Ash Wednesday reflections

13 February 2013

I went to Mass this morning.  I sat beside the picture of Simon of Cyrene helping Jesus with His cross.  

I didn’t understand much of what was said, but I knew what they were talking about.  There was a lot of talking and praying and kneeling before the bowl of ashes came out.  

It seems I was sitting in the old man section of the church.     

There was a child in front of me (even though it was the old man section, children are everywhere) who would not stop staring or turn around and face the front.  An older man came from behind me and put his hand on her shoulder and gently but firmly righted her body to face the front.  He was wearing a brass wedding band.  In this gesture I saw authority and kindness. 

I thought of all the deeds those hands might have done, the things those strong old arms have carried.  I thought of all the life the eyes of those old men me around have seen.  And I wondered. 

Then I got in line with them and walked up to the front of the church.  

There was a line of 50 men walking past me, returning to their seats, as I continued to wait... nearly shaven grey hair, grey stubble beards, wrinkled faces, lean but frail bodies, old tattered suit jackets, piles of hats left on the window sills and walking sticks left on the floor... they kneeled and prayed and always crossed themselves and bowed a little before they sat down.  They walked hunched over a little and did not push past the people to get in line like everyone else did.  As I carried with me all my thoughts and memories about a million things and a hundred different moments, observing every detail of my present experience, I wondered what they might be thinking.

When it was my time to get the ashes on my forehead I was nearly overcome with emotion.  I watched the priest dip his fingers in the bowl, the same fingers and the same bowl for a hundred men and women before me, and I closed my eyes and bent my knees a little as he wiped the ash on my forehead.  I felt it in my heart.

The whole morning I had this song* in my head...

Digging deep, I feel my conscience burn

I need to know who and what I am

This hunger jolts me from complacency

It rocks me and makes me meet myself

‘Cause Jacob walked a limp to remind him

Of the greater gift of the greater One

But when I fell, I fell to my own resources

How can I carry a truth when I can’t crawl to you?

I want to feel something sweeter than this sin

Cover me in the leaves, roll me over again

‘Cause I’ve been everybody else and now I want to be

Something closer to myself

Paint me in a different light, shed me yet another coat of skin

Mark me with ash until I’m clean again

Because I’m so sick and tired of being sick and tired

I know I can love you, I know that I can

I’ve been thinking and praying for days about how I can personally observe this Lenten season.  I have to be careful because, for me, it can easily turn into one of two things (or sometimes both):  It can be a prideful declaration of my piety, a “hey God, look what I’m doing for you! You better do something for me now.  Look how good I am,”  OR it can be a quick way to lose weight and feed my vanity.  If I give up something like sugar and bread I will invariably drop a few pounds and feel a bit prettier and more godly and some weird part of me loves the self-denial. 

But fasting and prayer is a private matter so I’ll move on; I simply want to convey the weight of this morning’s mass and part of my attitude going into it.

There are so many things that we are slaves to.  Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how I wish I could be better at saying no when I want to say no.  I think of that movie where Jim Carey has to say yes to everything and I wish for some magic spell that would help me say no.  It’s even more difficult in this PC culture of “integration.”  After 9 months in Rwanda I’m still having a difficult time with that blurry line of integration versus holding onto my identity and keeping my sanity.  Even before Rwanda, though, I’ve been a slave to pleasing others.  Even in my own culture I have a hard time saying no when someone wants me to do something that I know will make them happy.  

Instead of being personally unhappy and untrue to myself while saying yes to everyone and trying to please everybody, I want to try being something closer to myself....

... to be something closer to myself while I’m in Rwanda and being respectful and culturally sensitive and figuring out how to integrate, and making plans and talking with my family at home as they barely know who I am anymore, and learning and growing so much and getting to know myself and who I am, and developing my thoughts about spirituality and the world and international development and the value of cross cultural experiences, and being all too often stuck in memories of the past and dreams of the future instead of being present where I am right now... 

... something closer to myself.  That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?

