Down to the wire

Well, its the night before the most epic adventure I may ever embark on. I have steadily oscillated between breathtaking fear and explosive excitement for the last few days. More than anything though, I have found it increasingly difficult to face the reality of being away from my loved ones, my friends and my precious little kitty.I have made most of the rounds over the last few days. Terry, Bianca and Martin bade me farewell today, Irene this evening, Brock and crew on Friday night, my Mum/sisters and I are still connecting at every available opportunity and Jason will deliver me to the airport at some unholy hour tomorrow morning. My more distant (geographically speaking) family members and friends got their fill of me at my surprise graduation party a couple of weeks back and I keep trying to remind everyone that I am only going to be gone for a little while. Before you know it, my overactive, high-strung, happy self will be back in BC to play with you in time for summer.

As the departure approaches, I try to imagine the new sensations that await me: the warm sun on my pale bare skin, tribal drums and foreign tongues, pungent coffees lingering in the air, dramatic colors on sun-kissed horizons... I try, as the keen observer might note, only to imagine the positive new stimuli as, in my current state of pre-separation anxiety, I have to repeat the words that I will undoubtedly repeat a thousand more times in the next few months; I am OK right now. Right now I'm OK.

For those interested my plan is as follows:
Feb 8- arrive in Nairobi by air at 8:30 pm. Hang out with Matt and Jess until they get sick of me. Dr. Pearson insisted that I do some, if not all, of the following things there with them:
Go see the cows
Watch for the bronze elephants
Eat Mughlai food- Anghiti or Haandi
Visit Nairobi National Park
Attend the Museum of Kenya
Check out Giraffe Manor

Then maybe around the 10th or 11th, I take the Scandinavian Bus Line for 9 hours from Nairobi to Kampala (Uganda). Here I will meet up with Chris and Chelsea, stay at the Backpacker's Hostel and Dr. Pearson HIGHLY recommends the "Adrift Jinja Rapid Running" down the Nile. I am only going to spend one or two nights in Kampala and then take the bus first thing in the morning for another 10-13 hours, depending on various conditions, to Kigali, Rwanda. From there Cathy or Teste (yup, thats his name, not a joke) will pick me up and take me to the super-awesome Ruhengeri volunteer house with running water and modern facilities and all of that. On the 15th my stationing starts with 5 days of culture and language training and then I am shipped over to the Rwaza Orphanage on the 21st for my volunteer term in the dark without running water. My flight is scheduled to return to Canada anytime between the day after I get there and May 28th. That's a wrap.

A little birdy told me that my lovely Daddy MAY be visiting me for a post-volunteering tour of Uganda/Kenya. Terry has recommended a pulchritudinous marriage of comfort and Africa that will certainly quench our thirst for the unusual and exciting. His Father-daughter trip includes a trip to Queen Elizabeth Park and the Kizunga Channel, a ride down the Nile at Murtchison Falls Park, a 3-day semi-roughing it Maasai Mara safari and, ny favorite part, a train ride between Nairobi and Mombasa (the infamous Lunatic Express) followed by a visit to the Lamu archipelago from Malindi. Wouldn't that be unbelievable!?

My heart flutters, my hands tremble and my passion carries me boldly forward... where many have gone before. And so, to those whom I failed to bid farewell and from which I received no "bon voyage", sorry I missed you. You are important to me too, but I'll be back before you've noticed my absence.

I hope.

I'm such a drama queen.

Oh God, panic attack.

I am OK right now. Right now I'm OK.

HELP! *updated*

So my children need not just love but also ANY supplies I can get my hands on. If you have anything on this list that you would like to donate, I can print up a tax receipt for you. I also need help with the shipping cost. I am going to the local navy bases to see if there is any way I can get my supplies on one of the military vessels at least to a coastal city in East Africa but otherwise, Canada Post wants $160.18 for a light weight 2 foot by 2 foot by 1 foot box! I appreciate anything you can donate. Medical supplies are DESPERATELY NEEDED AND INVALUABLE TO THESE KIDS. PS- pass this blogspot around to your friends and family- the more interest and help the better!

I removed the items that I have been able to gather, with the generous support of my contributors.

The most important things are in bold.
Things I have a little of are italicized.

Orphanage Program:

• Vitamins I have bought some (Thanks Lauren!) but need more
  
• Calcium tablets
• Scabies Medicine- over the counter!
  
• Multivitamins (syrup more than tablets) especially for babies
• Powder formula (for babies that have lost their mothers)
• Pablum (especially if enriched)
• Comfort items for children: teddies, soothers, blankies, bottles...
  
