I arrived home in Seattle a week ago today.  And back in the States just a day prior.

Brussels provided a beautiful buffer between here and there – Rwanda and my present.

Departing the plane, I walked hand-in-hand with Sue through the airport, until we stopped at the place where I went straight to baggage claim, and she and the rest of the group turned right for their connecting flight back to Chicago.

My new friends stood around me in a circle.  And as I said my goodbyes, I immediately began to cry.  And I embraced each of them.  First Rich.  Then Rabbi Brant.  Elaine.  Katie.  Ben.  Brenda.

Bonnie, the 16-year-old from Miami, handed me a note she had written on the plane – “Liora” printed on the outside.  She had traveled without her parents, and I was reminded once again of the “real chops” this almost-woman-girl possessed.

Sue reminded me I had bought a scarf, in case it was cold in Brussels.  That Tim, my old roommate, would be meeting me at the train in just a few hours.  And that I had the address of a recovery meeting.  In essence, that I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself.  And when we parted from our teary embrace, the rest of the group was gone.

I picked up my bags and called my friend Michael in Chicago from a payphone.  It was about 2 a.m. there but I knew he’d be up.  “Holy Crap!   Where are you?” he said.

And so I began to slowly slip back into my life.

I marveled at the toilets in the airport.  Each stall outfitted with seat covers and toilet paper.  Each sink running hot water.  And soap in each dispenser.

I sat with a coffee and journaled while I waited for my old roommate to arrive from Dublin.  And when he did, I cried some more.

We rented an IKEA-clad apartment just minutes by foot from Centraal Station.  Tim stayed just a night, and we ate our way through the city.  French fries with mayonnaise, waffles with sugar, chocolate.  I ate salad without worry and bought fruit that didn’t require peeling from the grocery store.

I knew I was no longer in Africa.  And yet I wasn’t back here yet either.  I was in the liminal space – the in between.  And I was blessed to stay there a day longer than I had planned to, because my flight was canceled.

I watched the agitation of other travelers trying to get home, while I only wondered when and by what route I would arrive.  And if I was in fact, ready, to go home.   I was still on Africa time where my only responsibility was to get on the bus.  Quite literally, to show up.  To surrender, drop expectations and breathe it in, as my mediation teacher had instructed me to do the day before I left.

I made “friends” with a teacher from Bakersfield and an entire family from Brussels while I waited in line for rebooking for nearly 3 hours.  The Belgian family smiled often, laughed and drank orange juice.  They would be missing the Chicago and San Francisco legs of their vacation and flying directly into Los Angeles.  They didn’t seem terribly bothered.  Disappointed, but not troubled.  I told the father his easy smile and laugh gave me solace.

And I was grateful to have another day in Brussels.  To eat another waffle.  To walk on cobblestone.  To order a coffee and linger with my journal, watching the sky opening with light and showers and light again.

A day later, my friend Lisa picked me up at O’Hare.  Everything looked sterile.  And I felt like I wasn’t quite standing on the island waiting for her SUV.  Like I wasn’t quite there.  I texted Sue to tell her I was home.  And that Lisa was taking me to Whole Foods.  She told me she had been there the day before and that it was “too much.”  That she had to leave.

Minutes later, I found myself in tears in the yogurt section.  So many choices.  It all felt like “too much.”    And it was.

A day later, when I arrived in Seattle, I walked into an empty house.  My husband told me he would not be there.  The cats greeted me at the door.  And their litter needed changing.

This week I posted photos on Facebook and watched a video of our group dancing over and over again.  I called our mediator to schedule an appointment to have her draft our final divorce documents.  I’ve been looking at apartments in Chicago online.

I miss my mosquito net and talking to Sue each night before bed.  Before I left, another friend and I had spent weeks talking on the phone each night before bed.  We haven’t done that since I returned.  I’m not sure why.

I’ve exchanged a few photos with Rabbi Brant.  Sue’s travel clock is sitting on my desk – she left it for me so I’d be sure not to miss my plane. We talk and text when we are able.  I re-read Bonnie’s note today.

And I’ve asked the people about me to call me Liora – my Hebrew name that I adopted in Rwanda.

We leave in an hour for the airport.  Sue is reading in the lobby, Ben on the lawn.  Bonnie is journaling.  I have finally posted my blogs from the past days.  And this, my last installment, I am writing by hand.

