practically a local now

I ask you, who can resist a face like that?

As day 20 in my new country gets under way, I find myself amazed that I’ve already been here for that long. While in some ways I feel like I’ve already been away along time – for instance, it seems like ages since I’ve seen those I said goodbye to in Colorado – at other times I feel like I still just got here. So the fact that we’re already headed toward the end of February is a little crazy to me. (I realize there is still more than a week left in the month, making me sound perhaps a bit like my dad, who we tease sometimes because at 6:15 he will tell you it’s almost 7:00, and about 2 weeks into a new year he’ll tell you there are "only" 11.5 months left. Hi, Dad!)

This week was a little rough at times. It wasn’t actually that anything bad happened. It was more just all the little things that added up over the week that reinforced my realization that “we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” I’m in that strange place of knowing that my residence is now Kigali, Rwanda, but feeling like most of my life is still back where I came from. Supposedly, two weeks after a move is when homesickness and culture shock can really set in. And much as I hate to just be a statistic, maybe they know what they’re talking about.

Lest anyone worry about me, I really am fine, and overall, very excited by all that is happening. And by the weekend much of the melancholy of the week was already gone. It’s just an interesting process, to be able to stand back and analytically identify the “why” of how you're feeling without being able to subsequently just stop the feeling itself.

Anyway… that’s far more than enough psychoanalysis for one post.














So many babies, so little time... Seemed like a waste to hold one at a time when I have two arms!!

On Monday afternoon, we had a fairly spectacular thunderstorm. So spectacular that it knocked out our router and we struggled with a lack of internet connection for the rest of the week. Thankfully I had the option of driving over to the Rwanda field office from time to time to download messages and send out replies. For those in the office with desktop computers this wasn’t an option and since much of our work is interacting with offices in other countries, it was a pretty frustrating week for them. They handled it with a lot more grace than I think I could have.

These situations do have a way of altering our perspective though. Coming from the high-speed connections of the States, previous to the storm I’d been tapping my toes a bit impatiently at times waiting for pages to load or documents to send. But after a week of no connection, I find this connection to be just fine! Tempted as I am to pat myself on the back, I figure I better see how long my new-found patience lasts before I get too carried away.

On Saturday I finally got myself properly oriented with where a lot of things are in this city. I was tired of just dipping my toes in the kiddy pool – I decided to go for broke and dive into the deep end. (How’s that for mixing several tired metaphors?)

Two co-workers – Alemayehu from Ethiopia and Amy from the States – were in town, and we decided to meet for lunch. After several attempts to find out exactly where their hotel was located, which left me more geographically confused than ever (street signs do not abound in Kigali), we settled on having them take a taxi to a place we all knew, and I drove us to the restaurant from there.

After a nice lunch, Aleymayehu needed to go back to the hotel to collect his bags and head to the airport. Rather than putting him back in a taxi, I asked if he thought he could direct me back to the hotel and he said yes. So off we went, twisting and turning our way (it was every bit as confusing as it had sounded). We got there just fine. I had the distinct feeling, however, that I couldn’t repeat the process.

Since a driver was already arranged to take Aleymayehu to the airport, we said goodbye there and with instructions regarding how to get to a nearby artisan market, Amy and I headed out again. After successfully bargaining for a few things at the market, we went in search of coffee.

Coming to an intersection, I turned vaguely in the direction I thought we had come from earlier. “Do you know where you are?” Amy asked. “No,” I said, “but I think I’ve been on this road before.” It didn’t sound convincing, I realized, but we continued on and I was relieved when I suddenly saw the first supermarket Chantal had taken me to, a couple of weeks ago.

I wasn’t positive where it was in relation to other things, but it was a start! Amy was a wonderful sport and kept me company for the next several hours as I worked out how to get from there to the community where I’ll be moving once my house is ready, to a coffee shop I’d visited the week before, and so on. By the end of the day, the city had begun to make sense in my head and I was even able to get her back to her hotel and myself back home from there. So thanks for the moral support, Amy!

Tonight I head to Uganda for several days of meetings. After months of crazy moving logistics, I find myself planning for this trip as nonchalantly as I previously would have done for a jaunt from Colorado Springs down to Pueblo to visit my sisters for the weekend. I have traveled to Uganda often – it is a place I love and know quite well. So after three weeks of constantly new experiences, perhaps it’s the next best thing to a quick visit home.

I feel like I’ve rambled on and on this time, so I don’t blame you if you gave up somewhere along the way. This is what happens to me when I don’t have Skype for a week, I guess!

If I have time, perhaps my next “hello” will be from the Pear – oops, I mean the Pearl – of Africa! Until then…

maybe it's sinking in that i'm not just here for a visit

So, as many of you know, my favorite photo subjects are almost always children. There are plenty of beautiful little faces around me, so you'll probably be seeing a lot of them!

