5th Anniversary Year

In honor of our 5^th Anniversary year, we decided to splurge on a two week vacation in Tanzania. The first week we took on the tallest mountain in Africa: Kilimanjaro. We can confidently say this was the biggest physical challenge we have faced yet! The second week entailed exploring the island of Zanzibar. From the spice farms to the white sandy beaches we are now sufficiently restored back to health. Our time in Tanzania was memorable indeed! We are grateful for all that we experienced, and for sharing it with each other. 

 

Top 10 Highlights from climbing Kilimanjaro:

1. Gold Bond

2. The moment we decided to zip our sleeping bags together

3. Learning Kiswahili

4. Mohamed’s cooking

5. Wet wipes

6. Smell of the air

7. “Pole Pole”

8. Getting to know our Porters

9. Greasy hair

10. Reaching the summit

 

On to Zanzibar...

 Top 10 Highlights from Zanzibar:

1. Ocean, ocean, ocean

2. Daily dose of seafood

3. Seashells & crabs

4. Not wearing shoes for 5 days straight

5. Sunrises/Sunsets

6. Milkshakes & white wine

7. Spice Tour

8. Meeting our friend Fesal

9. Architecture in Stone Town

10. Rainbows

 Here's to many more years together and to the journey that lies ahead...

Anyone else exhausted from living this life?

After reading the post below, I felt like screaming: I am SO exhausted from living life this way! Does anyone else feel like this?

LETTING GO

Soul knowledge sends you in the opposite direction from consumerism. It’s not addition that makes one holy but subtraction: stripping the illusions, letting go of the pretense, exposing the false self, breaking open the heart and the understanding, not taking my private self too seriously. In a certain sense we are on the utterly wrong track. We are climbing while Jesus is descending, and I think in that we reflect the pride and the arrogance of Western civilization, always trying to accomplish, perform, and achieve. We transferred much of that to our version of Christianity and became spiritual consumers. The ego is still in charge. When the self takes itself that seriously, there’s no room left for God. All we can really do is get ourselves out of the way, and we can’t even do that.  Adapted from: Radical Grace

Whether you believe in Jesus or not, the rat-race mentality is very real in the western culture I call "home." Religion aside, we are bombarded with messages such as: achievement = success, in order to be valued you must perform better than the next person, you are not really a contributing citizen to society unless you are employed or have achieved recognition from an institution of higher learning. Religion at its worst falls directly in line with this mind-set. You aren't really a Christian until you prove it to the world by acquiring this level of knowledge, and performing in this way. When does it end? Even after meeting expectations, the pressure to accomplish more controls our lives. We live in a world where addition provides promise and subtraction implies defeat -forcing us to settle for the superficial, small victories in life. And where does that leave us? 

Perhaps my connection to the overarching pressure to achieve, stems from my geographical roots in the NYC area in the United States the center of the rat-race. However, my observations, albeit limited, tell me this evaluation system is not limited to a bubble of 19 million people in the world. In fact, it appears to go hand in hand with capitalism, ultimately producing an insatiable appetite for success. What kind of life do we live if we have no capacity for contentment?

For me, it is a life of exhaustion.

Right now, my lens is development work where one can never do enough to change the surrounding injustices. If only we can convince more people to give more money! If only I spent more hours improving systems and educate people on sustainability. If only I read more books on development work. If only I knew more influential people! If only I was more charismatic and could engage more people in the cause! If only I had a higher education degree to boost my credibility! The sad reality, is this is focused on the "self" and ultimately  "taking my private self too seriously." We become human-doings rather than human-beings until life ceases and all our assets and accomplishments die with us. Is this really what life is all about? Something in me rebels against accepting this reality. I refuse to embrace these values, yet my life reflects the contrary. To borrow from Radical Grace, "When the self takes itself that seriously, there’s no room left for God." I would add "or mystery." I long to live a life enamored by mystery.

What would it take to become creators or better yet, listeners, rather than consumers? I live under the assumption that I am responsible for my growth and worth. Frankly, accomplishments feel good. There is something organic in feeling satisfied after producing something we are proud of. But what initiates our creation? Are we spurred on by creativity in itself or the recognition from other people? How can we be freed from the external pressures of society and live out of the empowerment of our unique selves. Selves that are valued simply because we are free-thinking individuals who offer a distinct perspective to the world around us.

I am tired of feeling exhausted.

Week One in the PIH house

Our new room:

Unfortunately, SLEEP DEPREVIATION has been the theme of our first week in the Partner’s In Health (PIH) house.  Part of the problem is simply getting use to a new place.  Our bed felt uncomfortable for the first few nights and our room is crowded with our suitcases.  Michelle has felt anxious about constantly being on call as she adapts to her new role as the House Manager.  In the mornings we frequently hear people stirring in the house by 7am.  Once someone is up, she feels compelled to be present in order to meet guests and have a chance to introduce herself.

The other problems contributing to our sleepless nights are mosquitoes and heat.  In our previous house, there were screens on the windows so we could leave the windows open at night to take advantage of the cool air.  The windows in this house have no screens.  We decided to take a chance and sleep with the windows open but the tradeoff was worse.  We were devoured by mosquitoes all night!  Even with a mosquito net, we were eaten alive.  Our arms, legs, necks, and hands were covered in small red bites.  The next morning we woke to find at least 5 mosquitoes hanging out inside our net.  Quite the cozy family, huh?!  The itching and scratching is one thing, but that mosquito “buzzzzz” triggers an involuntary response to stay awake until the predator is killed.

