Eve

I don't really need to write a post.  I'm not doing anything other than eating.  Honestly, I don't think I've gained a lot of weight.  Also honestly, I can now talk to my potbelly.  And have it talk back when I've gone a whole hour without eating.

Vacation in a vacation home, while still getting to see my friends and eat ice cream, is the best.  Sometimes I go to work to show solidarity with my coworkers, who have basically only had Christmas day off.  And that's because it was on a Sunday.

I would like to show more solidarity, but this conflicts with my desire to dance around in my mansion and do the opposite of tan.

Bright with a Chance of Faith

I don't want to see a war.

I prefer to think that sharp bangs outside are firecrackers at a celebration.

I like believing that normal people wouldn't hurt neighours for their skin colour or accent or the shape of their noses.

I don't want to be scared.

And I'm not.

Yet. 

...Was This Stupid Blister

Okay, so here is my perception of this meal – not that of my coordinators', my teammates', nor the recipients of the meal; subjective value can be a beautiful thing.

Not here, but it can be.

...And All I Got...

In Goma, I learned that the chikudu is a valid mode of travel.  I had assumed, on my first sight of this makeshift bike with a holding area for one knee (sort of a raised scooter), that the man pushing it was slightly handicapped.  Then I was informed otherwise – they were used by perfectly healthy men to push around large loads.  I thought cycle rickshaws were a morbid travesty, but they have been magnificently outdone.

I Went to an IDP Camp...

Last week saw a confession of love from a seller of phone credit.  There's usually some sort of hullabaloo going on at the phone store when I pass, but I determinedly avoid gazes and scurry past as though I had somewhere to be (ha).  One day, a kind old man took it upon himself to let me know in English that the vendors wanted to talk to me.

I ignored him as well, but he just kept shouting after me in an unforgiveably rude fashion until I gave up, pulled my earphones from my ears, gave an Oscar-worthy performance of innocent shock and waved at the lot of them.  They excitedly shouted and waved back and my kind old informant took the opportunity to make a small request:

“Can you give me a job?  You are young and I am old and we can run a business.  You can see that I speak English so we can run a business because you are young and I am old now.”

By Any Other Name

Though he tends to ruin my innocent joys – at the reception of my new nationality with laughter instead of polite disdain, he only bemoaned the noise level, showing a level of distress rarely seen outside of unauthorized spatula-usage – Butters and I do not, as has been insinuated, hate each other.  We're... friends.  Of a sort.  We're just... very different... and...  Look, this would be easier if I didn't feel like I were explaining our imminent divorce to our children.

Wait, Weight - What?

Butters, happily not vomiting, joined our church group for a visit to a large general hospital in Carrefour at the end of November.  The medical director was eager to see what we’d brought, perhaps expecting the muzungus to hand out keys to five Mercedes Benz, but he masked his disappointment well.  Both Butters and I were a little unnerved to learn that they kept people who hadn’t paid their bills, which explained the locked gate we’d had to bypass, but it seemed par for the course for our teammates.  As the director earnestly tried to explain that people had to pay bills to keep the hospital running, I silently cheered him on.

On Thanksgiving

Somewhere between wistfully watching a woman undergo a desperate hot flash while I was shivering in my scarf... and unwillingly listening to people slowly kill a dog just by my workplace... I gave up trying to understand why I’m here and what I’m doing.

I’m caught in the strange position of realising that I write about the rape of a 12-year-old girl with little finesse and yet have trouble sharing the story of a dog being killed for food on the street.

Do you understand? 

...What the Problem Is

The underlying assumption, the truly painful implicit belief in all of this is that efficiency, honesty, and integrity are Western ideals that cannot rightly be expected to flourish in other cultures.  The equally mortifying corollary holds that if you are efficient, honest, or trustworthy, it must be due to a Western influence. 

I can’t count the number of times I’ve caught myself thinking of some positive behaviour as ‘Western.’  Even when it comes to Pastor, we wonder whether his down-to-earth attitude, analytical skills, and dedication to the Word of God are due to his post-secondary education outside the country.  As if poverty and necessity breed an acceptable, ethical form of sin and weakness, while democracies and accessible healthcare and education breed a resume of virtues.  As though the reality that God changed him is not only laughable, but impossible.  As though goodness comes from somewhere out there rather than in here.