These two friends, Fabiola (L) and Maria, live at the first New Hope Home started by Chantal and are two of the oldest children.

refrigerators and bank accounts

Another week! Among the week’s notables was the fact that it was the first time I worked from the office every day in at least five months and possibly longer. I’m not a very good cubicle-dweller, so this might be an event to mourn, rather than to celebrate – ha!

As I was getting ready for my move, I spent a lot of time going to offices and businesses during the day to take care of various moving details and then doing my work and answering emails late at night, thanks to the wonderful world of telecommuting. So going into the office for eight hours and then going home and not working until the following day has been a novelty.

Among the other things I did this week: going to see the house where I’ll be living – very exciting! I’m especially excited by the nice big yard around the house. I also bought a refrigerator and stove, as well as a couple of plates and cups, so that even before the rest of my things arrive from the States I can at least eat – priorities, you know.

Chantal and her sister-in-law Joiesse (again, I’m guessing at this spelling) took me shopping for my appliances, which helped tremendously. While I’m actually fairly good at bargaining, having no idea what the going rate for an item is makes it a bit difficult to bargain. And I set up a bank account. This isn’t really exciting, I realize, but again it was the novelty of the situation. The bank was open for regular business hours on Sunday so that’s what I did after lunch yesterday.














This beautiful little girl, Deborah, also lives at the first home.














As the oldest infant at the second home, Mbabazi (approx 9 months old) is Queen of the Babies.














And here she is with her royal subjects: (L-R) Daniel, Moses, Prince (yes, Prince), and one more young lady whose name escapes me as I write this...

adventures in the kitchen

I also did a bit of cooking. I enjoy cooking and have done quite a bit of it over the years. Though I’m not sure I’m ever going to convince Baptiste of this. Baptiste is a very kind, soft-spoken, smiley man who helps out around Chantal’s home. We can say hello and how are you to one another and then his English is exhausted so we mostly communicate through signs and pointing.

The one time I tried to say a word to him in Kinyarwanda, he smiled and said, “You speak Swahili?” In my defense, I knew it was a Swahili word I’d used, but I thought it was also used in Kinyarwanda. I was wrong. All in all, we get on quite well. He just doesn’t trust me in the kitchen. Perhaps deservedly if you look at the facts from his perspective.

One day I’d had a quick bite of lunch and decided I’d wash my few dishes up. There was a rag and a sponge in the sink. I picked up the rag, added a bit of soap and started washing, just as Baptiste walked in. With a big smile he started gesturing that he would do it. I told him it was no problem. When I insisted, he came over, took the rag out of my hand and placed the sponge in it instead. He also picked up the soap bottle and squeezed some on, just to be on the safe side, I think.

It turns out that I was washing the dishes with the rag he only uses for wiping the counters. Baptiste is a use-only-a- sponge-for-washing-dishes kind of guy, evidently. I walked away from the encounter fairly certain that Baptiste thought that was my first experience washing dishes.

Fast-forward to breakfast the next morning, when I decided to scramble myself a couple of eggs. When Baptiste saw me get out a skillet, butter and two eggs, he walked over and got a small bowl and a fork, so I could scramble them. I realize that might be the most traditional way to scramble eggs and if I’d just gone ahead and done it that way, perhaps I could have reassured Baptiste that it wasn’t my first time cooking.

But the truth is, I prefer melting a little butter, breaking the eggs directly into the skillet and letting the whites whiten a bit before starting to scramble them. I thanked Baptiste for the bowl, then stubbornly pressed on and gestured that I was going to do it differently. He smiled at me, shrugged a little, and opened the drawer to get the crazy woman in his kitchen a spatula so she could stir her strange eggs.

Add the fact that I’m still learning where items are kept in the kitchen, still getting used to the gas burners I’m cooking on, etc, and none of this has done anything to help convince Baptiste that I can find my way around a kitchen. Now, when I start anything, he stands at my shoulder for the first 10 minutes or so, to make sure I can find things, know how to turn things on and off – and perhaps to make sure I don’t burn the house down.














This one is here just because I love it. The infant is Baby Sarah, from last week's post. I had been taking close-ups of Sarah just previous to this photo, while her "Mama" held her.

Then one of the aunties suggested I take a picture of both of them. The mama hesitated but then agreed. So here they are: the youngest and oldest members of New Hope Home 1, together.














Several of the children and babies, one of the mamas, Chantal (standing on right), one of the aunties, and another friend all enjoy one of the newly finished sitting rooms.

fresh paint and brownies

In spite of Baptiste’s doubts, I did successfully make a couple batches of brownies that we took to Chantal’s kids on Sunday afternoon. Chantal and I had been talking about things we’re familiar with from the States that can easily be made here. (Incidentally, you can buy almost everything here – it’s just a matter of how much you’re willing to spend. The price tag on anything that has to be imported can be shockingly high.)