 We spend the morning back at the market buying last-minute gifts.  Baskets.  Bracelets.  I spy a set of ankle bells like the ones the dancers wore at the traditional Africa village.  Mark, our driver, negotiates the price of 5,000 Rwandan francs and I buy them.

 The vendor pulls out a headdress and I shake my head no.  I look for photographs of me on my phone, dressed in this traditional garb but I can’t find any.  They are all on Rich’s camera and he is not here.  Rabbi Brant pulls out his IPhone and plays the video he shot of me dancing.  The vendors gather round and give me the thumbs up.

Sue and I wander back into the food section, seeking out what we were told was curry but is really a type of salt – most commonly used for cooking beans, to season and to decrease cooking time.  The market is ripe with new smells I cannot place.  Perhaps it is hotter today and the smells are more pungent.  There are few muzungos here and we draw a few stares.

We eat Chinese food for lunch and it is surprisingly great.  A nice change from the potatoes, beans and rice we have eaten at most meals.  And yet, a plate of French fries appears on the lazy Susan and they are gobbled up.

After lunch we stop by the Hotel Des Mille Collines – the Hotel Rwanda – and have a beverage by the pool.  I do not feel any special energy here regardless of what has taken place.  It feels like just another luxury hotel.  I ask everyone around our table to name their “best moments.” 

Prayer with Anna Marie.  Yoga with the workers at the jewelry cooperative.  Ivuka gallery.  Establishing a children’s library at WE-ACTx.  A comedy sketch by the Amohoro children.  Our favorite moments are those that are universal.  Language-less.  The ones that connect us to the people about us.

 

We return to our hotel and I lie on the bed and leak.  Tears streaming down my face.  Sue sits with me, listening.  Holding space.  I am not ready to go back to my life.  And really, I don’t have to quite yet.  I will be getting off the plane in Brussels to meet my old roommate and friend, Tim – traveling from Dublin for one night to meet me.  I am sad to not be traveling with my friends.  To turn off before them.  And yet, it somehow seems right.  That I am going somewhere else.  Not quite yet home.  Somewhere in the in between.

 At the airport we drink a final African coffee (coffee, ginger, steamed milk and cocoa) and board a delayed plane.  My original ticket has me sitting in an exit row but my boarding pass places me further back, in a window seat.  I notice this in Nairobi and point it out to the flight attendant, but the flight is booked.  The man next to me offers to switch seats so I can be on the aisle.  It is good enough.  What Sue and I call Africa good.  And I am grateful for it.

There is Africa good.  And then there’s Africa fabulous.  Sue and I call Africa fabulous those unexpected, serendipitous gifts you couldn’t even begin to imagine.  Like the day she helped set up the jewelry co-op for WE-ACTx.  To her mind’s eye, the women workers seemed distant and disconnected from the American volunteers.  And yet, when the work was finished they spontaneously burst into song and dance, and invited their American counterparts to join them.

 Today is Africa fabulous.

 We are riding our bus called Malcolm X heading North, to a traditional cultural village a few hours East of the Democratic Republic of Congo.  We climb up windy paved roads into the mountains.  The terrain is lush, with terraced gardens climbing steadily up.  A man is hand painting the white stripe in the center of the road.  People are riding their bikes on the shoulder.  And walking, always walking.  With yellow jerry cans for water and carrying sticks on their heads.  Many are dressed for church.

 As a group, we settle into the roles we’ve chosen for ourselves.  Rich is in the front of the bus, shooting photographs.  Nancy and Trudy are talking about travel.  Sue and I share a set of earbuds and have a dance party in our seats – grooving to Donna Summer, Barbara Streisand, Lily Allen and Barry Manilow.  An eclectic mix to be certain.

When we exit the bus, we are greeted with throngs of children selling crayon-colored pictures of elephants and gorillas.  They are selling them.

 Our visit is guided.  A re-enactment of what once was in Rwanda.  All the actor/participants are former poachers, offered a new livelihood. 

 Rich is voted king and dressed in an African sari and headdress.  Rabbi Brant is his advisor.  Katya, the youngest, is queen.  And Trudy, our elder, is the King’s mother.  The rest of us are commoners.  It is pure kitsch.   And we are good sports and play our parts well, especially King Rich.  We learn about the politics of life in the kingdom, and in the king’s bedroom.  About traditional medicine and “”herbal Viagra.”

