off to tanzania

I am currently eating a meal of my own words. It was only 2 months ago that I swore never, unless forced by gunpoint, to enter Nairobi airport again.

And yet, here I am.

A man just walked by wearing a cheesy tourist tee-shirt, spouting the phrase “It’s all Greek to me” with a bunch of basic Greek phrases, and their translation listed below. I was reminded of the period in my own life when I owned, and wore proudly (with many a laugh) a t-shirt that said “Hukt on foniqs rily werked fer mee”. And I had another good laugh, silently remembering my 12-year-old self, by myself, at the Nairobi airport.

This morning, I arrived 1 ½ hours early for my 8:35 flight. Only to find that it had, indeed, already departed. Apparently, you are supposed to reconfirm your flights by going to the local branch of the airline (a 2 hour process, at least) 48 hours before the flight… in case they decided to change the time. Now, I understand delays, but I don’t really get bumping UP a flight to an EARLIER time. And somehow, everyone but ME figured it out! Another one of those things that I will never quite understand about Africa…

The scene has changed. I have boarded the a tiny plane that is taking me to Kilimanjaro Airport, where I am meeting up with a cast of characters from NYC, affiliated with the Theatre Development Fund. For the next 3 weeks, I will be working along-side a professional (Broadway?) director to write and direct a play with a group of children from a school in Arusha, Tanzania. At this point, this is all the information I have, so please, hold your questions. More to be revealed, as always. Oh, and my dear friend, Rebecca Blumhagen, will be taking a short respite from her burgeoning career as a young actor to join us.
And THAT is a sure excitement.

(yay!)

I haven’t exactly been writing much about my life lately. Messages from people have gone from the more specific “How was your time at the Orphanage?” or “did you get your car battery fixed?” to the less specific “How is Africa?” or “Are you still IN Africa?” to, least specific and most desperate “Mags… are you still alive?”

Excuses (in order of influence): Laziness, business, writers block, laziness, recent addiction to arrested development, more recent addiction to Heroes, laziness.

For the 3 of you who care, and want specifics, here they are:

Upon returning from Ireland (family vacation) /France (Taize) /Belguim (the only thing I did in Belgium was drink a beer at a noisy youth hostel with a guy from India): I settled in to my current living arrangement and, after months of straddling the hips of skinny Rwandan moto-drivers (and more than a few scrapes with death), I finally 'broke-down' and got a car (ironic choice of words you say? not so ironic...). Well, I rented a car. From a friend of a friend. It’s what we would consider in the US a “beater”. But I love it. It has lots of character ☺

Driving around Rwanda is a totally different experience of Africa.

First of all, Kigali is an expansive matrix of non-parallel streets, with a few random one-way streets… without markers. The only way to tell you’re going the wrong way on a one-way street is by the hissing and clapping noises coming from the pedestrians by the side of the road. You may think they are minding their own business but the second you make the wrong turn, about 40 of them turn toward the middle of the intersection, flailing their arms and hissing… and you realize they have, indeed, been watching you the entire time, and you are, indeed, going the wrong way.

The only time i attempted to take my car out out of Kigali, i got a flat tire 50 miles out of town. there we (my friend Jenny and I) were, sitting on a curve in the road, with no help in sight... except for the "help" that came from behind the bushes the ditches ---people with nothing better to do with their time--- who did nothing but bang on my spare tire with a crowbar and steal my money.

we couldn't get the spare tire off. There was a key to one of the bolts that we couldn't find, no matter HOW many pairs of hands searched my glovebox... and stole my money.

finally, after 2 hours in the hot sun, we gave up. I sent the keys back with a Mutatu (the name for a closely packed taxi van) to Kigali. that's how it works in rwanda. everyone knows everyone. the owner arranged to meet up with the taxi driver and we took the only ride we could to Ruhengeri... which happened to be a tow-truck, already towing 6 men and lots of heavy machinery. there was only a bench seat, which was chivalrously given to Jenny and I while the rest of the men sat, or swung, from the machinery in the truck bed. we drove half the way to Ruhengeri, with hot air from the front engine blowing in our faces, then had to catch two different Mutatus to finish the journey. the whole thing took over 5 hours (it's normally a 1hr40min trip)

[I am, by the way, still typing--AND listening to my ipod--and the plane is about to take off. I am sitting across the aisle from a crew-member. Either he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Either way, I am going to do my civilian duty and close my computer because I don’t want to “interfere with the instruments.”]

Ok. I’m back. To Rwanda…

Part of the reason it’s taken me so long to write about Rwanda is that some of my experiences have bordered on the unbelievable. Certain things are hard to write about on the world-wide-web. Especially when security is involved. Less especially when you face the threat of being misunderstood. I might find a way/reason to write about this at a later date, for now, suffice to say: my circumstances are quite extraordinary and I’m being well taken care of.

Last week a group of potential investors visited Rwanda. The major perk of my job is that whenever someone even slightly “important” lands, I get to drop everything to join them on a tour of the country. Of course, it’s difficult to spend 5 minutes in places where you’ve spent 5 months, and feel as if an accurate representation is being given, but it doesn’t take much for people to get a vibe of what’s happening in this place, and to fall in love with it. It’s very exciting to watch.

It is difficult to have an “endless possibilities” personality in a country of endless possibilities. You may think this is a good match at first, but soon you become overwhelmed with the … well… endless possibilities. And you are rendered immobile, or indecisive, like a child in a candy store. This year has taught me more about myself than I ever cared to know. Under which circumstances I work well… and under which I fail miserably to organize my time and get anything done. How easy it is for me to ignore God. How much I really LOVE him... (like, instead of feeling like I should love him more and wondering why i don't and beating myself up for the disparity therein) it's a very exposing time.

When you're in college and frantically busy with assignments, rehearsals, coffee dates and house meetings, it's difficult to get a true sense of who you REALLY are. I don't mean this to sound all self-discovery-ish, nor do I claim to have "found myself", not nearly. but when you see yourself outside the high-performance landscape, you see how a lot of things you have done in the past because you wanted people's approval (consciously or subconsciously) sort of fade out when you're in a culture that's not performance-based. but it's also revealing to see what's left: what you still have appetite for. chances are you are now doing the things you're supposed to be doing... without all the busy clutter.

but i digress. i think we're about to land.

"thank you, maggie, for sharing your narcissistic thought patterns with the whole wide world."

you're welcome.