As I returned to my seat after I got the ashes on my head I thought of Ash Wednesday last year.  I had gotten special permission from my teacher to leave our Wednesday night class early so I could go to my church for the service.  I could write a whole essay on why I love that church so much, but I’ll save those thoughts for another time.  I’d called around to all the churches in Missoula to find a service not being held in the morning and not at 7:00 p.m. so I could attend.  Grad students’ schedules are difficult to accommodate sometimes.  Unsuccessful at finding a convenient service, I got permission and left class and walked across campus and through the neighborhood across the street to get to church.  Thankfully, it was only two blocks from campus.  Being February in Montana, it was very dark at 6:45 and it had started to snow.  It wasn’t a pretty, slow, light snowfall, but a wet, icy and windy snowfall.  I was wearing a long dress, a sweater over it, boots, a fleece over all that, and a hat.  I put my head down and walked fast, but I was still soaked and frozen when I got to the church 15 minutes later.  

Cover me in the leaves, roll me over again

It was so important to me to go that night because I was feeling particularly heartbroken and was trying to decide whether or not to go to Rwanda.  I wept the whole time and with the pastor’s (a beautiful, strong, peaceful and eloquent woman, by the way, whom I adore) hand on my forehead I felt the ashes being marked on my heart.  As I returned to my seat in that lovely sanctuary lit only by candles, I felt repentance and grief and community.  I looked around at the familiar faces, having only known them a few months and not even remembering many names, and felt a part of something bigger and more ancient than my own soul.  

And I felt that again today.  

Church services like this one, are meant to be an outward manifestation of an inward reality.  It’s a powerful thing to honor a deeply personal inward spiritual matter of the soul in a room full of other people.  It’s impossible to judge the hearts of other men, but it’s empowering to honor the reality of God in each of us as we move through this season together.  

After we’d received the ash, taken communion (I didn’t take communion: being true to myself - I’m not Catholic), and said several prayers we turned to those around us and embraced them one by one saying to each other, “Wamohoro Kristo.”  The peace of Christ.  

In Rwanda when you greet someone you go in face-to-face and grab each other by the upper arm putting your face over each others left shoulder.  Maybe I’ll just demonstrate when I see you next because I fear I’m failing to describe it well.  Then you shake that persons hand after holding them for half a second.  About 8 of those old men sitting around me, one at a time, after we’d shared the symbol of repentance and grief, knelt together, prayed together, remembered together, each of them, in turn, firmly grasped my arms, looked me in the eyes and said in their native language, Peace of Christ.  We sealed our communal experience with a firm physical embrace with a literal passing of peace.  

When I got back to the health center, there were several Catholic nurses there who, because of work, were unable to attend Mass.  One of them, the old woman who shares evening meals with me, said, “I need some,” as she reached up and rubbed some of my ash off my head and onto hers.  I mimicked her, rubbing a little off of me and onto her.  I wanted to give it and not just have it taken from me.  

I will never know what the eyes and hands of those old men at church have seen and done.  I will never know the life and grief of the nurses at my health center.  I may never be able to get past the frustration of being constantly stared at and feared by children.  Perhaps I will continue to say yes when I want to say no to things I am invited to.  

But, for a fleeting moment this morning, I was able to walk that tightrope of being myself while being fully present and a part of this life.  

This hunger jolts me from complacency

It rocks me and makes me meet myself

*Closer to Myself by Kendall Payne 

Boys Excelling (Camp BE)

After the AIDS conference and being back in the village for a week where I made significant progress (ha! now that I’m rereading this just prior to posting I’m asking myself what I meant by significant. significant progress? I must have been crazy when I wrote that.) on the project plan for the hygiene and nutrition projects I’m working on with my counterpart, I volunteered to help run Camp BE for another volunteer who was unable, at the last minute, to be full time Camp Director.  This was crazy, hectic, sometimes on the brink of disaster, and a whole lot of fun.  That’s what camp should be, right? We had nearly 50 boys and 30 facilitators at a boarding school in Bugesera, in the Eastern Province for 5 days (8 days including TOT for the facilitators).  We learned all about life skills, HIV and AIDS, sex, decision making, and careers and goal setting.  We also danced a whole whole lot, played games, ate loads of beans and cabbage (imagine the boys dorms, gross), and showed off our talents.  Well... they showed off their talents... they didn’t have the least bit interest in seeing any of my talents.  I know, right? Not one person was interested in seeing an old cheerleading routine or hearing me play the piano or hearing me sing or watching me lead a group in experiential learning or watching my knees hyper extend.  Imagine.  

