then)

“Imyaka ni menshi, Mose”, I called in broken Kinyarwanda.  Too much meat. He chuckled as he reached into the bag with his bare hands and pulled out the first side of raw beef. Finding a knife, he expertly started hacking at the mass. “Egide?” He asked, suggesting that we take some to my landlord. I nodded enthusiastically and, as I placed the newly freed bit in a plastic bag, he hurried down the street on his bike to deliver it.

Finding myself alone in the house, I collapsed on the nearest chair. What in the world am I doing? Hands covered in raw meat? Floor fit for an Agatha Christie novel? Entire house reeking of animal blood?

 It was the teachers, I thought.

They had asked Katie and me Friday if we wanted meat. A few Muslim families in Rwamagana slaughtered cattle for the Eid and had offered beef to the teachers at RLS-free of charge. This was quite generous-meat is expensive in Rwanda, and most families only find room in their budget to eat it on special occasions. I was humbled to receive such a gift. However, when I tried to tell the teachers that 2 kilos would be enough for our household, they insisted we each take 5.

“You can share!” They said.

The site of the fateful meat discourse,
my 'desk' at work.

I can share. Suddenly remembering this sentiment, I felt a pang of guilt. The slightly overwhelming receipt of a 22 lb bag of raw meat had all but driven its purpose from my mind. My first thought had been of waste, of taking only enough for myself. My community’s first thought had been of providing for one another, of sharing.

I reflected on my reaction. My thoughts about waste management had come from a good place, but they also came from my own cultural understanding of provision. America often feels like an everyone-for-themselves type operation, yet community after community has tried to teach me a different lesson. My own parents, whose generosity to the point of ridiculousness has awed me since childhood, my home congregation, Faith, whose huge hearts send more out the doors of the church than I can sometimes fathom, my rag-tag band of friends from camp, who, having little themselves, will share their last lonely slices of bread with each other before hikes. And in Rwamagana, again, a lesson in giving, in sharing, in provision. This community provides for each other, they take care of each other…they take care of me.

It reminds me of this beautiful image of the Body of Christ painted in Acts 2: 42-44. Jesus has ascended to Heaven and suddenly this new community in Christ finds themselves let loose in the world. What do they do?

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer… All believers were together and had everything in common.”

They shared everything in common.  

In Kinyarwanda, there is a word I’ve learned that, for me, embodies this idea. The word, twese (tw-eh-s-eh) means “all of us, together”. I love this word not only because of the meaning, but because of the way it is used. For example, when someone sneezes in the US, we say “Bless you”. The response: “Thank you.” It’s very polite, nothing wrong with that. But in Rwanda when someone sneezes and you say “Urakire” (Blessings to you), the response is “twese”. Not just bless me, bless all of us together.

In Rwamagana, I have found a community like this, a community of “twese”. I have found a community whose first thought is not of scarcity and self, but of the collective bounty of Christ. To the teachers at school, this community does not just extend to themselves and their families, but to two young American women, to our night guard, to our house mama, to our landlord. To all of us, together.

Some of the teachers who helped with the meat
preparation, Victor, Dan, and Dennis!

I learned a lot the night 22 lbs of raw meat showed up on my doorstep. I learned that the smell of animal blood REALLY lingers. I learned that it takes three pots and a couple hours to accomplish the task of boiling said meat. I learned that without Mose, I would pretty much be sunk. And I learned that being a part of the community of believers means that we should receive first with thanks, and then with an immediate thought of where we can give again.

We are the Body of Christ. Let us care for one another. Let us be humble as we receive. Let us be generous as we give. Let us have everything in common.

Let us be twese, all of us, together. 

Letters to America

Pop quiz:

You are writing a letter to someone from Rwanda. How do you address it?

The question is simple enough, but it is one that I would have answered much differently last week than I would today.

 My reality check came during a Senior 6 (12^th grade) English class at Rwamagana Lutheran School. The entire 50 minute class was devoted to writing letters to English speakers: letters to apply to schools, respond to job advertisements, and accept placements. Over the course of the lesson this question arose: How do you address a letter to an American? I was surprised. I didn’t know there was more than one way to address a letter. I assumed everyone slapped a name down, followed it with a street address, city, state/province, country, and boom-done. Nope.

In addition to hanging out with them in class, I also get to help students after school!
Here I am giving guitar lessons to Johnson, an incredibly gifted musician and S3 student.

According to the students, when they address a letter to a fellow Rwandan, they list the country first and work their way down to the smallest organizational level (the cell). Street addresses are rarely included because they rarely exist. Now, with a slight prodding from the teacher, the students in the class started to debate whether or not they would need to change the way they addressed that letter if it was to an American.  “Of course you’d address it differently,” insisted Ornella, “that (points to the board) is the way Americans are most comfortable with!”

There it was. That unwelcome guest that has sidled up next to me so many times during these few short weeks in Rwanda. That elephant in the room that is all too often invisible to me while being fully visible to others. That lingering companion who jarringly makes himself known with the sudden sting of culpability. Privilege.

These students were learning how to address a letter in a way that made me, an American, most comfortable. What had I EVER learned in school to make a Rwandan more comfortable?

I remembered, then, something that the YAGM program director, Heidi, said at orientation in Chicago. She said:

“You can go all around the world, but you can never shake your U.S. passport and everything that comes with that.”

Everything that comes with that: all of the stereotypes and assumptions about you that come with that passport, all of the stereotypes and assumptions you carry because of it, all of the privilege that comes with it.

She was right. I have slowly, painfully, been discovering what an American passport means. It means that, unlike my Rwandan friends, I don’t have to be bilingual to get an education. It means that a basic knowledge of Rwandan culture wasn’t in any way a part of my secondary school curriculum. I didn’t learn how to find Rwanda on a map. It means that I never needed to know how to address a letter in any way but my country’s standard form. It means that I never considered that any other way even existed. THAT is my American privilege: the privilege to not have to know about this culture, the privilege to not have to care.

But (and there always is one). But my privilege to not care is a reality in stark opposition not only to my personal beliefs, but to the message of a God who tells us in Galatians Chapter 6, verse 2:

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

There are verses upon verses in the Bible that talk about being called to care for one another, but this is one of my favorites. In this verse Paul, writing to a church in turmoil at Galatia, reminds the people of their call in Christ-to be in relationship. It’s not a verse that allows us to be ignorant of the burdens of others or, conversely, to feel so guilty about our privilege that we self-centeredly try to shoulder our own AND our neighbor’s burdens. Instead the verse calls us to get in the dirt with each other. We are called to walk the road together, to acknowledge the burdens we carry AND the burdens our neighbors carry-and to share the load.

My students help me bear my burden of language by writing down song lyrics they
just memorize so I can be in choir with them.  This is the Kingdom of God. 

Americans, there is a class in Rwamagana, Rwanda learning how to write letters in a way that makes you feel most comfortable. The teachers are knowledgeable and want to give their students the best chance at a bright future-the lesson is an important part of that.

But I have a letter for you, too:

My American friends,

How much we take for granted? That we can attend high school knowing only one language? That an American passport can help get us visas it would be impossible for our neighbors from other parts of the globe to get? That the average income in American households dwarfs those in the vast majority of the world?

Now-of course these privileges vary greatly even inside US borders, but, on the whole, what can we do as Americans to acknowledge the privilege our passport imparts? Can we be humble? Can we, like my Rwandan hosts, be gracious to those who take the time to try to learn our local languages? Can we be gracious to those who don’t? Can we seek out cultures to learn from in an authentic way? Can we work to understand the struggles of others? Can we bear each others’ burdens?

Can we start today?

In red, white, blue, and blessings,

Sav