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.