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.” 

Africa!

Those words sounded like magic –rolled out in almost a whisper by a child in the 1970s television commercial for the Detroit Zoo.

Today, in about 3 hours, I board a plane from Chicago to Rwanda (via Brussels).

Many of my friends have asked “Why?”. 

“Why Africa?” “Why  Rwanda?”

I could rattle off any number of seemingly plausibly answers, but really, I’m going because I can.   I had dreamed of Africa for as long as I can remember.  My synagogue announced a service trip.  Funds were available.  And it was time.  My friend Deb has a juicier answer.  She calls my going “divine enticement.”  Something beyond me, coaxing me there.    

I’ll be joining my congregation in working with two different AIDS organizations.  One, WE-ACTx, provides access to treatment and services for women and children with AIDS and HIV.   The other, CHABHA, funds and supports children orphaned by AIDS.

I’ve been given the following advice by those who have traveled: Surrender.  Drop expectations. And breathe it in.  I’ve learned a little about doing just that over the past five years.  And so I am optimistic.

My passport and yellow-fever vacination certification is tucked into my bag, along with my wallet.  I have a rain shell that my friend Michael brought to me Monday night.  And I’m traveling in shoes not quite suited for Africa.  I’ll change them when I arrive.

 Friends have asked me to write and to take photos.   This is my beginning.

I missed Torah study today.  Not just missed as in, didn’t go.  Missed as in, felt the absence of. 

This past fall I made a commitment to attend a year of Torah study classes, whenever possible.  Today isn’t the first time I wasn’t there.  I’ve stayed away when I was feeling tired or under the weather or was out-of-town.  At those times I’ve read Torah propped up in bed, sipping coffee, my cat Maude tucked in beside me.  At those times, I haven’t felt “that missing.”

Today I left the house at 5:45 a.m. to lead three Weight Watchers meetings.  I drove away at noon feeling a little sick, a little sad, and a little lonely.

Working for Weight Watchers is my joy and my genius, and members have long been “my congregation.”  However, when I moved to Seattle six months ago, I consciously decided not to take on any Saturday commitments — Weight Watchers or otherwise.  I wanted the opportunity to experience Torah study and synagogue services on a regular basis.

My bosses and other colleagues have often asked me to consider working on Saturdays. And I’ve continued to say no, until today.

I said yes, just this once — a single Saturday.

The meetings were lively and fun.  I connected easily to the members.  Several asked me when and where I usually work.  I felt flattered.  And yet, I felt the pull of my people.  My other people.

I have sometimes felt like a farce, like a liar, when I told my Weight Watchers colleagues I don’t work Saturdays because I am in synagogue.  A mean voice inside calls out, “Yeah? Since when?”

Since October to be exact.  Since my 42nd birthday, when I watched the Torah unfurl around me at Simchat Torah services, and committed myself to a year of Torah study.  Since I gave myself the gift of Saturdays– the gift of Shabbat.

Welcome to WordPress.com. After you read this, you should delete and write your own post, with a new title above. Or hit Add New on the left (of the admin dashboard) to start a fresh post.

Here are some suggestions for your first post.

1. You can find new ideas for what to blog about by reading the Daily Post.
2. Add PressThis to your browser. It creates a new blog post for you about any interesting  page you read on the web.
3. Make some changes to this page, and then hit preview on the right. You can always preview any post or edit it before you share it to the world.