Shooting Dogs

If you haven't read the blog before this one please do. it's about my trip to Rwanda and I would like people to read about that too.

I've been going through a lot of emotions the past couple days. I feel guilty. Because I go to this country where so many people are so poor. Many eat a meal every few days if that. The clothes they own are the ones they're wearing and they are just rags. And I come in, stay for a couple weeks, barely work at all and eat like a king, and then breeze out of there to go back and live my spoiled Canadian life. The one where the movie I paid to watch could feed somebody there for a week. And I just left them there. And the people I come home to don't really understand what I've seen.

I feel insignificant. And maybe I am in the grand scheme of things. No, not maybe, I am. I just don't know what to do to fix anything or do anything. The problem seems too huge. So many people, so much poverty, so much evil to the country of Rwanda. And to many other countries in the world. I almost feel like I am useless here in Canada. My day to day life seems sort of trivial. My job.....what am I really doing to help anybody? I'm helping myself that is all. I don't know. maybe i'm seeing this all from the wrong perspective but it is what I am feeling. And now more than ever I want to know what to do with my life. i desperately want to matter, to find something I can do where I can help people but I don't know where or how. I want to find something I find fulfillment in, something that I do well too. I don't want it to be something that is all wrong for me. can God see these desires? Sometimes I question what He is doing in my life because I feel very lost and aimless like I am wandering in the desert. Like there is this big blank page for the rest of my life.

I also watched this movie today called Shooting Dogs. maybe I shouldn't have watched it so soon after coming back from Rwanda but I did so it's done and over with. It was a VERY realistic depiction of the genocide in 1994. It was actually filmed in Kigali and as I watched it all I could think was, I was there. I felt sad, angry, scared and helpless as I watched this movie. I also thought to myself, what if this happened now? What could I do to change it here in Canada? Or would I just watch helplessly as it happened before me? How can so much hate be in the world? And what if that was me? Waiting to be killed and pretty much having no where to hide, no one to turn to? Raped and then hacked to death or clubbed to death, a club that has big spikes in it. Or what if I survived? I honestly can't imagine how to move on with my life. I met people who survived this. How do they cope? how are they sane? They saw little babies thrown up against a wall or hacked with a machete. Some do not have any family left. They are left to tell. And sometimes I doubt that if this happened again that we would do something. Has our world really changed that much that 13 years later we would suddenly just rush in to help? we didn't in the other 5 or 10 or however many genocides there have been. I wasn't even there and I feel this much sadness. what about the people who lived? My heart aches for this world and the sadness it has had to bear. how much can the human race endure? I just don't understand.

Rwanda Post #1

I am back from my trip to Rwanda. The long awaited trip is actually over. This much of the year has gone by so fast because of this trip. I have so many thoughts but I don’t know where to start. I went halfway around the world with 8 very awesome and special people who I know a lot better now. Their names are Jason and Jennifer Sheppard, Ashley Drayton, Karalee Klassen, Karlin Unger, Mark and Nancy Emde, and Bill Ginther. We ate all of our meals together, slept in the same room, and spent many hours in a cramped van on sometimes treacherous roads. We joked about coming back with T-shirts for our families that said, “One of my family members survived the Trip of Terror to Ntwali and all I got was this stupid t-shirt.” Something we did almost every day which was very important was we got to know each other. We would spend hours sitting around talking about stuff, sometimes serious, and other times complete nonsense. A.k.a, alcohol swabs, blue angels, and talking in our sleep.

Some of the highlights of the trip:

One for me, was meeting mine and Ashley’s sponsor child. Her name is Claudette. I will always remember her and her smile. And who knows? Maybe someday I will get to meet her again. We brought some school supplies for her and ended up giving her some of our own stuff on the day we left Ntwali. We gave her a towel, a shirt, a hat, a skirt, and some shoes. That was pretty awesome!

Another highlight was just getting to play with the kids. We played soccer a bit. I had to stop often after 10 minutes because my feet would hurt from stepping on the rocks. And they didn’t really play organized. For some it was basically just kick the ball into the shins of the other 50 kids who were playing. Only the boys would play soccer. They wouldn’t let the girls play. We gave them a volley ball which they would hit around. Claudette also taught me how to play this new form of hopscotch that I guess they play there a lot. That was one of the best days I had in Africa. It wasn’t me teaching her something, I was learning from her.

Three of the most amazing people I met there was Gervais, Berchmas, and Sabeen. Gervais was our program director. He spent a lot of time with us. By the end, he had even started joking around with us even though he was usually a pretty serious guy. He was also our translator a lot of the time. His English was a lot better than a lot of people in the country, although he had quite a ways to go. I admire him because it is hard to learn languages, especially English. I have myself have never learned to speak a new language so that is a feat.

Berchmas was our driver. He was with us about 95% of the trip. We got to know him quite well. He has a very good sense of humor. I have quite a few humorous stories that involve him. He also kept us safe on some VERY scary roads. Sometimes after we drove over the worst bridges and I was freaking out in the back, he would say, “ Leah. Frightened?” And I would say,” Yes!” a memorable line that we will probably quote for a long time happened on our first trip up to the village of Ntwali. We were driving over a bridge and halfway over he looked down and said, “Oh my Jesus!” You know something isn’t safe, when your driver who is a local says,” Oh my Jesus!” So, we quoted that about 10 times a day for the rest of the trip.

Another great person was Sabeen. I don’t really know if I spelled that right. She just has a great sense of humor and everything you say to her seems to be funny so you feel like a pretty funny person. She also was very helpful in helping us pick out material and find us a seamstress to make our clothes. She pretty much went out of her way to do that. She also cooked us breakfast when we came into town so Karalee and Ashley could get their hair braided.

There were also a lot of hard things to deal with on this trip. On my side there was a bit of culture shock. Everyone is literally staring at you all the time and wanting to shake your hand. Some run after your van, you hear the word mzungu (rich, white person) about 50 times a day or more, and others ask for money. You can’t give them any or you’ll be mobbed by the 50 other people who want some and desperately need some just so they can eat. 12 year olds there sell their bodies just so they can get something to eat. After the genocide in 1994 there were over 300,000 orphans, about 75,00 of these were heads of their households over sibling and other orphaned relatives. Everyone in this country is affected by their horrible history when a million people were killed because they belonged to a certain tribe and evil people decided they should die. Babies to elders were bombed to death, or slashed and then thrown in the river and probably the most common was hacked to death with machetes. Let me ask you this, something I will never understand, “How can anybody kill another human being for the sole reason of being alive? But on another level, how could anybody kill a child?” It is just too horrible and sickening to even come to terms with. But it happened. I will never, ever forget the things I saw and the stories I heard. I will talk more later about the hard things on this trip. I think they deserve a blog of their own.

I almost feel depressed being back here in Saskatoon. At the very least I am feeling pretty down. I can’t really place why or understand it. I think part of it is, my life is routine back at home. Sure there are things to look forward to, but you’re living where you have been all your life and for me I’m not really sure what I want to do with my life. I need to find some way to have a job so I can make money to help support myself and a family if that comes someday. But I don’t know what. I know a part of the sadness is not being around the team members everyday. You get used of experiencing everything with them and their being around all the time to joke around with or just talk. I think I feel lonely because I miss their company. But that will fade with time. I know that. I think my experiences are finally setting in too. The things I saw and experienced are making their memories more real in my mind, so I am thinking a lot about that. Just pray that my life will continue to be changed and that God will eventually show me what he wants with my life.