:)

m

Over-sized Leprechauns and Over-packed Cars

I am forcing myself to write … my eyelids are drooping and I’m slouching like a 7th grade boy…but I know I have to write. However badly, I have to “just do it”. Some writing teacher’s voice is echoing somewhere in the recesses of my mind, saying “writing is a discipline. If you want to be a good writer, you have to do it… even when you don’t feel like it” now, while I wouldn’t say my biggest aspiration in life is to be a “good writer”, I do wish to tell stories, and I wish to tell them well… whether my own or someone else’s… and the way to do that is to muddle your way through your jumbled, late-night thoughts and find the ones that are the most true, meaningful (to you) congruent and full of life.
So here comes my life.

I have been getting several… more than several reminders that 1. My life is a little confusing if you’re not living it (and really confusing if you are) and 2. that I haven’t done a good job at keeping my loved ones (and the world at large, who doesn’t care nearly as much) informed about my life: including my whereabouts and occupation (small “o”).
I intend to rectify this negligence on my part, with no promises that this will be the last time you are confused as to why I can be having passion fruit with an Anglican archbishop one day, and surfing in Ireland the next.
Let me explain.

My family chose, for the first time in who-knows-how-long to take a real, bona-fide vacation. For those of you who know the Ritchie family, you will know that this is completely out of form for us. We just aren’t the book-a-hotel, rent-a-car, hop-on-a-plane and lie-on-the-beach-for-a-week sort of family. In the past, when we have done something “vacation-ish,” we’ve gone places like Rwanda and Iraq. Hardly the sites for eating lobster and getting a tan.

So, when the von Trapps told us they were singing in a music festival in Abbeyfeale, Ireland, “we” decided it might be time to do what normal families do. Take a normal vacation.

The problem is, normal families don’t travel with 17 people… And 6 instruments…

In 4 vehicles.

Needless to say, we could have made big money documenting our trip and selling it to TLC. Thank God for GPS. Somehow we made our way around the country (along the southern coast) stopping at quirky bed and breakfasts along the way and discovering the less-charted areas of the Emerald Isle. It was quite charming, to say the least. The Irish countryside is… (you fill in the blank. I hate using words like ‘captivating’ or ‘beautiful’ to describe something like the Irish landscape. It simply does NOT do it justice.

The trip ended and my family left, two by two. And all was silent. I was given the keys to a gorgeous flat in Dublin for the weekend while I decided what to do next. Saturday night, I was taken, accidentally, to a Gay club. I danced with a Slovakian contortionist. Funny story # 5. Sunday night, I met Iron and Wine on the street. Had dinner with them and got a free ticket to their show. Pretty sweet as well.

I woke up on Monday morning PLANNING to take a ferry to Wales (because I hate to fly) and then trek my way down to London to audition for LAMDA’s one-year-theatre conservatory. Well, the audition slots were full, so I decided to drive BACK, across Ireland, to the Cliffs of Moher… where my friends, the von Trapps were still staying.
So I went on a road trip, by myself, and saw all the things I hadn’t seen yet.

There is something so magical about the winning combo of driving in a beautiful place with beautiful music playing on the stereo. I am sharing this with you now because I had to experience it alone and I wished someone could gave been there. I set my GPS and started to drive: Kilkenny Castle, The Rock of Cashel, the monastic ruins of Glendelough… it was brilliant. I packed a half a loaf of brown bread, whole-grain mustard, turkey and Irish cheese. The sun didn’t set ‘till 10pm… and I finally arrived in Doolin after midnight. Thankfully Justin was awake and let me in.

Next day: Cliffs of Moher… we (the children and I) hiked WAY out, to the end of the point, and sat there, in the thick, squishy grass, for a couple of hours… talking about life and dreams and the color of the waves.
We also discovered the new Kate Rusby CD and listened to it all the way through, to and from the cliffs. Another movie moment.

At home, Annie had made us Chicken Soup, which we ate with brown bread cheese-toast. The perfect ending to a perfect day.
Somehow (still don’t know how) I talked Annie into letting the kids go with me to France for a week. We booked cheap tickets via-Ryan Air and left the next morning.

Life is good.

FRANCE

Now I could go into all the long and boring details of why I was going to France in the first place… but I don’t want to. Suffice to say, we spent a day in Paris, seeing all the cliché sights (which don’t feel so cliché when you’re THERE… there is nothing so unique as eating chocolate banana crepes at the foot of the Eiffel tower) and then took a train down south to Taize. All I knew about Taize before going is this: it is a place where they write and sing songs… some of which we sing at my home church. I soon realized it was a town, overrun by a monastic community where they receive (get this) 2,000-6,000 (!) visitors on a weekly basis. Stranger still is that 92% are from southern Germany and about 89% percent of those are between the ages of 16 and 19. So, basically, we spent the week in a German Christian High School camp.

Hilarious.

The highlight (besides the beautiful evenings of candlelit singing in 10 different languages) was sitting around with 400 beer-drinking adolescent Germans, singing “take me home, Country road”, while some German boy played along on his Trumpet.
Mrs. Von Trapp must never know about this. Promise not to tell.

All for now,
Maggie

The Intermittent Months

(this blog was written in April. But I lost it. And just found it. And didn’t want it to go to waste)

It’s been a while.

As I was explaining to Sophie the other day, on the hour-long car ride to Muhaze,
I only write when I feel full of words.

Stories build up over time and then, in a few glorious moments (or hours), everything pours out, and I can’t type fast enough.
This presents a problem, however, when there are no words. When the stories feel stale, foggy or just plain uninteresting.

And this is the point where the faith of the storyteller is tested.

I know there will come a day when I don’t apologize for writing too many words; When I don’t have to search for the most startling incident to catch your attention. A day will come when the details of simple life, crafted gently, but not overworked, will be enough. Just enough.

I have a box full of stories. Things I have a lived through in the last 4 months. As much as I would like to write about today and forget the rest, I’d feel like a bad steward… or something like that… because I am lucky, so very lucky, (we are all so very lucky) to be living life and I count it a blessing to relive it all through writing.

So here I am, stomach down on my Rwandan foam mattress, listening to Kate Walsh and remembering…

December:

On my way home from Africa for Christmas, I visited my friend, Emily, in Jordan. Emily is my travel soulmate. Over the next 2 weeks, there wasn’t a situation that didn’t leave us in stitches, slapping at eachother’s forearms, looking for something to hold on to, barely able to breathe… I think we wet our pants once our twice. There was something about the combination:
Arabic culture + Maggie + Emily = EVERYTHING is hysterical. Don’t ask me why.

We spent the first few days bumming around Jordan. Buying DVDs for a dollar, cooking macaroni and cheese I’d brought back from Africa (I thought it would be this huge surprise, only to find out that Jordan is naaat a third world country… ie they have mac and cheese), going to the Turkish bathouse (they scrub you and scrub you and scrub you… it’s amazing) and getting to know the feel of where my friend lives, alone, with a mosque next door that wakes her up at 5am every morning.
We decided to take a trip to Israel. To say it was hard to get in would be an understatement. Look it up somewhere else online, I feel weird talking about it here.