 A group of men, shirtless, donning headdresses and wearing bells on their ankles, begin to drum and dance.  I can hardly contain myself, and suddenly I am being pulled from my bench to dance in the dirt.  First with a sari-wearing drummer.  And then, and I am indoctrinated.  A spear and shield are put in my hands and a headdress is tied onto me.  And one of the dancers catches my eye.  I follow him.  Arms up and out from my shoulders.  One knee down to the dirt and then the other.  Flipping my head in one direction and then the other.  I am keeping up.  I am following.  And I know it.

 We dance off the dirt “stage” and they take the costume off of me and tell me I am a great dancer. I am dizzy.  I am flying.  And minutes later, I am pulled out again to dance.  The other women join us.  I am breathless and still following.

 My private-secret-fantasy career has been to be a choreographer.  I am dancing with professional dancers right now and I am keeping up.

 We take photographs together.  My lead puts his arm on my arm.  His head to my head.  Sweet.  Gentle.  Another dancer puts his arm around me and places his hand on my breast.  I smile and move it.

 I don’t have words for what has just happened to me, and this is problematic because I am a writer.  My friends show me videos of the dance on the way home.  Sue and I listen to Madonna “The Immaculate Collection” until her Ipod runs out of battery.  We pee on the side of the road. 

 I tell Sue that on the drive up, listening to Lilly Allen, I had the physical sensation and  knowing that I was now divorced.  The paperwork, the mediator, is all detail.  The connection, or at least, a connection, was severed in that moment.  And I am sad, and a little bit more free.

 

 

There is Africa good.  And then there’s Africa fabulous.  Sue and I call Africa fabulous those unexpected, serendipitous gifts you couldn’t even begin to imagine.  Like the day she helped set up the jewelry co-op for WE-ACTx.  To her mind’s eye, the women workers seemed distant and disconnected from the American volunteers.  And yet, when the work was finished they spontaneously burst into song and dance, and invited their American counterparts to join them.

 Today is Africa fabulous.

 We are riding our bus called Malcolm X North, to a traditional cultural village a few hours East of the Democratic Republic of Congo.  We climb up windy paved roads into the mountains.  The terrain is lush, with terraced gardens climbing steadily up.  A man is hand painting the white stripe in the center of the road.  People are riding their bikes on the shoulder.  And walking, always walking.  With yellow jerry cans for water and carrying sticks on their heads.  Many are dressed for church.

 As a group, we settle into the roles we’ve chosen for ourselves.  Rich is in the front of the bus, shooting photographs.  Nancy and Trudy are talking about travel.  Sue and I share a set of earbuds and have a dance party in our seats – grooving to Donna Summer, Barbara Streisand, Lily Allen and Barry Manilow.  An eclectic mix to be certain.

When we exit the bus, we are greeted with throngs of children selling crayon-colored pictures of elephants and gorillas.  They are selling them.

 Our visit is guided.  A re-enactment of what once was in Rwanda.  All the actor/participants are former poachers, offered a new livelihood. 

 Rich is voted king and dressed in an African sari and headdress.  Rabbi Brant is his advisor.  Katya, the youngest, is queen.  And Trudy, our elder, is the King’s mother.  The rest of us are commoners.  It is pure kitsch.   And we are good sports and play our parts well, especially King Rich.  We learn about the politics of life in the kingdom, and in the king’s bedroom.  About traditional medicine and “”herbal Viagra.”

 A group of men, shirtless, donning headdresses and wearing bells on their ankles, begin to drum and dance.  I can hardly contain myself, and suddenly I am being pulled from my bench to dance in the dirt.  First with a sari-wearing drummer.  And then, and I am indoctrinated.  A spear and shield are put in my hands and a headdress is tied onto me.  And one of the dancers catches my eye.  I follow him.  Arms up and out from my shoulders.  One knee down to the dirt and then the other.  Flipping my head in one direction and then the other.  I am keeping up.  I am following.  And I know it.

 We dance off the dirt “stage” and they take the costume off of me and tell me I am a great dancer. I am dizzy.  I am flying.  And minutes later, I am pulled out again to dance.  The other women join us.  I am breathless and still following.

 My private-secret-fantasy career has been to be a choreographer.  I am dancing with professional dancers right now and I am keeping up.

 We take photographs together.  My lead puts his arm on my arm.  His head to my head.  Sweet.  Gentle.  Another dancer puts his arm around me and places his hand on my breast.  I smile and move it.