• Antibiotics, antiseptics
• First Aid materials: gauze, plasters (elastoplast, not band-aid)
• Wart treatment
• Head lice treatment (for the kids and for myself)
• Nit combs (almost all children have their heads shaved, only the very rich have money for hair)
• Any books and/or research on health care relevant to Africa
• First aid materials for teaching
• Antibacterial soaps or sprays
  
• Children's clothing
• Art supplies
  
• A cassette player, plenty of batteries and some children's music
• Notebooks
• Colored drawing paper
• Pencils/Pens/Markers/Crayons
• Blank Flash Cards
• Books of all sorts, coloring books, basic reading books, school text book (the school have very few of these) etc.
• Colored pavement chalk
• Kids scissors
• Magazine pictures of everyday objects or words mounted on cardboard. These can be used as flash cards. Glossy magazines are extremely rare here and go over really well with everyone.
• Stickers
• Resource text books that may be left behind for the teachers and students' use

Murakoze and Mwirirwe!!

Muraho!

After many months of learning Swahili and planning for a trip to Tanzania, I have been stationed in Rwanda. I originally thought I would be in a coastal city, safe and surrounded by other volunteers and opportunities to use the internet and charge my iPod but instead I am going to be the sole volunteer in a tiny northern Rwandan town called Rwaza. There I will be working with one other woman to brighten the lives of fifty beautiful little children left without families for one reason or another. The town of Rwaza has no electricity or running water and is a 12km walk away from the city of Ruhengeri where my Rwanda GVN contact, Cathy Emerson, is located. In Ruhengeri there is electricity, however intermittent, along with a medical clinic with French doctors.

Am I scared? No. Yes, a little. But, I am strong and I am compassionate. Fear is something you choose to live with and you rely on to slow your passage through life. Have you ever held on to so much fear that you are locked inside yourself, unable to function or pursue a dream? That's what fear is designed to do; it keeps you in your current state of evolution, confines you to your comfort zone and encourages stagnance in your life and soul. So manage your fears and go forth impavid explorers!

That being said, common sense, always valid and protective, must be exercised with caution in potentially dangerous situations. Traveling alone by bus from Kenya to Rwanda is one such instance. Rwanda bears the scars of the not-so-distant past state-supported genocide of the Tutsi at the hands of the Hutu. As much as President Kagame has worked to unite Rwanda, the Western World, quick to turn a blind eye to the genocide as it happened, is not so quick to forgive and forget. Rwanda is one of the richest African countries in terms of soil and wildlife but it suffers from poaching, flooding, soil exhaustion, disease and spillovers form Burundi and DRC. In fact, it is one of the "heavily indebted poor countries" that received debt-relief from the UN/World Bank/IMF project in 2005. The Rwandese are beautiful, culturally rich and they have vision. I feel safe being stationed here.

So what am I doing in Rwanda? Another bleeding-heart rich North American going to Africa to "make a difference" or relieve my conscience? I respect that. You can call me that. Those bleeding-hearts are people that have the courage to look past themselves for long enough to see suffering and then work to relieve some of it, even if they don't always do it relevantly. Really, though I am just a woman, brimming with love and compassion. I am lost in this selfish, unconscious, materialistic western society and I am looking for something honest.

I have finished my B.Sc.; my ticket so the good ole' boys will recognize me as a valid employable person. I have spent the better part of five years working in physical chemistry, virology and biochemistry labs as a research assistant and after all of this, what do I want? M.D.? Ph.D.? 8 more years of school and potentially 50 to 100k dollars of debt to get a fabulous career so I can ignore my future children and pawn them off on nannies? Actually yes, thats where I am headed and thats what scares me. Is that who I am? Am I a scientist or am I pursuing this because it makes my Dad proud? Am I motivated by money or am I hyper-focusing on it because my family needs more of it? Will I be happy counting cells and writing journal articles to shine barely detectable rays of light on the obscure and esoteric caverns of the chemical world or should I be learning international law so I can be a responsible Canadian diplomat solving problems of resource management and human rights...

So you see, I am going to Rwanda for all the selfish reasons I can think of: escape, challenge, fulfillment, adventure. Mostly I am going to the land of a thousand hills because I can't think of anything better to do with three months of my life than to love and hold and teach and inspire 50 little souls who may never have felt the arms of a mother around them. Beautiful little people without the blessings that Canadian children can take for granted. I have so much love bottled up inside me that it hurts, like when you have to pee so badly, you think you are going to burst. That is the urgency that I feel. I love those around me but I find so many behaviors in our society despicable and abhorrent that my love retreats deeper within me, making it harder to access and let out. I don't want it to grow stagnant or get lost in the deepest darkest crevices of my soul and thats what I worry will happen if, at this most formative fork in the road, I choose the wrong path.