So aside from not having enough food, meals always being an hour late, bed bugs (EVERYWHERE! except the female counselors’ dorms, praise God.), boys randomly leaving camp to go shop in town, and tearing down decorations we’d made, I witnessed a few occasions of beautiful youth empowerment and learning.  

We had an awesome group of facilitators.  These were men from the schools and communities where PCV’s serve.  They, for the most part, know the boys and served as the camp counselors and leaders of the camp.  Two of these men have been involved with GLOW and BE camps since PC started doing them in Rwanda nearly 5 years ago.  I, as the director, was paired with a Rwandan counterpart director who did a fabulous job.  One of my favorite memories was the bonfire night.  Bonfires in Rwandan culture are usually reserved for funerals and seasons of mourning, but we were hoping to do a little cultural exchange and show was bonfires at camp in America are like.  Everyone, especially my co-director counterpart, was stoked about perhaps the most essential part of American bonfires and campfires - s’mores.  He had talked about them all week saying on multiple occasions that s’mores are the best part of camp and half the reason he does this.  It was a crazy distribution of chocolate (HERSHEY’S!), marshmallows, graham crackers, and little barbecue skewers (could they not get their own sticks? what kind of camp was this?) and the bonfire was huge (a joint effort between me and my co-director, I might add - I can make fire!).  After everyone had eaten and we’d cleaned up a little, the boys all gathered around the fire singing songs and telling stories.  The two men in leadership positions were semi-organizing the whole thing and I will never forget the sound of 50 Rwandan men singing together in their language, stories from their culture, in the dark and otherwise silent night.  Even the youngest, smallest, and quietest boys among them spoke up leading a chorus or two in the call-and-response style of African music.  

Bugesera. the view from the boys' dorms.

And this is good youth development: creating the environment (bringing the chocolate and organizing the sex talk, as it were) and stepping back while local leaders pour into local youth.

AIDS conference and some reflections on UNCRC

From November 21 to 23 last year (2012 was that last year? already? wow.) national and international stakeholders, academics, healthcare providers, scientists, and children convened in Kigali for the Rwanda National Pediatric Conference on Children Affected and Infected by HIV and AIDS.  There were presenters from organizations like Partners in Health, UNICEF, World Vision, USAID, WHO, UNAIDS, and more.  It was sponsored by the Rwanda Biomedical Center.  Rwanda is making great strides toward supporting people living with HIV/AIDS and preventing new infections of HIV and it’s exciting to be a part of it all.  The theme of the conference was, “Strengthening Community Ownership for Equitable, Effective and Sustainable Response to HIV Among Children in Rwanda.”  There were motivating keynote speakers, encouraging and enlightening researchers presenting their work, and engaged and involved children and youth.  Oh, and Q&A sessions that went on and on and on and on and on.... followed by crazy-cool entertainment when we were all too tired to still be there.  I mean, it was a professional international conference but it was still in Africa -- it began every day a few hours late and went on into the evening past the time Americans are hungry for dinner.  Then almost every Rwandan there was eager to make his or her thoughts heard on the microphone.  Rarely were there actually questions posed during the Q&A, but mostly comments, encouragement, and criticism.  At the very end they surprised us all with a performance by the Urban Boyz.  If you don’t know this group, look them up.  They’re all the rage in Rwanda.  Some of us volunteers became sillier than the teenager girls in attendance.  