I don’t have words for this place. In the times I’ve tried to describe it since, I’ve used words like “Intense,” “Spiritually tumultuous” and “Bordering on creepy”. You could FEEL in the air (the way you can feel awkwardness at a social gathering) the centuries of religious tension and spiritual turmoil.

Nonetheless, it is magical place. Every rock has significance. The place where Jesus wept, the road he walked before his crucifixion, the shore where he cooked breakfast for the disciples (and where Peter, in his euphoria, jumped into the water to swim to Jesus).

We spend 2 days in Jerusalem and then took a bus up to Galilee. Our worst idea of the trip was biking “around” the sea of Galilee. We were told it was a 20 kilometer ride to Capernaum, and the sun was about 2 hours from setting. Great, we thought. Scenery, fresh air, exercise, is there a better way to sight-see?
Yes, there was.

3 hours later found us out of breath, out of energy, out of time and not yet to Capernaum. The road we were on had turned into a high was and the sea was no longer in sight. The Israeli-Jordanian border closed at 8pm and we HAD to be out by then. It was 7 and pitch black at this point. We tried waving down cars, but no one would stop. Two American girls hitchhiking at night in Israel = Probably not our best move of all time. We got frantic and started standing in the Road. Finally 2 women stopped. We explained our situation and they just said “sorry” and drove on. FINALLY, after about 30 cars had passed, a taxi driver with a bike rack on his roof pulled over. We had to talk him into it, but he finally agreed to take us back, 50 kilometers in the opposite direction, to the place where we’d first rented the bikes. In the 5 minutes we had before leaving, I scolded the man behind the counter for lying to us about the distance to Capernaum. I have a feeling this has happed before and will happen again.

We got to the border, just in time.

The next morning, we took a car to Syria. Emily was there for work, so I visited my friends, Benjamin and Christian who were living in a monastery outside of Damascus. Syria was also strange, and I feel strange writing about it. The people were beautiful, the food enchanting, but there was also something very hidden about the culture. Something I probably wouldn’t get after spending months or years there.

The next few days turned into a “tour of Syrian monasteries”. Those of you who know Christian and Benjamin won’t be surprised. It was amazing. My favorite monastery was out in the middle of the desert and used to be a Roman fortress. Like 20 miles from anything. We climbed one mile up stone stairs in complete darkness (save for Benjamin’s cell phone screen). The cold air burned in my chest and tears were streaming down my cheeks. But, thanks to Benjamin’s determination, we pressed on without pause, climbing the stairs, into the dark mountain.

We arrived at the gate and the candles lit the way into a tiny 1st- century chapel, insulated by carpets hanging in the doorway, filled with pilgrims and nuns in thick socks and fleeces.

A burly, robed and bearded man sat, cross-legged on the other side of the room. I don’t know how else to describe him but to say he was the closest thing to Jesus I’ve ever seen on this earth He looked at directly at with eyes that both welcomed and saw, knew and loved. “You are welcome” he said, interrupting his own liturgy. I sidled up against the stone wall as the tears continued to make their way from my cheeks to the carpet. It was an experience that goes beyond words or intellectual reflection. (Words, please? Anyone?) It was beautiful. It was otherworldly. I shared Eucharist with 20 people I’d never met (and 2 I had) in a cold ruin on the top of a mountain, in the middle of a desert, in a strange land. And it felt like home.

I think that’s how Christ intended it to be.

And that’s all for now.

Maggie

how do you solve a problem like... angry elephants?

I’m afraid I have to backtrack into the recesses of my memory for this blog entry. I’m afraid it’s terribly dated. Like, over 2 months dated. But stories don’t expire, I believe, only our desire to tell them. And I’m working on that…

Ok... so there was that harrowing trip to Kigali… where we got stuck for 2 days in Nairobi with leaking air-conditioners and dead bodies. Then we (myself, Amanda and Justin) arrived in Rwanda where we were joined by the other von Trapp children and a host of Saddleback volunteers from southern California.

My job for the next 2 weeks? To chaperone the von Trapps. I would lie if I said I didn’t get a bit of a Maria complex (whatever that means). The children took to calling me “Fraulein Maggie” and, “Mother Maggie” and I, in turn, took to referring to them as… well… “the children” It was a grand old time: singing in trees, camping with hippopotami… but I get ahead of myself.

It wasn’t long before the whole country found out that von Trapps were 1) a singing group and, 2) indeed, the real descendents of the real von Trapp family. As reported in the local paper, the grand-children of Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.

(pause for laugh)

The paper also called Melanie “Merlyn”, (Pronounced like the wizard) which was another occasion for much laughter. We will never let her forget that.

(mellie and her camera... and an impressed woman in red)

It wasn’t long before we were coerced into singing the Rwandan National Anthem for none other than the President of Rwanda… To be performed for his “Presidential Advisory Committee”, who meets biannually to discuss the future of the country. It was no small ordeal. Long story short, we ended up on national television… every night for the next week. Sofie woke us up at 6am the day of the performance to drill the Kinyarwandan. I never really learned the words and, like a bum, mouthed through a few parts. I know, I know. Pretty bad. But the singing earned us a weekend at the President’s farm and the gift of a Rwandan long-horned cow, for Justin … (to remain in Rwanda)… so I would say that we made out well.

While my parents were there (!) we took advantage of being part of the saddleback crew and rode on their helicopter rides and ate at their fancy dinners.

(this is me and my dad in a helicopter... in case you didn't figure that out)

Parents left. Sadness all around. Real adventure begins.

After our singing debut, we took a trip east to Akagara game park to see some Girraffes and Elephants. We planned to camp for the evening. We were told that everything would be provided: cooking supplies, sleeping bags, etc.

We should have known.

So, after spending the afternoon being gawked at in the local village while we bartered for blankets, spoons and plastic plates, we finally made it to the park. We had two options for a campsite, we were told: The first site was on the top of a hill, overlooking the park. The second was a more rugged site, near the lake where a tribe of angry elephants was known to wander.

“I don’t recommend you go near the elephants” , our guide said, “they are especially angry at the moment”
As you can probably guess, we chose the second site. Not by my choice...“The children” insisted. “If you don’t go, we will” they said. What else could I do? I agreed saying “if we live through this, and anyone asks, it was your idea.”
As we drove up to the campsite in our safari vehicle, there they were: Snorffling and squashling around in the shallow water: not 1, not 2 but 5 Hippopotami, 5 METERS FROM US!


