I've been trying to write this for over six weeks now. I have started and stopped it too many times to count. Forgive me if its a little out of sorts... I like to write in "real time" and didn't change some of it. It's been hard to return home and yet at the same time a relief. It's hard to describe everything that has been going through my head and feeling.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
The drive back to Butare consisted of the same winding roads I'd been driving or riding along for a year, except this time I couldn't stop crying. My Rwandan family was gone. Tiffany and Jared had left the weekend before. I went to the airport with Jeff, Stacey, and Sam the night before. Jim and Emily were leaving in a day or two. Everyone was gone. I'd finally pulled myself together as I pulled into our driveway. Charles greeted me formally with "maraho" and asked how I'd been in the few days since I'd seen him. I almost burst into tears again. When I entered the house I did. We had left Rupert at his new home and the house was extremely empty and quiet. At that point, my last two weeks in Rwanda looked as though they were going to be extremely lonely.
I went to bed early, resolved to get to work early Monday morning and distract myself. I was actually pretty successful at this. I worked long and hard, well into the night and finally, four days before my scheduled departure, I finished everything. I gave my office keys to Medie and left the hospital for the last time to head home and pack. I had to unpack and re-pack and repeat it all several times before I was done. Turns out that my problem coming home wasn't weight, but small bags. Many items were left and donated to the Burundian refugees who continued to cross the border daily.
Like I said, I left Butare this morning. I made sure to wake up early so that I could watch the sunrise. It was a beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it creep over the ridge with my final cup of tea.
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| Dry Season: the dust from the road covering the trees along the eastern roads. |
I wanted to do something African before I left. I was torn between spending one final night at Lake Kivu or one final night in Akagera National Park. I finally decided on Akagera, which is where I'm writing this. Actually, this is where I'm writing this:
I was told when I arrived at the park gates that the lions were released today. If you haven't heard the news, last month seven lions were donated by South Africa to Rwanda through the Africa Parks program. They have been in quarantine and apparently my timing was perfect. My hope is to find them and see them tomorrow as I drive through the park. We shall see. I'll be very lucky to spot them, so I'm not holding my breath, but it would be a pretty awesome Rwanda farewell.
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| Rwandan sunset |
I'm back in Kigali at Julie and Renee's new home to spend my last night. Today I drove through Akagera and enjoyed the peace of it. Sadly, I did not find the lions, but I did see some great animals and some great views. Surprisingly, I got to see a hippo out of the water grazing about midday. It's extremely unusual for hippos to leave the water during the day. Typically they stay in the water during the day and then come out at night to graze and eat grass. More people die from hippos than any other animal in Africa, so I remained in Ex-Pat 1 while observing him for a little bit. He was huge.
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| Sunrise over Lake Ihema |
It was a perfect day. The weather was gorgeous and while I didn't see the lions, I got to see African animals in the wild my last full day in country. I was on no one's schedule and I could just enjoy sitting in a quiet spot to observe the animals just doing their thing. There is nothing like being alone in the wild and watching the animals. Having a herd of zebras race across the road in front of you, warthogs toss their tails straight up and trot away, buffalo resting five feet from your car, hippos grunting from the water... it is all so surreal that this has been in my backyard and life for the last year.
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| Peak-a-boo! |
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| Nap Time! |
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| Renee and Rupert |
I made sure to sleep with my bedroom door open my last night in Rwanda just in case Rupert needed some comfort as he adjusted to his new house. It's a good thing I did because just before 3:30 am we all were woken up by shaking and roaring. Two minutes after the earthquake stopped, another even stronger earthquake hit. Poor Rupert was startled as I grabbed him and hugged him in a door frame. Later when I looked the quakes up they were very shallow and 5.5 and 5.8 magnitude respectively radiating from Lake Kivu in the west. I can only imagine how strong it would have felt had I still been in Butare, even closer to the lake. Despite the rude awakening, I couldn't help but smile. I had only been in Rwanda two or maybe three weeks when I was awakened by a gentle vibration of my bed that had become so familiar to me having lived in San Francisco prior to my arrival. When I woke up like that just a few weeks into my adventure I revealed in the feeling of familiarity. Now, on the day I was to leave, nothing felt familiar anymore.
It was an easy morning of sleeping in, eating some breakfast, walking Rupert through the neighborhood, packing the final few things, and enjoying my last shower before the long flights home. Vianney, the guard at the new house loaded my four suitcases, carry on, and backpack into Ex-Pat 1. I gave hugs to Renee, Sheila, and Rupert and I was off. I swung by UTC and picked up Bob before heading the ten minutes to Kigali International Airport. Bob is the trusted car mechanic who took Ex-Pat 1 into safe keeping until Jeff and Stacey's return.
Everything was loaded onto a trolley for me and miraculously the check in agent didn't weigh my carry on, which was suppose to be 8 kilos. It was 9 kilos and after he didn't weigh it, I took some heavier things out of my backpack and into the suitcase. All my checked bags were just under 23 kilos and I was incredibly impressed with my inherited packing skills (you should see me and my mom's skills in action). I was nervous though. I had no idea what I was feeling and I was just praying that my luggage would make it after I'd heard horror stories of Ethiopian Airlines.
My flights home were pretty epic on paper. First flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia then a two hour layover before switching to Lufthansa for a flight to Frankfurt via Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Then finally a flight to Dulles and a two hour drive home to Monkton. In total, it was roughly 27 hours of flying and I figured it would take a total of around 30 to reach my final destination. A very long time.
