And you shall go forth again, skip about like calves...

Hey, sorry about the grumpy tone of my last post. I guess I should not blog when I am tired. Sometimes it feels like a chore to blog, so I have decided to only do it when I feel compelled, not obligated. That is probably why I have not blogged in a good long while. This might be my last blog post for a while, because this friday, I leave for Rome. My cousin Dan-O will meet me there and we plan on an adventure, though the details have yet to coalesce. I looked into couchsurfing to find a free place to stay in Rome and the two people I felt comfortable requesting their couches both turned me down rather quickly. Oh well. I find it odd that my colleagues will return home in a few days. Though I miss home, I cannot imagine being there quite yet at least.

Today is my last Saturday in Rwanda. Every time I remember that, it floors me; I cannot believe how the time has passed. Sometimes in the semester, the days could not pass fast enough, but now on the tail end of my semester, I realize how short four months really is. It has gone by in a flash and I have seen a lot, too much to recount or even to recall with looking at my fastidious journal.

School is winding up and the second half of the semester actually required some academic know-how and time commitment, which made me happy. Life on permanent vacation quickly becomes mundane. I enjoy having work to do when I like the work. I have realized this semester that physical work is something I really enjoy and relish. There is nothing so peaceful and simple as working with a hoe barefoot. We started a small garden at our house. I terraced it to protect against the rain so now it looks like a wedding cake.

This Easter, we had a big feast at our house. Everyone could invite guests, provided they cooked a dish per guest. I invited the neighbor kids with whom I play soccer and I made a huge fruit salad. They showed up early in anticipation. Right before dinner, a street musician showed up at the gate. He had played me a song four weeks before right in front of our gate and I gave him a bunch of bananas in return. He has a nasally voice and a homemade, out of tune guitar. Together, he manages to sound decently good. Randomly, he showed up at our gate on Easter afternoon and began to play me another song. I do not know whether he was expecting more bananas or what, but I invited him in. He ended up entertaining all of us with many more songs. Him and his brother then stayed for dinner. He has one eye. The guests packed into our living room around four long tables, friends I knew and friends I did not know, to share a meal together. It felt right to open up the table to even a stranger, much less our friends, like a formal recognition of the universal body of Christ and a sign of the diversity of the Kingdom. Maybe I am over-thinking it, but all in all, Easter went splendidly. For the first time, I looked past the superficial Easter celebrations to see how vitally important Easter is for Christians. The resurrection is a big deal theologically and ethically, don'tchaknow.

I like the rain here. We are in the middle of rainy season, which means that it rains at least once daily. The sun can be out in full force only for a drastic change to occur in a few minutes that sees the arrival of torrential rain blowing sideways. I took a shower in the rain today, freezing cold but it saved some water so I considered it worth it. I have started birdwatching again, though it might be more appropriate to say that I have started noticing the many birds around me, though I cannot successfully identify most. It is amazing how alive the world is when I actually take the time to open my eyes. I do not want to live with my eyes shut.

Update (to be read in a monotone voice, though not so that it sounds like an angst filled teenager)

I do not much feel like blogging, but here is the deal. I am nearing the end of my study abroad program, which startles me to think that I have passed nearly a whole semester in Rwanda. I do not want to try to summarize my experience here in nice, trite understatements, nor do I want to prematurely analyze what I have learned or gone through since I still have a fair amount of time here. But here is my life for the past few weeks. I go to class every day except Thursdays. I run. I traveled to Gisenyi to revisit my practicum site and the friends I made there. I bought two 'african' shirts for myself. I have put off journaling so that it now feels like a necessary chore. I do not take pictures because I am not a tourist. I talk about hell and universalism with my friends, we mostly do not come to any sure conclusions. I wash my laundry by hand and enjoy the starchiness of the dried fabrics after they come off the clothes line. I have hung out with my Rwandan friends in Kigali, often visiting them in their houses. I try to ignore the boisterous girls. I like to pick out Bookends on the guitar; Simon and Garfunkel astound me daily. I go to church, usually at the Free Methodist church. They always make us sing a song for them; this week we sang "there is power in the blood" but it did not go over as well as I had hoped. We danced a lot during the Palm Sunday afternoon service; it got really lively and stuffy.