 I don’t have words for what has just happened to me, and this is problematic because I am a writer.  My friends show me videos of the dance on the way home.  Sue and I listen to Madonna “The Immaculate Collection” until her Ipod runs out of battery.  We pee on the side of the road. 

 I tell Sue that on the drive up, listening to Lilly Allen, I had the physical sensation and  knowing that I was now divorced.  The paperwork, the mediator, is all detail.  The connection, or at least, a connection, was severed in that moment.  And I am sad, and a little bit more free.

 

 

Today we are visiting homes served by Amohoro and CHABHA, and I get to reconnect with some of the agricultural students I met a few days earlier.  We stop at Mary Grace’s house.  I had noticed her days earlier.  She is strikingly, model beautiful.  Today her head is wrapped in a scarf and I am able to fulfill one of my Africa fantasies – to learn to tie a head scarf African style.  I have been watching the women since I arrived.  Some wear stiff, tall, almost architectural wraps.  Others tie soft cloths around their head.  They all look fantastic.  I pull out the scarf I have stuffed in my bag and I ask Mary Grace and Irene, the Amohoro volunteer who has coordinated our visit, for assistance.  They look at me as if I have asked them how to tie my shoes.  Irene graciously wraps a brown and white scarf around my head, takes my picture with Mary Grace, and we continue on.

 Later in the day, we return to Ivuka Studios for a gallery opening.  We were first invited here by William, a local artist who volunteers with WE-ACTx..  But first we stop at David’s house – the executive director of CHABHA – to wash up and use a Western toilet.  There we meet Aji, a chef from New Orleans who just opened up Mezze Fresh, Rwanda’s answer to Chipotle, and two other American women.

 Together we stroll to Ivuka where a host of ex-pats are dancing, drinking and occasionally purchasing art and jewelry.  Rabbi Brant calls it the Rwandan equivalent of Rick’s American from Casablanca.  And we talk about the possibility of me being an ex-pat myself.  It has been a backdrop conversation for the duration of the trip.  I am soon to be single and I have no real commitments or ties to anyone or any place.  I can do this if I like.

 I keep making powerful connections, dropping right into my place in this city.  And my travel mates only half jokingly ask me if I will stay.  I am having this conversation again.  And I realize that to do so would mean always being a bit of an outsider looking in.  It would also mean putting my dream of rabbinical school on hold.  My heart hurts.  And I pay attention.

 I tell Sue about our conversation.  I am worried that I am squandering my opportunities.  That I will disappoint others.  And myself.  She reminds me that I don’t have to change everything to step into the next chapter of my life.  That I can merely go deeper in my inner journey.  That I can move to Rwanda.  Or Chicago. Or I can stay in Seattle.  That I can work on my stuff.  The stuff I brought here with me.  And that I can go home with my Rwandan-Hebrew name, Liora, if I so choose.

I know I’ll never be able to truly articulate what it is to be here.  So many photographs I can only capture in my minds eye.  They are gone in an instant.  The women walking on the side of the road, wrapped in bright fabric, baskets of bananas or mangoes on their heads.  A bright pink sun setting in the hills.

 We arrive “home” to the CommonWealth View (at this point, it feels like home.  It has been for more than a week.  And I don’t really know where home is anymore.).  Judith, receptionist extraordinaire – who every morning gives my ensemble the once over and then gives me a thumbs up – has set up a BBQ and a movie on the lawn for us.

 We are back late.  Africa time.  She wants to start the movie quickly.  But first, Sue, my roommate, and I head out to the lawn for an impromptu dance party with some of the other women and the teens.  Sue and I are grinding.  I laugh.  I forget how much I like to dance.  There is goat and chicken and sausage to eat.  And potatoes.  Always potatoes.

 The movie begins before we are ready.  But this isn’t my show.  My M.O. here is to show up and experience.  We settle into Gorillas in the Mist.  It is fun to watch the movie with Trudy who saw the gorillas just a few days prior.

 In the morning we visited two genocide memorials – Ntarama and Nyamata.  Tutsi people sought refuge here in 1994, as they had in 1992.  But this time, the church leadership gave them up – betrayed them.  They are sites of mass violence and killing.

 Purple and white ribbons and banners are draped at both memorials – purple for mourning, white for hope.  Clothes hardened by blood remain on the pews.  Cooking pots and pieces of mattresses are stacked in a corner.  There are holes in the ceilings and walls, shot from the outside in.  Gaping spaces where grenades were tossed in, blowing up entire portions of walls, entire people.  Blood stains on the walls – all that remains of the infants thrown against them.  Remnants of stained glass in partially shattered windows.