(our campsite, the morning after. the hippos were right on the bank)

[For those of you who don’t know, Hippopotami are, by far, the most dangerous animal in Africa. They easily kill more people than lions or tigers in a given year (I’ll admit, I just made up that statistic… but I know that it’s partly true. If you want to argue the point, don’t. I don’t care enough… but go online and research it yourself). So I am freaking out. “The children” (including my two little brothers), don’t get that anything about this is scary, and our guide (William, who goes by “Willy” says “as long as you start a fire, they won’t come near you.” He also says “if you make weird noise, the Elephants might charge”. Great, I’m with my brothers and the von Trapps who are virtually made of weird noises. Our chances of survival are slim to none.]

So then our wonderful guard builds us a fire and says “I will go get more wood. I will be back in 20 minutes.”
2 hours later find us in the pitch-black night of the African bush, with barely flickering coals and no guide in sight…. and Thomas didn’t understand why I wouldn’t let him play his harmonica.

Finally, we saw a pair of headlights in the distance. William was back. With 8 guards armed with machine guns. Beautiful, I thought. If this isn’t roughing it, I don’t know what is.

“They will protect you” William said.

“I can see that” I replied.

However, they soon decided it was time to return to their “posts” (I still don’t get why he brought them in the first place. Probably just to see the freaked-out white girl).

“I will be right back” William said.

“Ooooohhhoho no you won’t.” I said, and hopped into the driver’s side of the car. “I will take them. Let’s go.”

So I drove 8 men through the African bush in a safari vehicle… in the middle of the night. I was pretty awesome there for a moment. Too bad it was just me.

(We will now pause, for a moment, and feel sorry for Maggie)

So the guys I thought were there to “protect us” were really stationed 3 miles away. I didn’t really get how, if I were to get attacked by an elephant, they would be close enough to do anything… but I figured there was nothing I could do. I mean, I could have forced them to sleep outside my tent… but I don’t think that would have gone over well. Seeing as they were the ones with the machine guns.

So, I get back to camp. We eat a wonderful dinner of hand-packed meatballs and grilled vegetables. William told us some war stories (more to come) and we ate chocolate pudding and African tea. When I wasn’t thinking about the Hippopotomi, looking at me and snorting in the water, it was a magical evening. Camping in Africa: Doesn’t get much better than that.
Went to bed. But couldn’t sleep. You know the sound of someone getting out a bathtub? Well, I heard that sound, times 10, followed by some russling in the grass.

“did you hear that?” I asked Sofie.

“yeah” she said… in a quavery voice.

“that’s it, I’m out. I’m going to sleep in the car.” I said… and horizontally dove out of the tent, cluching my clothes-pillow and blanket as I went (If any of you remember my story about falling out of the subway in London, the action was somewhat similar).

And that’s how it ended. I deserted the 6 children to be eaten alive by wild-african elphants and fell asleep with a crick in my neck.

The next day, we woke up. Which was a surprise. We drove around all day, sitting on the roof of the car.

(kids on the roof)

Saw all sorts of animals: Giraffes, Baboons, Water-buffalo. There’s nothing like seeing them in the wild… absolutely nothing like it.

(zebras. not to insult your intelligence)

That evening, we drove across country to see the world famous gorillas in their natural habitat.

(justin with the gorillas)


(anthony, the documentarian)

Well, I didn’t really go (been there, done that), but stayed back to chill at Jungle-Jack-Hanna’s ranch house. Suffering for the Lord, I know. It was a hard weekend. When the kids came back, delirious and dehydrated, we spent the afternoon playing soccer with the local children and eating chocolate-chip pancakes.



It was overwhelmingly cute.

and then we went to dinner on top of the mountain


with our dear friend, Matt Smith

(do you like how i'm breaking up the sentences to match the pictures? I thought you'd like that...)

(dinner with matt)

The next day we went to the before mentioned farm… where Justin received the gift of a long-horned cow that will remain in Rwanda for safe keeping. We drank fresh yogurt (from the long-horned cow) and played ghost-in-the-graveyard with the President’s kids and 6 bodyguards.

We made our way back that evening and spent the night at Eric (my bosses) house. They threw us a party. It was a families who sing together party. Eric’s wife and all 9 of her sisters sang for us… and the von Trapps followed in turn. Another 5 star evening.

And then… they left. And THAT was a sad day. Except for the part where I figured out how to get a V.I.P tag, sneak into the boarding gate, and buy peanut M&Ms in the duty free shop.

Ok. I will now go and write another blog.

Joy to the world,

Marge-- the white girl

before i forget: The Trip From Hell (or "Chicago to Kigali in 5 days")

Readers Warning: This entry is 9 pages, single spaced on Microsoft Word. If you don’t have time, and want the good stuff, skip to day 4 or 5. But it’s all good.

Day 1 (past tense): Thursday night:

7:30pm: It was with great effort that I tore myself away from the family dinner at my grandparents house, to make the long, snowy drive to O’Hare airport. I must admit, I was hoping the flight would be cancelled. I met the von Trapps at the airport. I was the official chaperone for the two youngest children. I had a bit of a Maria complex... carrying my guitar and leading them down the long hallways of O'Hare, it was difficult to resist sining "I have Confidence". Justin and Amanda could have done without the song.

We were greeted by a particularly grouchy ticket agent, who bewailed us for not getting our bags on the scale quickly enough and not being earlier for our flight. It’s always nice when people are helpful and kind. The flight to London was relatively uneventful. I took sleeping pills which is never a good idea, because you still can’t sleep, but feel worse about it because you’re artificially tired.

Day 2: (present tense):

11:00am We arrive in London Heathrow,
Justin leaves my guitar in the plane: The first glorious mishap. I run 1 mile, backwards through security checks, only to find the guitar case sanctioned (they thought it was a bomb). Thankfully, once they see a flustered young American woman, they assume I’m stupid and give it back, without much questioning.

1:00 pm We take a train to London, shop in Covent Garden, walk through Kensington park and eat scones at “The Muffin Man”: a perfect English day.

Until we get back to the airport…

5:58pm We arrive at Heathrow for a 7:00pm flight: which would be plenty of time, were we in the right terminal and already checked in.
We soon realize one of our mistakes.
(This section is annoyingly detailed. Skip if, like me, you hate details.)
[The trains from T3 (Terminal 3… easier to say) to T4 come every 30 minutes. Our train left 20 seconds before we got there, and we have to wait 26 minutes for the next one. This got us to T4 twenty minutes before out flight departed. Still fine, I thought, assuming people in the security line and at the gate would be helpful, and not not helpful.
And then we realize our second mistake.

