I went to Kigali, yet again, and stayed at the house of one of our married couples, Paul and Linda. Being at their house is so comforting – they have a beautiful sunlit living room, a real dining table, and all sorts of magazines I haven’t seen in ages. (I never thought I’d actually miss magazines until we saw some at a restaurant in Jinja, Uganda and I stole them… I literally had to stuff them in a bag… and all they were was an airline magazine from November 2008 and some Australian style magazine from summer of 2005.) When I woke up on Sunday morning, Linda had pulled out several magazines she said she didn’t want any more and asked if I’d like to take them. “Absolutely!” I thought. We talked about it in Uganda, but to see a magazine from home with its visual feast of colors is incredibly exciting. (Kind of odd, right?!) I never actually read anything from those magazines I stole, instead, I ripped out the most colorful things I could find and I pasted them on my walls. I intended to the do the very same thing with the Oprah magazine I took with me.
On the bus home, though, we had to pull off to the side of the road for about thirty minutes to let a bike race pass. So to pass the time, I pulled out the magazine with an exuberant Oprah on the front and tried to find just what she was so excited about. It didn’t take long. This Oprah magazine was the Christmas 2008 edition, and who doesn’t get excited about Christmas?! There are the holiday parties, the gift-giving, the shopping! I thumbed through a few pages, and then a few more. I tried to read an article on “Surviving the Holidays Without the Pounds” and one on what one should wear to an office party – flats or heels. I just couldn’t get into it. I ripped out one or two pictures before I put the magazine in the trash. I just couldn’t take it.
July 1 is our deadline to book our return trip to the U.S. and in balancing when our Rwandese visas actually kick us out and when our last day of school is, we’ve all been playing the guessing game as to when we’ll actually reach Washington D.C. again. On Monday night of last week, I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking of all the things I had to do at school before I leave. On Thursday night of last week, I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about coming home for the holidays. Seeing family and friends, eating turkey and cookies… those things sound fantastic. But then there is this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that is accompanied by a little voice that keeps saying, “But then this experience will be over. When will you get to see your students again? Will you ever get to see, face-to-face, your colleagues again, go to Kigali for the weekend, ride through Musanze with small children running to greet you?” It’s thrilling and devastating at the same time to already be putting a date to the day we return to the U.S..
I struggled with the magazine in the same way I’m struggling to prepare myself that this is my one year to volunteer like this. The health-insurance, plane-tickets, and out-of-pocket expenses make continuing to teach in this situation cost-prohibitive, never mind paying off the exorbitant credit card debt I built up buying the bits of “survival gear” I needed in case my placement had no access to healthcare or running water. No, this is my chance, this year, to live in this way and to glean everything I can out of it. While I spent much of my first term missing things, and much of my second term traveling, I realize I have one more term to really get down to the nitty-gritty, to do everything I really want to do with my students and my school. And I realized flipping through the Oprah magazine that I’m ready for home and I’m not. I’ve always said that I looked forward to being that twenty-something with a dingy little apartment that was all mine… and I have it. I’ve said throughout the course of this experience that I will never be so happy with the things I have than when I return to the States. And I totally will be. And I’ve been told countless times that this experience will change me in ways I’ve never imagined. And it has.
It scares me to think about coming home in the middle of the holidays, a time when life is moving at the speed of light and money and presents are flying here there and everywhere. But it’s also a time for visiting family and friends, for taking those two days where everything is closed (save perhaps the movie theatre and Chinese restaurants) to be still, and for getting down to what’s important in our lives, if we’re willing to do it. It’s going to take a lot of determination not to let myself be overwhelmed by the hype of being home, and being in the middle of the “holiday parties, gift-giving, and shopping!” just like it took a lot of determination to remind myself I had come here for a reason and it will all be OK. I’m not, and I’m saying this now, going to be able to handle a lot of what life is like at home for a long while, just as I couldn’t get into the articles in the magazine that I’d gladly read if I were in a different situation. But I will take out the two or three things I really want from all of the commotion that comes with the American holiday season, and can leave the rest.
I’ve made up my mind not to think about my return home much more until it’s a month within sight. The more I think about it, the easier it will be to come home, but the harder it will be to get the most out of my time here. Although we still have one month until our second term is over, it is going to fly by with exams and marking reports and the like. And if this is my year, my one chance for this experience, then the five months I have until I touch down in Washington D.C. doesn’t feel like nearly enough.
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