Bringing Af-Rica back to Am-Erica is hard. My day-to-day has become a zombie blur. It’s like I’ve totally forgotten how to live in the moment! Part of me is caught up in these frustrations, and the other part is trying to see it as an opportunity to re-learn how to live with balance here. I feel like a dandelion seed…
I’m back in the States! Let me tell you, it’s weird. I went to get coffee (because some things never change) at Starbucks today and at the counter completely blanked on the Starbucks word for a medium. It’s grande. I’ve been going to Starbucks since high school! Regardless, the cashier was super nice and probably didn’t even care and/or notice.…
There are very few words that come to mind right now. I’m waiting for my taxi in my hotel room….I’ll spend the day saying goodbye to friends in Kigali and then head to the airport around 5pm. I’ll take a 25 hour journey from Rwanda back to Virginia! I’ll be exhausted, but my parents will be waiting at the airport…
I may be leaving Rwanda in a week but that doesn’t mean I get to skimp on the self care, even though worrying and being anxious is way easier than choosing to listen to my body/mind and respond lovingly. Just the other day I decided to delete the twitter shortcut from my home screen because I found myself in the…
The night is dark and stormy and pull your nightgown tighter around you as a chill invades the room. The fire in the hearth went out hours ago but you won’t go up to bed until you see her home safe. Suddenly, the front door swings open, hitting the wall with the force of the wind. She sweeps into the parlour,…
Okay, so full disclosure, motos are not the safest form of transportation here in Rwanda, but they are by far the cheapest and fastest. Especially in Musanze. They weave through traffic and don’t always drive on the right side of the road and basically never obey speed limits, but driving in Musanze is more of a common sense thing and…
Snack time at the nursery is an American teachers worst nightmare. Kids are disorderly, running everywhere, yelling, hitting each other, spraying water on each other after they wash their hands…Imagine a game of Hungry Hippos but the hippos are the teachers and the balls are the kids. Insanity. In Rwanda though, the teachers don’t even bat an eye. The kids…
Today did not start out well, when I realized at 6:30am that I needed to buy more power….so I washed my hair in the dark, only stubbed my toe once, and lit my gas stove with some matches to boil water for my morning coffee. TIA (This Is Africa), you never know what the day has in store for you until…
They didn’t run. Those counter-protestors in Charlottesville stood their ground. They stood in the face of fear, in the face of hatred, in the face of ugly bigotry and human ignorance. In the moments after, in these moments after, we must stand together. Living in Rwanda I’ve learned a lot about pain. Let me tell you what I’ve seen. I’ve…
I’ve been in Rwanda for 134 days and in that time everything has changed, is still changing. The way I think about poverty has changed, what I consider an inconvenience has changed, how much sunscreen I use on a daily basis has changed, and what I am thankful for has changed. And yet some things are exactly the same: how…
Erica2teach 