Warm Welcome

After arriving in what seemed like the back end of nowhere, I was terrified that one of the eager men offering to carry my luggage through the bus window would set off with my bras and undies to unknown territory.  To prevent this, I carried a grand total of roughly 50 kgs upon my person while they looked on in awe and teasingly mimicked my panicked It's okay, it's okay!  

One said to me, in perfect English, “You are taking our jobs.” 

If that isn’t just the thing for an immigrant to hear. 

I crept to the immigration office, which was nothing more than a little box with a happy official inside who seemed sure that I had left Canada to begin working in rather than visiting the back end of nowhere and would rather that I stayed in Rwanda.  After some assurances that I would come back, I officially exited the country and was discovered by my co-facilitator – promptly unloading on her slender shoulders with the blessed assurance that my underclothing would be safe.  Then we trekked the barren Sahara between the two countries - as small children asked me for money on the off chance that I had some lying around - and we headed... home. 

But not before small children guided us out of our ‘parking spot’ (the side of the road) and gave me a minor heart attack because I felt like each rock on the road was likely one of their little skulls.

And there was my first mental obstacle. 

You see, until now, I’d been staying in the highest of upscale locations:  A retreat centre outside of Johannesburg with nearly private rooms, greenery, Western buildings, structures, roads, and chauffeurs at my beck and call to take me to and from the airport like a careful pinball.  Then a beautiful, hilly country with supermarkets and trees as far as the eye can see.

Now I could see the dry, dusty, bumpy roads of Mali.  I could see that red dust that gets into every crevice and pore.  This was entirely the wrong order to go about things – I wanted to spend a week in the dust, without power or water, and then two years surrounded by paved roads and green.  ‘My’ house now is surrounded by trees and next to a lake, but there is a five-minute drive to the nearest paved road and the dust (that quickly becomes mud in the frequent, sudden rainshowers) is everywhere.  Driving here requires land rovers and the firm belief that living is Christ and dying is gain - only the main road through the city is paved and everyone has right-of-way.

The day I arrived, my teammates were apparently playing Frisbee (a cultural norm for Carrottop and her husband, BFG), which I joined in a semi-fugue state of tiredness and shock and probably ongoing jetlag.

Our next few weeks would be taken up with studies on peace-building, non-violence, the history of the Great Lakes region, and growing together as a team – usually in French or Swahili.  Eight of us share a few homes in a fenced compound with Carrottop and BFG, and are encouraged and taught by Carrottop and Captain (our co-facilitators).  There are challenges galore that are fielded by our co-facilitators but many more that we have to wade through ourselves.  I already love the music here more than Mali’s, but otherwise, the culture of hospitality seems the same and I’m thankful to be learning always.

The power and the water go out unpredictably – sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised when I flush and I hear the rush of water, and I’m excited when I can read the Bible or a novel at night.  Other times I’m driven insane when I have to go to the tanks outside to fill enough water in buckets to wash my hair.  In India, I was able to catch enough water when it was available to last me through the day for flushing, bathing, and washing my clothes; here, I share a bathroom with at least two other people and we usually can’t reach that goal.  I’m sure you can imagine the difficulties in living here (despite the fact that we are living in a better part of the town), so there really isn’t point in detailing them.  The more irritating fact is that this country’s government has no shortage of water and ensures enough electricity is produced for other countries – and yet here we are.

On the up-side, the days you have power and water from the top, you are on a high known only probably to cocaine addicts.  You don’t know how rich you are until you have experienced life without water or power on demand – I think my biggest mental adjustment is when I return to Canada and hear people talking about how difficult it is to have their yards messy. 

(Note:  It’s not that Western problems aren’t valid, it’s just that I’m not entirely sure what to say or how to alleviate them short of becoming a full-time lansdscaper.)

For now, I'll try to adjust on the more physically uncomfortable side of that swinging pendulum and share more about cultural differences and similarities in thoughts and actions in the future.