I boarded my first flight in typical African fashion, walked across the tarmac, everyone got on at once and quickly and that was that. I was suppose to have the aisle seat but a man was in my seat and since my flight was at about 4 pm, I wanted the window so that I could look out. I watched three of my bags loaded into the cargo hold and tried to ignore the feeling that perhaps the last one didn't make it. The flight from Kigali to Addis Ababa was beautiful and quick. I got to see the green hills of Rwanda fall away and as I was looking east and the sun was setting in the west Lake Victoria sparkled below.
Once in Addis it took awhile to get back through security and I checked in with Lufthansa. I made sure to mention to them that I was suppose to have an aisle seat and I didn't on my last flight, so could they make sure that I had aisle seats for the rest of my flights. They checked me in and said no problem and I let it go at that. After landing in Jeddah at roughly 2 am I was awoken from my napping by the new passengers boarding. Jeddah to Frankfurt ended up being one of the worst flight of my life. My fellow passenger didn't speak any English, which isn't a big deal except he kept asking me for help with his tv and needing to get up for the bathroom. It was 4 am! I had an eye mask on! Please leave me alone and let me sleep! I was exhausted and I am not a happy or nice person when I am lacking sleep.
I was ecstatic to deplane in Frankfurt. My fellow passenger sitting in front of me from Addis was a nice guy and we got to chatting. Turns out Chris is from Maryland but had been working in Ethiopia for some time. He had left his fiancee in Addis for a month and returned home for some training for work. We grabbed breakfast and coffee/tea and enjoyed chatting about work and life. Unfortunately, Chris was on the later flight to DC so I left him to enjoy more coffee while I went to catch my last flight home. I was exhausted having barely slept and had been awake for basically a day.
Needless to say, I was not happy to discover that my seat on this last flight was not an aisle, or a window, it was an economy center seat. I wanted to cry. I asked the agent at the desk if there was anything they could do, but the answer was the flight was full. I must have looked like a complete wreck because the flight attendant who greeted me in the Economy section took one look at me and asked if I was ok. Well I told her I wasn't and then almost burst into tears. She told me to give her my name and she would see what she could do, but I told her the gate agents already said that there was nothing they could do. She told me that you never know what might happen. Sure enough, there were two no shows and she bumped me to economy plus about 15 minutes later. It was the best flight of my life. Aisle seat, no one next to me, a huge tv full of movies I hadn't seen, a bottle of water, a huge seat that reclined a ridiculous amount, a foot rest, real silverware, and even a glass from which to drink my complementary wine. I was in heaven and expressed my gratitude profusely to this amazine Lufthansa angel. I slept, I ate, I drank and by the time we were flying over the familar Northern Virgina landscape I was 110% better.
Sadly, that feeling last about 20 minutes once I stepped onto US soil. I flew through customs, was told welcome home, called my family from my USA phone number, and went to collect my baggage. And that's when the 20 minutes of awesomeness wore off. Because sure enough... my two duffle bags were missing. Then no one could find the Lufthansa baggage agent, then they told me I should have checked oversized baggage claim (which my bags clearly were not and I had already done that anyway), and then they couldn't tell me where my bags even were because their system was down. I held it together, filled out the paperwork and without too much of a delay headed to my final checkpoint before I could find my dad. I stupidly overanswered the customs police by answering the question, "have you traveled to Africa in the last 3 weeks?" with "yes, I've been living in East Africa and haven't traveled to West Africa." Apparently, now I was giving him attitude and then all I wanted to do was give him attitude. I bit my tongue, listened to him lecture me, answered his next question of, "have you been to the west African nations of Guinea, Sierra-Leone, or Liberia?" with an emphatic "No" (fighting every urge to not roll my eyes at him) and finally swung through the double doors and out a second set of doors to step into the hot and humid East Coast air. My dad was just pulling up in my mother's car (thankfully he remembered not to bring his Mini Cooper because all my luggage wouldn't have fit... then again, only half my luggage made it) and I immediately burst into tears when I saw him. I could not stop crying. Dad just laughed, gave me a hug and told me they'd find my luggage. I was just so exhausted despite a solid nap on the last flight that I just couldn't handle it anymore. It was uncontrollable. We naturally got stuck in Baltimore-DC traffic but 34 hours from the time I left for Kigali International Airport I arrived home.
I managed to stay awake until 8 pm last night and then crawled in bed, surprised that it was still light out. Remember when I thought it was so strange that it was pitch black in Rwanda every day between 6 & 6:30 pm? Now I was surprised that the sun was still setting at 8 pm. This morning, true to form I was awake at 5:30. When I wandered down to the kitchen to fix some morning tea, I found my dad with an extremely surprised look on his face digging into the coffee I had brought back for him. He thought I would sleep the day away, but jet lag is jet lag, and in Rwanda it was already almost noon. I wasn't really sure what to do with myself today. I have appointments tomorrow and I realized that I could actually unpack everything because I was staying. It's strange to be home. I didn't tell many people, if any really that I was returning today because Thursday morning I hop a flight to Puerto Rico for my friend's wedding. Plus, it's an easy transition home to my parent's house. I spent my entire life in this house even if transient in the last eight years. The rooster was crowing when I wandered into the kitched and my dad cooked fresh eggs for breakfast that he'd collected the afternoon before. I haven't mustered up the courage to wander out into the American culture shock that awaits, but I'll get there.
It's good to be home.
Lessons Learned:
1) When given a once in a lifetime opportunity, don't hesitate to take it.
2) People who support you, encourage you to take a chance, who send you cards and care packages, who will text you about silly things that are going on in their lives, who FaceTime audio and video you to brighten your day, who invite you on vacation, who don't forget you despite being halfway around the globe, those people are the ones that you hold on to for dear life.
3) I think adjusting to a new culture is going to be just as hard as returning home.
Farewell Rwanda