I told her about a brownie recipe our family has always used and we discovered that we had everything we needed to make them – yea! So she suggested we make some as a treat for all the children. Of course, we kept some for ourselves too…

Over the last week, both current homes as well as the new one have been getting fresh coats of paint on the walls and floors and the children have gamely allowed themselves to be shuffled from room to room and house to house as this happened. While the paint finished drying, Chantal and I spent much of Saturday afternoon arranging furniture.

The brownies were in part to celebrate the fact that after several days of upheaval, the kids were all back in their own beds and able to go freely from room to room in their homes. They were a big hit.














I just love the "Sunday afternoon picnic" feel of this photo. Rosemary and Enosa decided to make themselves comfortable while they ate their brownies. Enosa just arrived at the home on Thursday, but judging from this photo he seems to be settling in just fine.

By the way, the brownie recipe, for those who are interested, is:

2 cups sugar
1 cup butter (I did not say they were healthy brownies)
2 eggs
6 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
2 cups flour

Bake in a 9x13 pan at 350 degrees (F) for about half an hour. Enjoy!

I'm continually thinking of all my family and friends who I left in Colorado -- as well as the many of you who are scattered all over various other parts of the world! I end this sending lots of love to all.

week one in rwanda

This will be a post of several random stories that aren’t necessarily connected. Little bits and pieces that I noticed or that amused me in the last few days. The things that happen that I’m always wanting to tell someone about and don’t quite get around to it. It will probably get long, so I’ll divide them by subject so you can leave off reading whenever you need to.

1) The first item is not actually connected to Rwanda specifically but to East Africa generally. In my role, I get copied on hundreds of emails every week about the various trips and stories and activities that I’m at least loosely involved with or connected to or overseeing in the field offices. Today, I read a very kind email from a US staff person who had recently been to Uganda and was following up on some issues from the trip. The greeting said that the person hoped all was going well in the Pear of Africa.

This individual meant, of course, the Pearl of Africa – Uganda’s nickname – but the typo made me smile and laugh and shake my head because it was so representative of the type of (mis)communication that is continually happening in this work that we do, where thousands of people from dozens of cultures are interacting and trying to meaningfully work together. So often, when we are trying our hardest to be significant and relevant, we have our silliest moments.

I’m very happy to say that on February 23 I will travel to the Pear of Africa for some meetings.

2) Sunday I went to church with my hostess, Chantal. She is a beautiful, amazing woman whose family fled Rwanda before she was even born but who is finally as an adult living out her dream to return to her homeland. I am boarding at her house until my permanent housing is available in March.

Chantal looks after me, drives me around, gives me advice, warns me, supports me, tells me stories, laughs. She is 6 feet tall and is the shortest person among her husband and 3 children. Her husband is the VP for Compassion Africa. She runs incredible homes for orphaned and abandoned children because she “wanted to be doing something significant. Not just be the wife of someone doing something significant.”

We went to a church service entirely in Kinyarwanda (Rwanda’s native language), which I don’t yet speak, so I had plenty of time to watch people and think. The music and dancing were wonderful, the children were beautiful, the women were dressed in their absolute best and then some. There was an earthquake in western Rwanda during our service. We didn’t really feel it, but we did lose power as a result. The pastor’s wife said it was just God telling us he was there.

The chairs were laid out in a sort of horseshoe so I could watch everyone directly across from me without even appearing to be staring. Which is how I came to see the man reading all the Scriptures. It seemed to be his designated job. He was wearing this amazing suit reminiscent of men’s suits when they were on holiday in the 1920s. It was linen (I think) and made up of wide white and beige stripes. He was tall and lanky and loved to dance during the singing. I couldn’t stop watching him.

3) Also at the service, they asked for all visitors to stand. My immediate family and close friends know the dread this instills in me. I can’t give a good explanation of why. I realize I’m generally an outgoing person. But something about telling everyone to greet the visitors or asking all the visitors to identify themselves at a church service has always given me a brief feeling of panic.

Over the years, my defense mechanism became just ignoring the request. I would sit there and smile and try to look like I belonged while all the visitors stood. However, in a service of several hundred where I was the only white person, this was not really an option.

“They’re asking all the visitors to stand,” Chantal translated for me. “No,” I said before I realized what I was saying. “Yes,” she said, and smiled. And she must have seen the flash of terror across my face because she firmly pushed me upward by my elbow and said, “You can do this.”

And I could do it, of course. The doing is never as bad as the dreading. And there were plenty of other people who also stood. But all the same, I was pretty sure I was glowing as I stood there for the required 20 seconds.

4) I got locked into my office yesterday. I’ve been told there is a book about Africa called The Man with the Key Has Gone. I have no idea exactly what the book holds, but the title is fabulous.