After too many consecutive sleepless nights, Nate now sleeps with a flashlight under his pillow as his defense.  Our plan of attack is to stand up in our tent, in the middle of the night, once the soul piercing buzz begins and start our killing spree so we can fall back asleep.  At first it didn’t seem worth the effort.  But now we know we won’t get any sleep while our arch nemesis is near.  Isn’t it amazing how powerful our human instincts are?

The fun part of Michelle’s job as been meeting all the PIH staff.  In fact, in two days there will be a big house party in honor of two recent engagements.  Peter, the country director proposed to his girlfriend, Neo, back in Boston just two weeks ago and Gene proposed to his girlfriend, Sheida, on top of Mount Kilimanjaro earlier this month.  Staff from all PIH sites in Rwanda (Rwinkwavu, Kirehe, and Butaro) will come to Kigali for the celebration.  Now we get to meet everyone in one fell swoop.  The expected turn out is somewhere between 60 and 80 people!  We are in for a fun time. 

The not so fun part of Michelle’s job is trying to make improvements in the house without having much authority.  Her initial assessment of the house revealed many problems areas that need to be addressed. Admittedly we were surprised by the number of things broken or expired given the fact that the house is used on a regular basis.  For example, out of the five bathrooms, only two toilets are in working order, one sink leaks on the floor, and others are clogged and won’t drain properly.  Up until now there has been no trash service so the MO has been to throw everything in the broken fountain outside in the backyard.  There are walls crumbling down due to water damage.  Every room had 75% of the light bulbs burned out.  80% of the mosquito nets have holes and are dirty, not to mention some beds not having mosquito nets at all.  After our first week of sleepless nights, we know how unacceptable this is for the comfort of our guests.  There is also a shortage of towels and pillows which makes for an uncomfortable stay when the house is full.

On the one hand, these seem like easy fixes.  Being the optimist that Michelle is, she felt great about sending her report the first day with an execution plan in place for addressing the most urgent needs before the house is bursting with 80 people.  Little did she know the reality of having to rely on other people to execute solutions while working in an inefficient culture makes these tasks impossible to complete in one week.  It has been quite the emotional rollercoaster this week.  We are two days away from the party and the plumber who was “suppose” to be here on Tuesday still hasn’t shown up.  Even though Michelle is in charge of the house, she doesn’t have the freedom to pay for utilities with petty cash or the jurisdiction to call the service people to come fix things in the house.  The procedures in place require her to go through the chain of command in the office.  As of now, her bosses have been preoccupied with other things so their response time has been slow.

The other challenge Michelle is facing is figuring out boundaries between her home and her workplace.  Even though the job description said 10-15 hours of work a week, the reality is it is a 7 day a week job given her role of overseeing the house staff that work every day and being the go to person for the guests.  Funny how she finds herself in another job that has blurred boundaries.  Coincidence much?! 

All in all, she is still very excited about her job and is energized by all the possibilities for improvements.  PIH is doing some incredible things in the health sector of Rwanda and around the world.  It has been a treat to hear about these stories first hand and to get to know some wonderful people in the process.  We sense the comfort of being adopted into an established community but we do miss our friend Esron.  In a lot of ways, we feel like we are faced with the task of settling in all over again.  Once again, our common ground from the many moves we have made in the past 6 months has been each other.  For this we are grateful!

Imana ibarinde kandi ibahe umugisha

A trip to Burundi

As we approached our third month mark (April 12th), we knew we had to travel out of the country to renew our tourist visa for another 3 months.  Nate has been working on registering IEE with the government as an INGO (International Non-Government Organization) for the past month but it is quite a complicated process. Every time he visited the Immigration Office to submit his forms, they would surprise him with more document and signature requirements.  Once IEE is a registered INGO, we can apply for a work and dependent visa (for Michelle as a spouse) which is good for one year.  Until then, we are only “allowed” to stay in the country for 3 months at a time as tourists.  Guess that means we have to take a vacation every three months to "reset" our tourist Visas.  Not too shabby!

Meredith happened to be out of town during the week we needed to leave.  We were thrilled to have access to her car so we could drive ourselves over the border and not pay for public transportation.  It was a fun adventure with beautiful scenery.  After only an hour car ride, we arrived at the border!!

Welcome to Burundi!

 Here is a picture of the border

This is the road heading into Burundi

Burundi looks similar to Rwanda in that there are lots of farm lands, impoverish communities, and the people  dressed in the same clothing.  However, the subtleties in the homes were very charming!  We noticed large clay pots placed next to many doors of the homes lining the street.  One difference that stood out to us was the round homes with thatched roofs.  In Rwanda, most homes in rural areas are also made of mud or cement but are mainly built in a rectangle or square shape.  We are use to seeing tin roofs so the straw roofs caught our eyes.  Michelle tried to capture some of her favorites as we drove by.

 

Our original plan was to eat lunch in Burundi but after driving an hour into the country and not seeing any restaurants, our stomachs got the best of us so we turned around without stepping out of the car to explore.  We will have to come back another time!

One interesting side-note, on our way back to Rwanda, we ran into a military training camp doing a work out on the road.

Overall, it was a delightful drive (except for the distracting hunger pains) with beautiful scenery.  Since the hills were not very steep throughout the southern province, we vowed to do it again on our moto for a more au natural experience.  We can't wait!  It's like driving in "the hidden valley" from "The Land Before Time." Fantasy come to life, just beautiful.

Imana ibarinde kandi ibahe umugisha