6:53 found us near tears (well, I’ll speak for myself here) in front of the woman who decided naaaat to let us on the plane (I am convinced) to punish us (4 people board after us). Granted, we hadn’t been checked through by the grouchy man in Chicago… (details, details) and think we have been. We will found out later that it would have been entirely possible for the woman to check us in and let us on the plane… she was just in the mood to teach a lesson.
I’m going to teach her a lesson….
(If she ever tries to come to Rwanda and get involved in a PEACE plan, that is. Oh, I’ll make her wish she’d let me on that plane. She’ll see.) ☺
(end of details)

7:00pm Here’s where the real chaos begins. I call my travel agent at home. He says if we get over to the united desk ASAP, we might be able to catch the 9:10 flight to Ethiopia. Without thinking too hard, I leave wide-eyed Amanda and Justin at the desk where we are trying to reclaim our luggage, and run out to where I think the desk should be. Of course, United is in T3 (at this point, I am coming to loathe Heathrow). I can’t go back to where the baggage is, so I’m not sure If I should take the train and leave them, since it’s our only chance to get out that evening, or wait, like a responsible chaperone.
I rip out a page of my journal and write, with a ball point pen:

“AMANDA AND JUSTIN,
I AM GOING TO UNITED DESK IN TERMINAL 3.
TAKE THE TRAIN AND COME FIND ME.”

(To which I should have added, “good luck” or “God help you” because that’s about how much hope I have that they would find me.)

I chew a piece of gum and try to stick the paper to a post where they might see it, coming out of baggage claim. It falls off 4 times, and the paper is getting soggy from sticking and re-sticking my spitty gum. So I find a nearby wall and hope neither airport security or the cleaning lady takes it down before they see it.
I take the train to T3, only to find that United has closed for the evening. What can I do about it? Nothing. I try the “help line” but no one answers. I mean, there’s a message that says “Thank you for calling United… you know the rest. (The typical, supremely unhelpful message telling you to call back when it’s convenient for THEM, not you. Why do they even try to be polite in those messages? It only makes the customer MORE annoyed). So, it’s back to T4 to see if Amanda and Justin haven’t been swallowed by the Heathrownian abyss.

(try to understand, each time you switch terminals, you have to go down 3 huge flights of stairs and walk a half a mile of a hallway… hoping your train has not just left, because then you’ll have to wait another 20 minutes)

The moment the train lurches into movement, I get a call from Amanda saying “where are you?” They went to T3. No, they didn’t see my sign, they’re just smart. They only got 3 of our 6 bags from the desk. They’re calling from a payphone in T3 arrivals.

“Stay right there. I’ll be right back.” I then realize that I might have to talk to someone in T4 about tickets for tomorrow. I can’t call her back. So I go back up the 3 flights of stairs (for the 8th time that evening). My legs are aching at this point. I’m carrying 3 bags.

I find a representative for Kenya airways.
“You’re lucky” she says. “I was about to leave” I didn’t say I felt anything but lucky at the moment. “How are you?” I ask, in a moment of graciousness. “I’m pissed off.” She says. “ I just had to wait for a passenger for over an hour!”
“Well I’m pissed off too.” I say. “I just missed my flight to Africa, we lost half of our luggage and I lost the 2 children I’m responsible for”.
“I’m sorry.” she says. I know she means it. “I’m sorry too. “ I say, “I’m glad we got that out of the way”
She books us on the next days flight to Kenya. But tells us that we’re on standby out of Nairobi. No big deal, I think, we are 1,2, and 3 on the waiting list.
(In line with the rest of the trip, I was quite wrong.)
I take the loathsome train back to T3. We decide to go back to T4 and leave our luggage there. Another train ride (I really should have counted).
Take the underground into town, find a hostel, eat some Chinese food, and fall asleep exhausted.

Day 3:

We arrive at the airport 3 hours early the next day. Justin and I have a debate about whether it’s a sin to worry or not. He thinks worrying helps. I think it doesn’t. The conversation ends when I pull out my bible and read the “Therefore, do not worry about anything…” verse. “What version is that?”, Justin asks. I realize this is not the time to prove any point, when everything is going wrong. But in situations like this, I find my only defense is to let go of everything, try to laugh as much as possible, and let things happen… more out of a need to survive than piety.
Oh, and they have “found” our remaining 3 bags, and tell us they are “going to be on the plane.”
Ha ha.

Day 4: (I realize this is long. No one is forcing you to read on. But the worst parts are yet to come… because now we’re in Africa).

None of us sleep on the plane and we arrive at the Nairobi airport at 6:30 am.

(Description needed here: Nairobi airport is one LONG hallway, with about 20 duty free shops selling whisky, cigarettes and peanut M&Ms, one internet café which charges $2 for 15 minutes of internet or $4 per minute for international phone calls, and an “electronic shop” that doesn’t sell outlet adapters or cell phone chargers. There is ONE desk called the “Transfer Desk”. EVERY SINGLE PERSON who goes through Nairobi, has to get their boarding pass for their next flight at this desk. Let me say that again, there is 1 desk for all 2000 people in the airport. 1 desk. Uno. At it’s busiest, I’ve seen 3 people working behind the desk, but usually there’s only 1. The line is, at it’s smallest, 20 people long and can grow to 100+ people. Every one of them has an issue and is in a hurry. You can imagine, I’m sure, the amount of sighs, eye rolls, and elbow jabs.
There is ONE place to sit, at the end of the hallway, called the Java Café. Don’t be deceived. IT wasn’t nice. We sat in a sticy booth where a broken air conditioner was dripping on one corner of the table. The air conditioning never got fixed. That day, or the next. But I’m getting ahead of myself.)

I immediately go to the transfer desk to see about our “standby” status. After an hour in line we find out that the flight has been oversold by 18 people. But we should wait at the gate for 3 hours, just in case. The flight gets delayed 2 hours, so everyone gets a chance to check in… except for us. After 3 more trips to and from the café at the end of the airport, and asking everyone in uniform whether or not there is room on the flight, we don’t get on. Who is surprised? Not I. I wait in line another 2 hours to see when the next flight is (you have to wait in line every time you have any question, whatsoever, because no one else knows anything, except for the 2, slow-typing, assistants, behind that stupid desk)

“There is a flight tomorrow at 1pm, but it is oversold by 28 people” she says.
Who oversells flights by 28 people? I think to myself. In a way, it might make sense as a way to insure you’ll make your money, in case 29 people don’t show up, but I don’t think customer satisfaction/return factor into the thinking here. In the land of the desperate, how could it?

“There is a flight that leaves at 9am and there’s room on it” The slender woman with long, set aside, bangs, informs me.
“we’ll take it” I say.
Click-click-click on her keyboard.
“Oh, very sorry,” She crinkles her eyebrows “the flight has been suspended.”
“What does that mean?” I say
“I don’t know.” She says
“Sooo…. What-should-I-do?” I ask. I am beyond impatience at this point
“Leave your tickets with me and I will keep trying”. I leave at 5pm. Come back then.“ she says.
For some reason (mostly fatigue, I suspect), I trust this woman, and leave her my tickets. My solitary chance of getting out of this place.