 At Ntarama there is a sign that translates to: If you knew me, and you knew yourself, you would not kill me.

 Sue and I stand together.  I ask her if we can say Kaddish together.  I hold her hand and it is the first time I cry here.  There is something about touching another in these moments that allows the feelings to spill over.  That reminds me I am not alone, that I will not float away.  That brings me back to my body.  We stumble over Kaddish, missing an entire section.  But the intention is there. 

 Outside with our group of 16, we gather in the meditation space and say Kaddish again, this time led by Rabbi Brant.  It is complete.  I close my eyes and when I open them no one else is here.  My hand is on my heart, as it has been the entire time I have been here.

 Next door, someone is tending to the crops of corn.

 At Nyamata, there is more bloodied clothing.  The remains of personal affects.  Jewelry.  An identification card.  A green hairbrush with a mirror on one side.  The girls in Kigali all seem to carry them.

 We climb down stairs, subterranean, and we see rows and rows of skulls.  Some have bullet holes through them.  Others are shattered into pieces.  Bones are lined up.  I want to touch them.  To feel their perfection.  Their smoothness.  I do not.  I am having trouble breathing. 

 There are rows of coffins, with the remains of 50 people in each.  A single coffin is under glass.  It is a woman raped 20 times and then impaled with a sharpened stick inserted into her vagina.  It is so unfathomable, it doesn’t fully register.

 Our guide was 12 during the genocide and he remained in Rwanda throughout it – always on the run.  One of the women in our group asks him how it is that the priests gave up the people.  “I don’t know,” he says.  “It is hard to understand.”

 I sit on the cool tiles above the mass graves for a long time.  I need to feel this place.  I sign the guest registry on the way out with my Rwanda name – Liora.  Under comments I write, “Here to bear witness.”

 

 

 

 

I have an hour and a half until dinner.  Unscheduled time is rare on this trip and I am grateful for the time to sit and make sense of it all.

I just got back from a trip to Bombogo, about 30 minutes from our hotel, but still within Kigali city limits.  A bus from Chabha, an umbrella organization that serves children affected by AIDS and HIV, drives us up the steep, windy, red dirt road to the agricultural project run by Amohoro (Rwandan for peace.).  Twenty teens are learning skills to create kitchen gardens to help provide proper nutrition for themselves and 5 other homes.

 I totter down a hill, partially created of compost, in my orange peep-toe wedges (I was not planning on observing this project today.  For even I would have worn a more practical shoe.) and view the neatly planted rows of beets, carrots and cabbage.  It is the dry season.  The soil is poor, rocky.  And yet the vegetables here look healthier than anything I’ve tended to in my garden in Seattle.

 We join a class of 18 young women and 2 men, learning about agriculture.  Following a brief class we do introductions.  Our names, where we are from, our favorite vegetable.  I spell Liora (my Hebrew name, which has been my Rwanda name as there are two Lesleys on the trip) on the blackboard because they do not understand it.  “An American name,” says one of the English-speaking staff.  I do not correct him.  I tell them my favorite vegetable is squash and I am again greeted with blank stares.  I tell them when I am not in Africa I give massages and help people to choose foods for healthy bodies (I am well aware that Weight Watchers will not translate in this place where so many are malnourished.).  They clap for me, and for my three travel mates.

 The students introduce themselves and say a few words, translated from French into English.  One young woman says “Tell her I love her,” pointing to me.  A young man has a question for Liora.  “Is she single.”  The class erupts in laughter.  I say “Sort of.  I am divorcing.”  I am not sure they understand.  My rabbi tells me to stick with single.  I look at him and put my hand on my heart and they laugh again.  A young woman is breast-feeding her baby in class.

 We take photographs before we leave – me with both of my admirers.  Patrick, a Chabha employee and our driver, says, “Liora, you should consider staying here.”  I tell him I have never been this popular in my own country.

 This laughter is a welcome reprieve.

 Earlier in the day seven of us joined another Chabha project: Agape.  We join staff on home visits to the poorest or the poor, whose children they sponsor.  There are 87 families, 300 children receiving school fees or government insurance cards.  Basics.

 Agape was founded by volunteers after 1994.  They saw children raising children and knew they had to help.  Anna Marie, the “mama” of Agape, was one of those volunteers.  Because of Chabha she now receives a salary.

