Going with the Flow

PLR students doing a leadership

exercise switching their order

without touching the ground

One of the gifts and the frustrations of working in Africa is that no pre-set plan can ever be relied upon: The 3:00 appointment may come at 11:00 or 6:00; the electricity may go off; the internet may go down; there may be a traffic jam that lasts hours; there may be a rock slide or broken log bridge; the item you need may not exist here or the store be out indefinitely; the needs of the people may not be what you thought. It turns out that in order to do the most important parts of the Project LIGHT training and help the school with the intense recurrence of trauma outbreaks we will be working seven days per week with longer planning sessions at night. We are going to address the entire student body tomorrow and get the PLR students ready in the morning to assist us. Then on Sunday we will train 50 more high school students to be peer counselors. We also have to find time to work in training the teachers. These things take precedence over the African crafts I wanted to find to bring back home to my friends and family, and even over accepting the many invitations we have had to visit in private homes.

I am having to learn focus on the primary mission and how to hold my boundaries. In comparison to almost all Rwandans any American or European is rich. I have three young men either outright asking me or “setting me up” to ask for me to be their sponsor. I have one of the adult helpers asking me to buy him a digital camera. Some of the children we wave to on the streets say, “where is the money?” Although I understand that if I had the poverty and difficulty of their lives I might focus only on how I could feel more secure and comfortable, I still can feel de-personalized and discounted as a fellow being. It is a wonderful opportunity to taste profiling, and it is bitter.

The students are blossoming so beautifully. They did leadership exercises today, and step forward to accept challenges, speak out, and risk in ways that they would have not believed a week ago. We have them tell us one thing that was difficult the previous day or night, and one thing they are grateful for each morning. Several of them said they were grateful for how much love is happening in the group and how much they are feeling like a family. Remember that these are orphans. One student who does have some family took another student who has no family at all to his home village over the weekend. One student who knew only one of the other students when she came went home for the weekend but did not get to see her relative who was sick in the hospital. He died yesterday, and the other students comforted her and prayed for her as if she was a long-time friend.

Because of all of the unexpected trauma incidents we have not been able to take the time to have our individual interviews with the students to hear the details of their stories. We plan on that for early next week. After that I will share some of their stories with you. Time for sleep and recharging for tomorrow.