Researchers working all over Rwanda presented their work on services for families affected by HIV, HIV prevention, sexual behaviors and beliefs, child labor, the field of social work; all of them looking at community integration in the care of people living with and the prevention of HIV and AIDS.  Those who were unable to present, shared posters.  So much information.  There’s some great  investigating and creative thinking happening in Rwanda.  I left motivated and encouraged and proud of working with a country making so much progress.

children and youth performing for the conference (I do need to admit it was a little strange that whenever there was a lull in conference activities they'd make the children get up and perform.  But I think they really enjoyed showing off their choreographed dances)

One of the best things about the conference was that there was a simultaneous youth and child conference going on in another hall.  The youth were presented with the information, held discussions, and at the end of it all, presented the adults with their recommendations for a way forward.  

if you look closely, perhaps you can see the very small girl presenting the children's recommendations for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Rwanda

In my opinion, this was the best part.  As you know I spent a year intensely studying the role of youth and family development in the bigger picture of community and international development.  Yes, I’m getting ready to talk about the UNCRC.  We spent countless hours poring over it last year, how could I forget about it? 

Section one of article 13 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (opened in 1989, entry into force 1990) reads, “The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice.”  

And then article 15: 

1. States Parties recognize the rights of the child to freedom of association and to freedom of peaceful assembly.
2. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of these rights other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (ordre public) [sic], the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Children with the right to freedom of expression?  Freedom to meet together? Freedom to information?  To disseminate information? Free access to media of the child’s choice?

What?

Do kids know they have the right to these freedoms?

These, even to my American ears, are bold and liberal words.  To think of the power these young, bright, pure, not yet jaded by the limitations and disappointments of our modern cultures could have if they got together and made their voices heard.  Why, they could possibly change us all.  I wonder if they would say we’re handing them a planet and a society that’s barely fit to live in.  No wonder America is reluctant to become party to this convention.*  We might be told by our children that we should use less nonrenewable resources, eat less, be kinder to each other, let everyone have healthcare, and make schools a little safer.  

Now, it's likely that there are some articles of this convention that are not being upheld here, as I am certain there are in most countries, but I was so proud and impressed to see these two being implemented so publicly and by the Ministry of Health.  Whenever the Minister of Health spoke at the conference she spoke in Kinyarwanda and addressed the children, expressing that they are the reason we’re having the conference so all effort should be made to include and involve them.  

Our time is seeing evermore awareness and pursuit of the rights of children.  In most developed countries children are no longer part of the industrial workforce and even where they are, it’s widely known they shouldn’t be.  We know that children should have enough resources for social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development, even in developing countries where this isn’t always possible.  And I believe that there are individuals and organizations striving to make this a reality. 

I also believe we have a ways to go.  

In a culture where children are required to go to school from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day, memorize information in a language that is foreign to both them and their instructors, and usually don’t have the opportunity to take this memorized information somewhere (upper secondary, tech school, university - all usually out of the question); feel the burden of their family’s poverty and their country’s overpopulation; live with generational trauma; feel, sometimes in a very tangible way, the burden of the worst epidemic in the world that is particularly focused on sub-Saharan Africa; and complete, on a daily basis, a number of household chores keeping them from play and study (things which my culture would consider vitally important to child development) ... It is my hope that I somehow may be able to show a small portion in of Rwanda’s children in this small village that they have a voice and it can be heard.

I will do this in Rwanda and I will continue when I’m back home. 

*All UN member states have signed and ratified this convention (some with declarations and reservations, arguably rendering it invalid), meaning they are held accountable to international law, EXCEPT the United States, South Sudan, and Somalia.  The United States helped draft this convention and signed it in 1995, but has failed to ratify.  The US has adopted the two optional protocols, however, protecting children from involvement in armed conflict and prostitution, trafficking, and pornography. (sources: United Nations Treaty Collection: Convention on the Rights of the Child; United Nations Treaty Collection: Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict; and United Nations Treaty Collection: Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. http://treaties.un.org/)

The UNCRC is a controversial, yet interesting document that can help shape the way we all see and value our cultures’ children. 