Alright, that is enough seemingly pointless blogging from me. I do not like writing to no one in particular, or maybe just no one in general, so I will stop here. Good night, ijoro gyiza.

Remembrance

Seventeen years ago today, the Rwandan genocide started. Seventeen years ago today, the killing would have already been going for nineteen hours. Thus, today, officially declared a national holiday, starts the nationwide Mourning Week to remember the genocide in Rwanda. On my walk to the memorial service at Amahoro (Peace) National Stadium, I witnessed an immediate change in the way Kigali went about its business. People looked more somber and did not greet each other like they did even yesterday. The once busy streets usually filled with moto taxis and crazy drivers, seemed passive and deserted. The city air felt heavy laden with grief, sobered up as if God had splashed a bucket of water into its inebriated countenance. Noise, once a mainstay of the capital city, had disappeared and was replaced with a grim and solemn silence. I am not lying when I report that the city had tangibly changed in observance of the holiday; every step further towards the stadium confirmed my uneasy sense that something was indeed amiss. On such an anniversary, how could it not be? I did not speak because I felt the need to respect the mournful atmosphere. 

At the stadium, I joined a long line of other Rwandans waiting for the armymen to search them so they could peacefully enter the stadium. We waited through the rain; a lady offered me refuge underneath her umbrella for the worst part of the storm. Thousands of people packed into the stadium stands and I quickly found out that I could not see the stage, I did not know what was happening, and I could not understand the proceedings because they said everything in kinyarwanda. At first, many of those around me wore smiles and even chatted a bit as the service started. Most people sported all forms of clothing in the color purple, even Boy Scout-esque bandanas around the neck, because purple signifies healing. All the signs and banners about the genocide were purple as well. 

As the service progressed, I noticed that people's moods changed. I could not understand the songs playing over the loud speakers or what the keynote speakers said, but I observed how the people around me now held their faces in their hands, or gripped their necks like those afflicted by worries or bad memories. Then, I heard a new sound. It confused me at first because it sounded so far away. But as it built its chilling crescendo, I perceived a heart-stopping scene. A woman, maybe a hundred rows away from me, was screaming her heart out, crying, visibly burdened and broken with remembering. The people around her tried to console her, but she did not listen to them. Instead her disturbing wails grew louder and more intense. Her exclamations sounded like what I would associate with a dying animal. It terrified me. Rwandans are usually quite composed in public and they hide their emotions/opinions well, so whatever was afflicting that woman's brain must have been dreadfully powerful and real. Her screams filled the empty air that hung around the stadium. Men came, some in white shirts, some in the uniform of the omnipresent Rwanda police, and they helped escort her limp and lamenting body out of the stadium. I heard her body-curdling screams fade as they carried her off. That poor lady set off a chain reaction that was perhaps fated to happen. All around the stadium, people, mostly women with the occasional man, would erupt suddenly and startlingly into bouts of piercing wails. They projected a terrifying sound. Many collapsed as they shrieked, hollered and yelped, physically encumbered with the horrors of yesteryear that managed to extend their terror into the world seventeen years later. 

The whole second half of the four hour long service, I heard these mournful and transfixing wails crescendo and decrescendo like a dirge. I watched as limp figures were carted like the deceased out of the stadium. These poor folks, probably survivors and/or victims, were completely overcome by the weight of remembering. As I did not know what was happening in the official service, the wailers of chilling exclamations captivated my attention. A couple times, people near me broke down and began screaming. I have never heard screams like those before. They echoed across the stadium. Even those who did not break down into shrieking were affected; a woman directly behind me sobbed the entire service. In remembering the genocide, a spirit of real terror still tormented many of those present. I cried too, for no other reason than I could see the sufferings of those in my immediate surroundings. I cried because I felt disturbed. I cried because life is tormented, tragic and heart-breakingly sad. Peering outside the bubble, life can be hell on earth.