If you cry because you miss the sun, your tears will not let you see the moon ….African Proverb
It has been a while since I jumped into the unknown. It was
sad to leave my home in Gulu this week; my friends, the familiar shops,
restaurants, streets, and most of all my pigs. But if I let my tears prevent me
from seeing the adventure before me I will miss it. I took an unfamiliar walk
to an unfamiliar town, with unfamiliar shops, restaurants, and languages…I
spoke three! I passed the refugee camp set up for the families fleeing conflict
in Burundi…the children, maybe 30 or 40 came running over to the improvised
barrier (a piece of string tied to trees), they wanted to shake my hand, to
greet me, to touch my skin, to smile and say “bonjour”. The young man with them
told me they like whites and they would be starting to learn English on Monday.
Together we taught them to say “I’m fine” in response to my greeting and “goodbye”
when I left. It is the first time since I first walked on to Mother Teresa
Primary School three and a half years ago that I felt that kind of joy that
comes from knowing you are in the right place, right now.
In the shop I found another young man who had enough English
that I was able to do my little shopping. He sent me next door for milk where
the three ladies had only Kinyarwanda, so we used sign language and smiled a
lot. There was no milk, but I did buy some water.
Rwanda is so different from Uganda and Gulu, there are no
outside venders, no goods displayed outside the shops, no people just lazing
around or playing cards. It is quiet, peaceful, orderly and clean. The only
thing that disturbs the calm are the big dump trucks the Chinese brought to
steal the top soil and move it to the lake’s edge where they are growing rice,
I hope the hippos eat it all. This adventure, creating and teaching in Rwanda
will allow me to keep all that we have built in Gulu running. I will be paid
for the first time in two years, my housing and food provided, so the students
in our program can go to school one more year…and maybe we will have enough to
send them all to programming camp next year.
There is a lot to learn in my new country and Gulu will always be my sun; but for now I am seeing the moon... and the stars.
