Catching up on Saturday-

A beautiful hawk just circled just in front of me and landed on the chimney just near the balcony I am sitting on. The sun is rising softly, birds are beginning to come awake but it is still so quiet, I can hear the footsteps of people on the street outside our gate. It is morning.

We have been involved in so many pivitol moments here in Rwanda, and yet, we feel like we haven’t hda time to fully sink our toes into anything. We have had women and children dance for and with us in a celebration of life despite the HIV virus… but because of time and language, we haven’t gotten to really sit with them and share life together. We have visited an orphanage and learned how thoughtfully put together it is… housing children in family units with a mix of older and younger in the individual houses. Each house responsible for doing their own planning and cooking and loving on each other with volunteers from the community coming in to be “house mom’s” during the day. It is a brilliant concept. Very thoughtful way to address the holistic needs of these children instead of simply the physical needs of food and shelter (which could look very institutional) but to instead give them a true family to live life with. One of the big needs this orphanage has, is that according to the government, the children age out at 18. But because of the hardships in their lives, many are late in their schooling and are still in high school until they are 20 or 21. As of now, there isn't a great option for these older kids. They are hoping to begin a transitional house specifically for this age group. But again, we had just arrived learned of it's wonderful plan and barely begun to play .. the girls we were with had just figured out what this crazy floaty thing called “bubbles” were and that the strange white kids blowing them and trying to play ball and chase with them weren’t so scary… when it was time to go. Mady wrote in her journal later “it was as if these children had somehow forgotten how to play.”. When Matilda introduced me to one girl living there and told her story, it is easy to understand why. This particular girl had been at the orphanage for two years. Before she came to live there, she took care of her parents, who were very sick with AIDS. Being the eldest, she was in charge of the household, earning money, looking after her small sister, and nursing her parents. When they died, she and her sister were alone in the house and alone in their lives. She was only 10 at the time.

We did get to visit Nyranguru with World Vision. The plan was to drive the 90 km (three hours on these roads) one morning and stay all day. We would share lunch with Faustin’s extended family and visit his community for the day. We’d spend the night in a neighboring town and drive back to Kigali the next day. But plans are consistently fluid here in Africa. It turned out that we got to spend about two hours in Nyranguru. And it poured down rain for both of them. It was beautiful to share Faustin’s smiling face. It was lovely to interact with this boy who, until now, has sat unmoving, ,unsmiling on our refrigerator door. He is a gorgeous child with big eyes and a smile that literally overtakes his small face. But our time there was confusing. I’m quite sure I haven’t unpacked any of it yet. It leaves me with a great many questions.

I think that is my theme for these three weeks… I haven’t gotten any answers… but come away at least knowing what questions to ask.

Yesterday was the national day of mourning, to officially begin 100 days of mourning over the genocide. Shops are closed, offices are closed. No music can be played even in the Indian restaurant where we had dinner… to honor the sadness. In many villages there were “silent strikes” as people gathered in groups of hundreds to walk the long distance to a memorial site to bury the bones of people that are still being found all across Rwanda, even 12 years later. Shami took us on a drive into the country…we bought passion fruit and sugar cane and pineapples from roadside stands. So many I had no idea how we would eat them all before we leave in two days... our tounges would blister long before we finished them. Remember that Christy and Melissa?

Speaking of... Christy, remember the rooster? Yeah, it's a dog this time... crying in the same tone. I laugh with our memory every time I hear him.

We traveled up a mountain until we could drive no further and then got out to hike up as far as we could go. Turns out, we didn’t get to hike as far as we had hoped because an entire village was following us every step of the way. So we spent our time getting to know the people instead of trying to accomplish a hike. Some of them spoke English, which surprised us to no end being that we were so remote our land rover couldn’t even go through. Shami, I think, knew that the village would greet us like a mob… everyone coming out of their homes to follow us… because the fruit we had bought in abundance became the perfect gift to give to the community. I was so thankful because it would have been terribly unfortunate to come into their home emptyhanded.

I have so many photos of small children. I can’t get enough of them as each one is stunningly beautiful. Life is hard here. There is much more to be done. Figuring out the healthiest, most effective way to do it is the difficult part.

As a love gift to Jae and Jen and Rebecca I'm posting pictures of me today... thanks to our dear friend, Shami (big heart here). I'll be home very soon to share those hugs... and Laura and Rebecca, a stunning "YES" to the big screen picture show... maybe you'll just bring your sleeping bags.. because you'll end up spending the night for sure! :O)