I find Amanda and Justin, sitting on the floor nearby, leaning against a glass guardrail. “We have a visitor,” Amanda says. A petite elderly woman, clothed in one continuous piece of African fabric, is squatting 6 inches from them, in the place where I had been sitting. I look down at her. She looks up with watery eyes and smiles a warm, tired, clueless smile. “Well” I say “I guess we’ll find another place”

2:00pm We move to the transfer lounge, which is really just a big empty room, and fall asleep on the cold green tiles. I wake up at 4:30pm and go wait in line again to retrieve our tickets. The woman with the bangs is not there. I realize I should have asked for her name. I wait 30 min in line and when I get to the desk, the man behind it assures me that everything is going to be ok.

At this point I start getting sharp with him.

“Try to be patient” he says, over and over.
“I cannot be patient” I say, quite blankly. (The irony here is, I had no choice. In the US, we have the choice to be patient or not; To blow a fuse, or not. Because we know if we blow a fuse, something will undoubtedly happen. Not the case here.)
How can you be “patient” when a stranger is somewhere holding your tickets that are the only out of this country… and is about to go home with them. I was going to be in Nairobi Airport for the rest of my life.
At 5:30, The woman with the bangs shows up. I am so relieved to have my tickets back, I do not scold her for telling me she was going home at 5. However, she is still unable to access our flight, so we have to come back in the morning to see a woman named Penina (who I’m sure, to this day, doesn’t exist). Argh. So now it’s dinnertime. The chance of getting into town to see anything or stay anywhere has been shot. We eat at the airport restaurant. Terrible food, but we haven’t eaten all day, so my pizza tastes ok. Justin’s Lamb Masala makes me want to gag and the Ice Cream tastes like it has been frozen, melted and re-frozen 5 times over.

We rent “rooms” in the sleeper’s lounge, in the sketchy basement below terminal 3. Rooms are $40 per person for a tiny bed and table. There’s barely room to walk into the room. The beds are made of foam and the pillows are stuffed with burlap sacks. IF we sleep for over 8 hours, the price doubles. Needless to say, none of us sleep well.

Day 5:

6:30: wake up and take a cold shower with a bar of cheap soap and dry myself with a scratchy towel that must have come from a cheap beach hotel in the states 20 years ago. We get out of there by 7, and return to our stake in the transfer desk line.
I wait for about an hour in the line. I am 2 people from the front when a tall, well dressed African man runs up to the desk and says “excuse me, we have a big problem!”, in good English. I going to assume the man was Kenyan.
No reaction from the 2 people behind the desk.
“EXCUSE ME!” He repeats, more emphatically “We have a REALLY BIG PROBLEM! Please, someone call security!” There is desperation in his voice.
No one moves.
At this point, I’m assuming this is a rich Kenyan gentleman who has lost his luggage, and wants to complain to an official.
He walks up to one of the men assisting someone and, slamming his hand on the desk, asks: “Why won’t you call security?”
“There is a line, sir. You must wait your turn.” The timid man behind the desk says, without looking up.
“I don’t have time to wait in line. We have a problem NOW! What do you want me to do?”
“Whatever you wish” the man answers
“You want me to do what I wish?” The Kenyan challenges.
The man behind the desk nods, finally looking up, and then sideways at the angry man, who promptly picks up his computer monitor and throws it across the room.
The buzzing airport went silent.
“CALL SECURITY” the Kenyan yells.

At this point, I’m thinking “this is the part of the story where a group of men rush in with hand-cuffs and guns, and this guy gets escorted off the premises, and arrested.”

Nothing happens.

The man behind the computer silently collects his monitor, sets it back on his desk and begins to plug the wires back in.
The Kenyan is beside himself and starts shouting something in Swahili, arms flailing. At this moment I see tears in his eyes. This is not a petty baggage issue. The African men around me become involved in the dialogue. Soon everyone is yelling, but still, nothing official is happening. I look around. Is there any security in this airport?
Soon, the Kenyan storms out, back to the baggage claim area.
“What happened?” I ask the gentleman next to me in line.
“His mother. She fell on the plane from Dubai.” He answers in his thick accent, “She was dying but there was no one to help. Now she is dead. They would not call anyone.”

There is a dead woman. Down that hallway, a woman is dead. And no one doing anything. At this point I feel very unsafe. I begin to think about the woman I heard about at Bethel who raised from the dead a boy who had drowned in the ocean. The woman had been praying for a year that she would have an opportunity to raise someone from the dead, and would lie on her carpet and imagine herself saying the words “In the name of Jesus, wake up.” Wake up. Should I go pray for her, Jesus? Should I go now? I haven’t been preparing or praying for this moment…

At this moment, my number comes up in line. I went to the desk. I forget to even ask about Penina, since I’m sure she doesn’t exist.
“Sir, I have been here for 2 days and I have to get out of here. I don’t care how, just get me on a flight, any flight, to anywhere. Otherwise I will take a bus to Rwanda. Or walk.”
The man looks at me and smiles.
“The 9 o’clock flight has been cancelled, but we can get you on the noon flight”
“I was told it was oversold by 28 people”
“Who said this?” He asks
“Never mind,” I say. “Just get me boarding passes with seat numbers”
He prints off the boarding passes and 1 make him repeat the promise that we will, indeed, be on the flight at 12:00 pm. It boards at 10:45. This leaves me 2 hours to find the woman who fell on the plane from Dubai.

I follow the Kenyan man’s trail down to the customs area. There is a small room off to the side and the door has been left open. I can’t imagine what this room is used for on a daily basis. The place where they bring the sick and dying to keep them out of the way? It’s the size of a large bathroom. There is no furniture, no medical equipment. There are about 10 people crowded around what I assume to be the woman, lying on the floor, covered in a bedsheet.

“Excuse me,” I ask the man by the door, “I would like to pray for the woman”
“Hum?” He leans his ear into my face. I don’t think my volume is the problem.
“I want to pray” I make a praying symbol with my hands, like they teach you in Sunday school… like we always see Jesus in posters, His hands clapped together, index fingers and eyes pointed toward heaven. “For the woman” I point past his right hip to where I can see the sheeted bundle.
“Ah yes. One moment” He says, he calls a woman over and mutters in Swahili.
She looks at me. “You want to pray for this woman?” I nod “Do you know her condition?” she asks.
“Yes, I know that she is dead.” I say.
She raises her eye-brows, shrugs and says “why not.”