 We visit six or seven homes.  We are not guests, like we were yesterday.  Anna Marie and three of her staff are checking in on the state of the household, and if there are any emergency needs.  Each visit is 10-15 minutes long and ends with spontaneous prayer by Anna Marie or Grace, one of her staff. 

 The first house we enter is pitch black, save for the holes in the tin roof.  A painfully thin woman is inside.  She is HIV positive and is too sick to work right now.  And so, she has no food for her children.  They are at school right now.  They talk and Micheline (one of the Agape staff) translates.  When we are planning to leave, this painfully thin woman who seems to live only in the shadows, prays for us.  And then Rabbi Brant offers a Hebrew prayer for her.  Tears are streaming down my face.  I am humbled and awed and joyous and pained all at once.  I have no words.  I don’t need any.  Instead, we just keep walking to the next house.

 On our third visit we meet a woman who is also HIV positive.  Her husband, who was also HIV positive, has died.  She has two daughters.  They are both HIV negative.  She tells us that when her husband died, her in-laws tried to take her land.  They told her to return to her family because she had not given birth to boys.  She has no family.  But she has a promise from her husband that this land would be hers.  That he would care for her.  

 She fights for the land and wins.  She moves her family from a tent on the grounds to a house she has built with some help from a pastor.  He provided the roof.  The rest is hers.  She sells charcoal, owns goats and has built another home that she rents.  Tears stream down her face as she tells her story. 

 On the way out, Rabbi Brant tells her she is a righteous woman.  He says there is a story in the bible that is much like hers.  She says she knows it.

 Some of the homes have electricity.  Others do not.  One is a single room too small for all of us – 13 in total – to fit into.  We are greeted warmly, and again, we pray.  At the last house we visit, a boy of 16 pulls out an albino rabbit by its ears.  We all squeal with joy, and he presents three babies, which he places in the hands of our group – two teenagers and a mom.  The energy has palpably changed.  Some kind of magic entets the room.

 On our way out, we drop off Anna Marie at another house.  It appears she will continue working.  We will go to lunch.  I tell my roommate Sue “I will never complain again.”  I know that this is not true, and I tell her so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am led into a small treatment room at WE-ACTx. There is a bed/table with wooden stairs leading up to it. A desk. A rolling chair and a large bottle of omnipresent hand sanitizer. I’ll be working for just an hour and a half – performing 15-minute massage sessions on staff.

There are too many patients. And they may be too traumatized still to receive touch. This is a beginning.

I have been told that my work is unique. Less massage. More connecting, following, feeling, listening, leaning in. Subtle. I know it is not for everyone.

I am amazed to find the workers’ bodies incredibly open to my work. Chantal makes happy noises as I lean into her back. She hugs and kisses me when we are done and tells me, “I feel like a baby.” Edwin, who I have put on the table, is curious if I work with patients in a chair. He thinks they would feel more comfortable that way. He is looking forward. Francoise asks me to massage her face. She asks if I have videos or books on how to massage. I take her email and promise to send her sources. Jacky seems dubious about all of it. Her boss has told me how important it is that I work on her. When I am done she says something in French. I respond in French that I do not understand. (I speak only that much…) She says in English, “Begin again.” We laugh and we hug. I say, “Next time.” She repeats, “Next time.”

A line has formed. Word has gotten out among the staff that this is a good thing. I do not have time for them all.

Before leaving, I take photographs of the room and I say out loud, “G-d, if I am supposed to be here, let me know.” And I cry. I run into Marge, one of the founding doctors. I tell her I am humbled and honored. That there is much work to be done. On staff. Teaching staff. Teaching self-care. And I begin to cry again. Happy tears. Grateful tears. I am grateful for my hands. For the ability to connect with people in this way. For this opportunity.

After lunch, we meet at the WE-ACTx house for a dance lesson with Jolie. It is hot and sunny, but I am excited anyway. I have been taking West African dance for four years now. And while this is different, it still translates. I feel clunky and unskilled and I remind the group of what I tell myself at class, “permission to suck.” The group does not think I suck. Many ask if I am a dancer. I tell them of my secret, private, fantasy career to be a choreographer but that I wouldn’t take a dance class until I got sober. Until my husband bought me a gift certificate at the Old Town School of Folk Music and Dance. And then I was hooked. The reflection is nice. Affirming. I usually dance with men and women who have been doing this far longer than I. That has been my gauge. Our “photographer” shows me a video he has taken. I am moving my back and not just my limbs. My Senegalese teacher would be proud.