Rwanda Health PCV's with Dr. Agnes, Rwanda's Minister of Health

Miranda, Kayla, and me.  after the conference we went out for my birthday. 

It's likely that some reflections on education and development will soon follow as I have been helping a young man prepare for the National Exam, have lately witnessed several children working (and loitering) while school is in session, and have been added to the school timetable in two secondary schools beginning next week.

IYFD... what the hell are you doing to me?

We bid our friends goodbye and 

Promised we would write them 

and headed north up 95.  

Into the great unknown, 

Turned up our stereo, felt so reckless and alive.  

We didn’t know where we would be, 

We didn’t know where we would end up, 

When we headed down that road.  

A little food and our guitars, 

In the back seat, that old cello, 

That would get stolen in a town in Idaho

It’s a long way... 

I truly believe I have been given a rare gift.  Several rare gifts, actually, and for these I am in constant amazement and eternally grateful.  Life is beautiful.  Now, believe me, I am acutely aware of how painful life is.  I am acquainted with disappointment, heartbreak, betrayal, death, and brokenness.  But, by the good grace of God, I am also deeply acquainted with love.  

Some would say I see the world through rose colored lenses.  Others might say I’m young and idealistic, I’ve had a charmed life, or I’ve been so transient I’m escaping reality.  Maybe these things are true.  

But I will say, whatever the truth of my circumstances and my life’s path, I have loved and been loved, served and been served, and celebrated and mourned with many along this winding path that has been my life thus far. 

Two years ago I made a move on a dream I’d carried for a long time.  I had been afraid that if I tried I would fail.  But the encouragement of one person I really valued was all it took.  I was accepted to graduate school, made a huge life change, and was met with a community of strong, smart, and passionate women.  

The program is called Intercultural Youth and Family Development and is an interdisciplinary Masters degree that’s administratively housed in the Counselor Education department at The University of Montana.  We weren’t really Counselor Ed students, or anthropology students, social work, public health, etc, though we took all those classes.  We called ourselves IYFD and more than half the faculty at Montana had no idea what that meant when we asked to be signed into their graduate level classes.  Maybe it’s because we found no other place to really fit in in the school.  Maybe it’s because we were some of the few who ended up at the bar or brewery on evenings and weekends talking about the world’s social problems, theories of counseling, or public health crises.  Or because none of us were actually from Montana, were all pretty unfamiliar with the territory, and we all went on a camping trip our first weekend where we were terrified by grizzlies and some strange howling outside our tent and then the car broke down and we were briefly stranded in Glacier National Park only to be rescued by an angel/rule breaker of a tow truck driver from Browning, MT.  Or maybe it’s because it was our destiny to do so, but we bonded quickly and deeply.  

And I’m not even mentioning the incredible teachers who facilitated our learning.  We were challenged and pushed and new ideas were drawn out of us by a faculty who really care.  And still care, as I’ve gotten two emails just yesterday from my advisors, checking in and confirming their support. 

It lasted only a year, though, or nine months to be precise, and we were all off on separate adventures in the Peace Corps.  We knew it was coming to this.  It’s why we had come to Montana.  It was more difficult than I expected it to be and I miss it more than I thought I would.  

My words, I’m afraid, are failing to capture the magic and mystery of this community that gives me so much strength.  It’s when I think of Rachel in the Philippines, KG in Peru, Amanda in Ethiopia, Ashley and Katy in Botswana, Caitlin in Cameroon, Whitney and Sarah in Azerbaijan, Katier in Ohio preparing to leave for Ukraine in a few months, and Meredith back in Missoula guiding the next cohort through this experience, that I find the strength to carry on here in Rwanda.  I feel loneliness so often in my village here.  I try like hell to fill the silence in my little house with music, books, podcasts, and movies.  But I know I’m not alone.  I know there are others living this experience in different ways all over the globe.  And we’re keeping each other in mind.  We “promised we would write,” and we’re making good on that promise.  