If you’ve ever spent time in a developing country, you may be familiar with this key phenomenon. One could think of many possible reasons why this is the case, but whatever the reason, anything resembling an office – or for that matter, any room that might possibly hold something that someone might, at some point, want – gets locked.

If you think I am kidding or exaggerating, let me only say this: the bathroom stall that Barbara (the only other female in my office) and I share must be locked when neither of us is in it. I dutifully take the key from its nail, unlock it, lock myself in, take care of my business, unlock myself and lock the door back. I’m not clear about what would happen if I didn’t lock it. Compassion is the only office on that floor of our building.

Somehow, the person with you is never the person with the key. Inevitably, the person with the key must be hunted down. Searched for. Called. Waited on.

Last week they gave me a key to our office door with strict instructions to lock it behind me if I were ever leaving the building when no one else was around. I put the key in my work bag and didn’t think much more of it. This brings me to today.

Barbara had left to run an errand. The only other person in the office was a young man called Tisian (I am guessing at the spelling). Tisian came over to say that he was leaving for a bit, so he would lock the door if I had my key. “It’s okay,” I said, “I am leaving in 5 minutes, so I can just lock it behind me.” Tisian insisted that the door must be locked for those 5 minutes however. From my office I cannot actually see the door. And he didn’t want someone coming in and “doing whatever” without me knowing.

The 5 minutes passed and Chantal arrived to take me to my appointment. I heard her knocking, grabbed my key and went to the door. The key did not work. I started laughing. I have to admit that this was funny to me only because I knew how nearby help was. Otherwise I’m afraid I may not have felt so gracious.

I called upstairs to the East Africa office – not to be confused with the regional office where I work, which deals with East and West Africa – and told the assistant, Alice, that I was locked in. She laughed, apologized and hurried down with a key, and Chantal and I made it to the appointment on time.

It turns out, incidentally, that my key DOES work from the outside. But not from the inside. I don’t know how this is possible. Neither does anyone else, it seems. Regardless, I’ve asked Tisian to please never lock the office when I’m inside anymore, just to be safe.

5) I will close by telling you a little about Chantal’s homes, where the picture at the top was taken. Her significant, beautiful, inspiring homes. In the photos, I’m holding Sarah, who, at two weeks old, is currently the youngest member of the homes. Her mother died in childbirth.

Chantal has named them New Hope Homes. Each one houses 10 children, 4 “mamas” and “aunties” and one grounds/gatekeeper. The children have all been orphaned or abandoned. The women are widows who were in need of a job. Chantal said the idea was to take the command to care for the “widows and orphans” literally.

There are currently two homes running and just in the 5 or 6 days I’ve been here I’ve witnessed massive strides in the progress of the third home, which is set to open the beginning of March. A month out, there are only 3 of the 10 spots not yet spoken for. Future residents include a tiny newborn even younger than Sarah who also lost her mother. The new children will squeeze into the other homes until their new quarters are ready.

I already know that I’ll have dozens of stories about the children at New Hope Homes in the coming months and years. But for now, I just wanted to say that in this first week living in Rwanda I got to go hug the children and hold the babies and it was wonderful.

These little ones need and want all the hugs they can get, and I – maybe especially because I had to say goodbye to my 2.5-year-old and 7-month-old nieces when I moved here – need and want some kids to hug on. So it works out well for all of us.

starting this up again

Hi, friends!  So, in the last post I made on here, I said there would be more to come soon ... and then have written nothing for over a year and a half. Sorry!

Rather than calling this blog "phoebe's page," I guess I should have called it "phoebe's africa blog," because that seems to be the only time I update it.  Yes, for any of you who may not know, I'm back in Africa -- a little more long-term this time.

On January 30, 2008, I officially took up residence in Kigali, Rwanda, where I'll be living and working for the foreseeable future. After running my own business from April 2006 to July 2007, Compassion offered me a new job that was too good to pass up. I'm now overseeing training and support for all field communications and tours/travel staff in Compassion's Africa Region.

I'm currently boarding with some wonderful people until my permanent housing is available sometime in March. In my first 5 days living in Kigali, I'm starting to sort out how to get places, where shops are, etc. And, after 6 months of trying to do my job from the States and simultaneously prepare to move internationally, I'm now getting very excited at the prospect of focusing on my work.

In other news, on January 28, 2008, en route to Kigali, I got engaged! My fiance (wow -- that is the first time I've written that) is a wonderful man called Joe who currently lives in Edinburgh but who will also be relocating to Kigali later this year. We'll finally get to be on the same continent!

I don't have any photos to go with this post, but hope to have some soon. There are also loads of stories I could already tell from my first few days here, but I will save those for later. For now, I just wanted to get something on "paper" to say hello and get myself back in the habit of writing these.

Lots of love to everyone!