After dance class we divide into groups of three for home visits with Peer Parents from WE-ACTx. We bring them samosas and juice. My group is assigned to Lilliane’s house. She is a Peer Parent leading the young mother’s group. She is a young mother herself.

The Malcolm X bus drops us and we are swarmed with locals, fascinated by the muzungos – the wealthy, white folk. Lilliane fetches us and we cross a rickety bridge into her neighborhood. I feel like I am in the bowels of the Old City in Jerusalem where streets are like a cobblestone maze and no one speaks English.

We arrive at her home, 3 rooms. We sit in the main room that has a couch and two chairs, a table and a chest that holds a radio and I am guessing, a television that is often mentioned. I am told that for Lilliane’s child’s birthday, 40 people crammed in to celebrate, with food for days.

Mama Lilliane arrives (Parent’s call themselves like this. Mama and Papa and insert name of one on your children.) Mama Lilliane is a vision in yellow – skirt, top and head wrap. Tall, elegant. She is quintessentially French. She greets us with three cheek kisses and many Oh La La’s. We dress R in Lilliane’s African sari and take photographs. I show Lilliane what we learned at dance class and she and I break into impromptu dance in the dark house.

There is a stove outside and a public toilet somewhere in the neighborhood. I had been directed to pee before coming and am glad that I do not have to go now. Mama Lilliane tells us that the government is buying her home and that she will receive a small sum of money to relocate. They are razing the neighborhood to build new homes. We tell her that this happens in Chicago too. She seems nonplused. She has lived through so much worse than this.

Rwanda Day 5

Yesterday’s breakfast included mushroom soup.  Unorthodox, but tasty. So I try it again today.  My roommate calls it yucky tummy.  Accurate.

We spend the morning shopping at the WE-ACTx Ineza sewing cooperative.  A dozen women sit at black Singer sewing machines, stitching together yoga mat bags, purses, pillows and ties.  They clap when we walk in. 

We decimate their show room, and tell ourselves we are pumping money into the Rwandan economy.  This is true.  And I have the unique opportunity to meet the women who are literally crafting their way to self-sufficiency.  One of the teens gets measured to have a shirt made for him.  Another woman orders a custom pillow.  We will pick them up on Monday.

 Next stop is the market.  We are told to try to find our driver, Mark, when we are ready to purchase, as he will help us to make a better deal.  I cannot find him and do my best with some jewelry.  The first vendor I encountered, but do not buy from, tells me we had a deal.  I tell her we did not and keep walking.

My roommate and I wander into the “hardware department.”  She laughs that it is the same as at home – she can’t find anything.  Deeper in we find the food stalls and I am shooting photographs like it is my job – which once upon a time, I thought it would be.  Mounds of potatoes.  Baskets of peas.  Red beans drying in the sun.  Dried fish.  Cooking oil for sale in re-purposed plastic water bottles.  Along the perimeter are shops with names like “God is Great” – a fish and meat counter.  The vendors do not want their photographs taken.  One wants money in order for me to take a photo of rocks of curry.  I walk away and then he tells me its ok.  He wants to see the picture.  Many vendors want to see the picture.  We are surrounded.  I tell my roommate its time to go and she agrees.

 We find the fabric vendors and each end up with 4 meters of fabric.  I am not certain if I will make a dance skirt out of it, hang it on the wall, or wrap it around myself like many of the women here.  Perhaps I will cut off a piece to wear on my head.  I had hoped to buy a stiff scrap and learn how to tie it like Eryka Badhu, but no one will sell me one.  They only sell complete outfits.  I am certain of this, as Mark took me to several stalls and inquired.  Fabrics are not made in Rwanda.  Ours are imported from Congo.  My vendor allows me to photograph her.  She doesn’t like my first effort, so we take a second.  We laugh and she asks if I want an outfit made.  I don’t.  And we have to go besides.  She says, “Next time.”  “Yes,” I say.  “Next time.”

I am acutely aware that my trip mates are shopping for partners and children.  They have “shopping obligations.”  I do not.  My divorce feels incredibly real.  I spent a few moments crying with my roommate before we went out on our shopping trip.  I know that it is no mistake that she was put in my life at this time.  And I am grateful for her.