Now, to prevent this from sounding like a “from the field” missionary report, let me say that I had no feelings of calling or heroism in my bones. God did not say “Go and bring this woman back to life.” I just had the feeling I should pray for her. I was actually shaking. But bold, nonetheless. I knew what I had to do and had nothing to lose. Would these people thing I was strange for asking this woman to wake up, in the name of Jesus. Probably, but who cares? It’s His choice, not mine. He can do whatever He wants. Who cares if I look stupid. In this case, at least.

I ask around the room if anyone knew the woman. They shake their heads. What are they doing here? I wondered. The air in the room was utterly undignified. I shuttered to think about my own mother, lying on a cold floor under a sheet in some African airport, surrounded by a group of murmuring apathetic onlookers.
Someone had her name on a piece of paper. I can’t remember it now.

I repeated the name and said “Talitha cum” over and over. It’s the words Jesus used when he asked the girl to get up. The girl who was only sleeping.

This woman was not sleeping. I touch her hand through the sheet. It is cold and hard, like your feet feel when they’ve been outside too long in the winter… and they can’t feel your touch. She can’t feel my touch. Her belly is swollen. I touch it and it feels like a thick, tight balloon. She isn’t waking up.

I keep praying.

Soon my prayers turn from the miraculous to the ordinary. God’s Mercy for her soul; Peace for her family as they mourn. I pray dignity over her life. Realizing, as I pray, that these things may be miracles. Who knows. Who ever knows. Who knows what it would have taken for that woman to breathe again. Who knows why God, in all His power and Love wouldn’t do it. Who knows why I am stuck in Narobi, and on all fours in this strange room, listening to people chatter behind me about what went wrong.

“The problem was, no one phoned to say there was a sick passenger,” one woman said, matter-of-factly.
“Next time they should call a doctor.” Another added.

It was as if they were discussing a driving route they had taken that wasn’t sufficient. Like, next time we’ll take 1st avenue and not the freeway…

Why am I bending over this woman I’ve never met, touching her cold, bloated belly? I don’t know. But somehow, it felt important. In the same way it feels important to teach a child how to tie his shoe.

A man walks in, pulls the sheet back from the woman’s face, and I see it for the first time. It is squished the way a face looks when it’s pressed up against a window, usually making a face at someone. I marvel at how it has frozen this way. Don’t our muscles relax when they’re no longer needed? The man tosses the sheet back over her face and makes a sound of disgust and clicks his tongue as if to say “Too bad.”

I finish my prayers and stand up. Everyone in the room is staring at me.
“You are a Christian.” A woman says. It’s not a question.
“Yes.”
“Why do you pray?” She asks

Why do I pray? I don’t know. Because it’s my best connection to God. Because it made sense as the only thing to do in that moment. Because God may have nudged me to do so… Because I know that woman was loved, deeply loved. But if she was so loved, why wouldn't God …

“Because God said He loves her.” I say
“And what does else does God say?” another woman asks, not mockingly.
“That He loves you all, very much, and wants you to know that he cares about you.”
My answer sounds like cotton candy. I hope, somehow, the meaning is translated.
“Uh” They nod in unison.
I leave the room and start back up the long hallway, back to the transfer desk. I’ve been gone for over an hour. I find Amanda frantically searching the area.
“Everything’s fine” I say. “We’re leaving at noon.”

+++

We sit close to the door and are the first to board the plane. We refuse to believe that it is actually happening. Something else has to go wrong. It is not until we touch down in Kigali that I believe I am here.
And here I am.

I don’t want to write a summary paragraph at this moment. I believe (perhaps wrongly) that stories speak for themselves. And the “why” becomes less interesting as you look at the “what”. I marvel at how what happens to us, against our wills perhaps, becomes part of our stories, our experience that we draw from in the days to come.
Here’s to “Listening to our Lives”*.

I hope this finds you well and full of peace.

Maggie

*a favorite book of mine by fredrich beuchner

neediness and thanks.

i don’t have the energy to write this...

BUT i am feeling much better. thank you for asking. i was, as of tuesday, able to eat a full meal.

just in time for thanksgiving...

thanksgiving was surprisingly good in Kigali. the american embassy took it upon themselves to import turkey and pumpkin pie so that we could all feel at home. It was very sweet of them. I’m pretty sure every American in town showed up (there were over 200 in attendance), and waited 45 minutes in line for food (i had to go last because i didn’t RSVP in time... of course :). It was worth every minute. There’s something really beautiful about bonding with other Americans on such occasions. Who said we didn’t have a culture? Jealous europeans, that’s who.
:)
(Justin, Amy, Me and Jenny at Thanksgiving dinner)

AND, thanksgiving morning we played flag football at the sports center in town! there were 25 of us, 4 teams and I scored 3 touchdowns! our team was the best... and that’s all that mattered. My family called me on skype for, I believe, the first time in history, and it absolutely made my day. After dinner, we further stuffed ourselves with popcorn and peanut m&m’s and watched “Love Actually” to get into the “christmas spirit”. it was a good day.

(american football)

i tried calling my parents on skype the other night. i was badly dehydrated because the thought of water was making my gag, so i was calling to see what i should do. the skype connection was splotchy and all they heard was "i'm really sick" in a pathetic voice...and then it cut out. within 5 minutes i had received 5 phone calls from various friends and had a personal visit from the minister of commerce, Rosemary, who brought her husband and her doctor along... by way of her cell phone. over the next few days rosemary was an angel, sending fruit baskets and fresh juice and texting me 3 times a day to check in.

all quite overwhelming, actually. but it's very nice to know you're cared for... even in africa.

when i think about things i’m thankful for... oh forget it. does anyone want to hear another personal dialogue from the girl living in africa on how we should all be more thankful than we are? i’m not so interested in “shoulding” to be thankful... and i doubt you are either. i think we’d all just rather be truly thankful. (Lord, give us all eyes to see what you’ve given us.)

There’s a quote in my new favorite devotional book that says (Jesus is speaking):

“hasn’t it ever occurred to you that this or that grace was given to you because of some prayer said for you, or some priest’s blessing, or what your parents won by their efforts, or because of my divine compassion, or the goodness of My mother? Don’t ever get the idea that the cause is any goodness of your own or anything in yourself.”