I don’t know where our Peace Corps journeys will take us.  I mean, I know what countries we’re currently serving in, but nobody knows what will come next.  I constantly wonder if I’ll finish my own service (and at least 5 of the ones I've shared my doubts with lately have said almost the same words, "you are a light wherever you are and whatever your heart tells you to do, I fully support you").  We plan to meet back up in Missoula in a few years and I’m pretty sure that will happen, but who can really know the future.  Inshallah, as my friend here says. 

But I do know, right now, right this minute, as I’m wondering what today holds for me and how I’ll try again today to integrate, do something positive, be involved, engage those around me, that I am being supported and loved by people who really know what this is like.  Gratefulness isn’t strong enough a word.  

*Let the record show, that though this blog post is about IYFD, they’re not the only ones who love me, believe in me, and make me a stronger person.  The list goes on... I am feeling the love from Georgia, Missoula, Nairobi, Southern California, Portland, Texas, Virginia, all over Rwanda, and all those other countries I already mentioned. 

happy new year! and hello again

Umwaka musha muhire! Happy New Year! 

Obviously, I’ve been a bit out of touch lately.  Two weeks before I began traveling (work and play) for nearly a month, my computer broke.  It has just now been mended up (and is barely hanging on to life, fingers crossed and prayers said for another year of life) and I’m back in the old writing saddle.  The return of my computer and some birthday and new years resolutions has me writing a bit more... hopefully... 

So let me catch you up:

At the end of November, Thanksgiving week, actually, I was selected, along with 7 other PCV’s in Rwanda to attend the Rwanda National Pediatric Conference on Children and Youth Affected and Infected by HIV and AIDS.  May the lengthy name of the conference give you an idea of how jam packed this three day event was.  

Then, after another week back at site, I had the honor and pleasure of filling in for an injured PCV in the role of Camp Director at Camp BE in Bugesera District in Eastern Province.  Nearly 50 teenage boys, 30 young adult male facilitators and junior facilitators, a lot of information about life, HIV, and sex and relationships, more beans and cabbage than I ever want to eat again, late night dancing and talent shows, and temperatures 20 degrees hotter than I ever see here in Musanze.  This is Camp BE. 

Camp BE Bugesera 2012

Finally I was back at site for just one night before I left on my epic Southern Africa Christmas adventure to Botswana to visit Ashley and Katy!  I went with Beth and John to  Johannesburg, South Africa (for just one night on each end), Livingstone, Zambia (to see Victoria Falls) and finally to Maun, Medie, Gaborone, and Lehututu Botswana (and just about every little town in between).  Epic indeed.  

Victoria Falls on the Zambia side.

There are so many details about each of these things so I won’t give it all to you at once. I’m splitting it up into several posts so you can find and read them as you have time. 

Now I’ve been back in Kabere for about two weeks now and I’m trying to understand what’s going on here and get involved where I can.  I’m all ready to go with a hygiene project and a nutrition project.  I’m just waiting for a budget from the district on the hygiene training and for my language to improve so I can understand what the hell is happening in nutrition.  School started on Monday, though, and the kids are eager to being GLOW/BE club.  So am I.  Youth development is why I’m here anyway and it’s probably the place where I can be most effective.  

this lovely babe was born on the morning of my 30th birthday.  i'm very happy to share my day with him. 

Also, my garden went to pieces while I was gone (except for the miracle cabbage and beets; they must be strong!) and now my Titulaire has reclaimed the space he apportioned me to plant.  So I will be doing some negotiating and planting new seeds (hopefully) in the very near future.  It seems these days people are growing tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplants.  Perhaps I will follow suit.  I will keep you posted. 

So as I look forward to what’s ahead, you can look forward to hearing about it! :)

a zucchini I harvested on my birthday (Nov 12).  I was trying to show shock and surprise so I could send this picture to my friend Ashley who gave me the zucchini seeds.  yes, I know I waited too long to harvest it and that's why it was so big, but it was still tasty. it's all about learning, right? :)