 After lunch we return to Nyconga to paint a room for the WE-ACTx jewelry co-operative.  William, the artist we met a few days ago, guides us.  He mixes paint. Lavender.  Pepto Bismol pink.  Pale yellow.  Crème de Mint.  We don’t have stirring sticks or rollers.  We re-use the same masking tape over and over again.  I kick of my orange peep-toe wedges and work barefoot.  I am the edger.  The work goes quickly.  It is, as my roommate and I say, “Africa good.”  We do the best we can with what we have.  It is enough.  It is good enough.  And it is.

 

 

I am in love with all of these girls with shaved heads and big almond eyes.  We stare at one another like sisters.  At least I do.

I take photographs of me with my African sisters and they are excited to see themselves on my smart phone. “That’s me!” “That’s me!”  “Yes,” I say.  “Beautiful.”  And they are.

 We’ve taken the bus named Malcolm X up to Nyoconga – where WE-ACTx leads programs for children with HIV and AIDS, or whose family members are infected.  A year ago these children were listless.  Today, we walk in to find them dancing and singing.  And we are invited to join in.  David and Pretty lead the activities.  They are called “Peer Parents” – appropriate as many of these children are orphans, many taken in by other families.  It is hard to imagine how they feed another mouth.  But they do.

 The younger children want to touch us.  Sit on us while playing a version of Duck Duck Goose.  I am taken by a girl about 13 (She may be older.  Many appear younger due to malnutrition and stunted growth.).  She is wearing a black skirt and a red, shiny shirt with buttons.  I have one like it in green at home.  I don’t want to leave her.  I cannot say why.  My heart hurts when we get back on Malcolm X and wave.  I think of Rabbi Beth in Seattle asking me if I am going to bring a baby home from Rwanda.  I understand how this happens.

 After lunch we go to the Kigali Memorial Center (National Genocide Memorial).  I have read just enough of Philip Gourevitch’s “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda” to not be surprised by what I am learning.  I rent the audio companion and read the screens in English, French and Kinyarwanda.  I break down in the room dedicated to the children murdered in the genocide.  Softly.  There are photographs of children with simple details.  Favorite Food.  Favorite Drink.  Best Friend.  Known For.  How Killed.  Machete.  Grenade.  Thrown against a wall.  On a post is a small glass plaque – a quote from a child survivor.  He says that he looks for his brothers in the market still.  But he will never see them.  So simple.  So real.  So utterly human.  And I cry.

 One of the young girls on our trip is also crying.  She is 16.  Her mother is not here, but her aunt is.  Some of the group seem overly concerned about her tears.  We walk to the bus together and I tell her that I am a cryer too.  I put my arm around her and tell her it is good that she cries.  It means she feels.  We talk all the way to our next destination.  She agrees that she will journal about this and will call her mother.  She tells me she is glad to talk with me.

 We get lost trying to find William’s studio.  He is the painter who led us in creating a mural at WE-ACTx the day before.  Up and down red dirt roads riddled with potholes.  Trash ground into the grass at the side of the street.  Several cell phone calls later we are at the studio cooperative where William and other artists paint and show their work.  We have stumbled across the “it happening” in Rwanda art.  I am told so by Kate, a gallery owner from London putting together a show for Emmanuel.  He is beautiful and charming with tightly wound, skinny dreadlocks.  He speaks perfect  English.  I buy a small painting from another artist in the co-op — apparently he is well known.  It is the first piece I see.  My rabbi comments it has a Picasso feel.  It reminds me of sitting naked with my arms wrapped around my knees.  Many of us buy art.  One woman commissions a piece.  The artists take the larger works off their wooden frames and roll them up for traveling.  The will be re-stretched in the States.  The artists invite us to their opening next Saturday.  We are excited, as we will be here and can attend.  I take a photograph with Emmanuel and Kate says “Isn’t he gorgeous?” I agree.  “Come back next week for the opening…who knows what will happen,” she says.  And we giggle like the shaved-head schoolgirls in the street.

 We wait for Malcolm X for a long time.  Mark, our bus driver, has gone to pick up a woman from Nairobi, Kenya.  She has ridden a bus for 2 days to get here.  Her sister lives in Chicago and knows participants on our trip.  They were separated during the genocide in 1994, when the elder was 8 and the younger was 4.  They only recently learned that the other is alive.  She joins us for dinner.  Just as Gourevitch writes, she speaks in shorthand – “Before.”  Before the genocide.

 She tells me a little over her story over Indian food and promises, “I will tell you my story tomorrow.”