“He and I” by Gabrielle Bosis

(ps. every woman i know should own this book. you can get it on amazon or half.com)

now, i don’t think Jesus is saying here that we are crap... but saying how much our lives depend on others... on their prayers, their faithfulness, their love. i’m truly humbled by this. my mom prays for me. my grandma prays for me. my friends pray for me. mrs. bell prays for me. the beautiful women in our women’s prayer group listen to the Holy Spirit and pray for me. if i believe that prayer is powerful, which i do, i literally owe them my life. where would i be without their prayers? i don’t really want to know...

when people say “i’m praying for you” i believe them. i try not to use that phrase lightly. because i am saying “i am petitioning to the Lord Almighty on your behalf, that He will do GOOD things in your life!”

wow. how did we ALL get so lucky?

because of an insight of a dear friend, i have been thinking about the nature of my previous blogs. i like writing blogs. it helps me to document my time while communicating with the outside world... but it’s definitely kept to that: semi-personal documentation that i wouldn’t mind if anyone in the world read.

i think the reason i keep my letters within the safe boundaries of humorous stories and sicknesses is because i’m afraid if i talk about the most personal/important thing in my life (i.e. GOD) that it will sound like those missionary letters, which, bless their hearts, i usually have difficulty reading... mostly because they seem inhuman to me (which i know isn’t true... just an impression i can’t shake). and since God is the most human thing i know of... i mean, he’s the most real thing about my humanity... i want to avoid dehumanizing Him at all costs. But i think that’s more of an excuse. i’m probably just scared.

so here i am, i’m in bed, at a guesthouse in Kibuye, waiting for inspiration of what to write. i feel most of my life is that... waiting for inspiration. and in the meantime i either make myself busy, or just sit and wait. each has it’s downside. but the latter option at least leaves room for surprises.

so, what have i done in the last 3 weeks? close to nothing, from my perspective. i spent the first 2 weeks lying in bed, at the mercy of those kind enough to care for me and your prayers. at this point, it’s too hard to justify my presence in africa... so i’ve given that up. when people here ask “what exactly do you do here” i’ve started to say “i don’t really know”. i mean, i have some ideas but they’re all sorta lose associations, not really practical jobs. by the time i got over dysentery, my boss, eric, was bedridden with a virus. figures. oh, satan, you little devil!

i’ve long since given up the notion that i’m here to change africa. mostly i feel like i’m supposed to let africa change me. of course, God through africa. is it changing me? i hope so. i guess you’re a better judge of that than i.

all i know is that when i’m here, I NEED God. I need Him because i’m sick. I need Him because i don’t know what to do when i wake up at 7am, and shopping or hanging out with friends isn’t an option. I need Him to tell me what the hell to do with my life.

i will never forget the time at the AMIA conference, when a rich white guy asked Archbishop Kolini

“what are we, in the west, supposed to do with all our money”

The room full of suburbanites leaned in for the answer.

Archbishop paused for a moment, and replied, simply and unforgettably:

“The question for you is, do you need God? If you need Him, everything will fall into place, if you don’t, you’re in trouble”

This answer has haunted me since that day. How do I NEED God? I mean, I know the ways that I think he might be providing... but even those things are removed, and seen through the lens of my own effort (i.e, you work to eat). But NEED is desperate. It’s needy. You know, NEEDY. Like the relationship that suffocates you. Do I feel that way with God? I don’t think I do very often. The closest I’ve felt to it in a while was lying on that hotel bed in Cameroon, wanting to rip my insides out. I needed God in that moment. And, in that moment, it felt like my life was truly in perspective.(Lord, help us to need you more.)

Because, i think, that only in our need are we in our rightful place... and do we truly see our thankfulness. And it’s not things we SHOULD be thankful for, it’s what we actually are thankful for. Jesus, who loves us terribly, above all.

i don’t know if any of this makes sense. but i have a lot of love for those of you i love...(i think you know who you are) and i’m looking forward, more than ever, to be with you for christmas.

let me know how you’re doing and what you think.

God’s peace,

Maggie

ps.

the images are mostly from the other day when i went to Ruhungo district with my friend, Justin Hughen, to document his work there. this community is made up of refugees from Tanzania [people who fled Rwanda during the genocide and had set up their lives in Tanzania, only to be kicked out by the government, decades later, and have all their possessions taken away (cows, houses, chickens, everything). they were sent to rwanda with nothing but the clothes on their back and are now being set up in random communities, out in the middle of nowhere, without food or work. can you imagine? i can't. in this particular district, 20 (that's 2-0) families were living in one abandoned house, as big as my living room in west chicago].

Justin had installed a water pump a few weeks back and we went out the other day to deliver some blankets and mosquito nets... which doesn't begin to cover the needs of this community. but the most beautiful thing about these people was their gratefulness. not once did they ask for a handout. they only said thanks.

the chief of the village --the one in the picture holding hands with justin-- hitchhiked on a truck carrying beans for 3 hours the other day to come to justin's office, just to say "thank you". (--the story of the ten lepers rings a bell.) after thanking justin, he went to leave, not even asking for 2 dollars for a bus ride back.

when we went back on friday, he presented Justin with this letter:

Dear Sir,

I hereby kindly apply for a job from you which will help me to live.

I’m very courageous and brave to do whatever work or job you can give me, essential is to find how I can get my life.

I hope you will consider this application favorably, and I wish to assure you that I will do my best to give satisfaction if you give me that job.

Faithfully yours,

MANIRAHO Zakayo.


when we left, he leaned in the window of the car and pointed to Justin and exclaimed: "Dis is my FRE-end!" and then he paused, looked at me and said "an YOU is my NEW friend!"

God bless these beautiful people.

weddings, cameroon, amoebic dysentery and pulling money out of my underpants... Oh, the many-ness (and mini-ness) of our stories...

i've been lying in bed, wanting to rip my insides out, for 4 days.

as of this morning, thanks to the belgian embassy for letting me use their doctor, i have been diagnosed with Dysenterie Amibienne: translated: amoebic dysentery. comes from the root word "dysentery" from the oregon trail computer game. it really is as gross as it sounds. i, maggie ritchie, am officially "home" to thousands (maybe millions) of little, hairy (probably... just because they have to be as gross as possible) creatures who are living, feasting, procreating and burrowing into the walls of my intestines (and everyone here loves to remind me of what, exactly, is going on inside my body.) in these cases, i make the strong choice to NOT believe in the facts of medicine. it has been said "diagnose are like fairy tales: they're only as true as you want them to be." (but you should still take the medicine you're prescribed:)

[how, exactly, i became the honored hostess of these furry little creatures will come to light later on...]

so, instead of doing something productive in africa (like starting a school or feeding orphans), I'm sitting in my bed, drinking watered-down apple juice and sipping lipton chicken-noodle soup out of an American Embassy mug, and feeding parasites. AND attempting, with my limited amounts of wherewithal, to write another oh-so-brilliant blog. wish me luck.

(judging by the title of this post, there is far too much to tell to keep any of you interested, so i will gracefully highlight and edit my way thru the last month of my life.)

HOME:

the reason i haven't posted in a while is because, between the dates of October 4th and November 5th, I was home. (Somehow, it seems wrong to write a blog update while in the US. I don't know why. Just one of those things you save for overseas. Like peanut butter and oreos. Don't eat them at home, but if i find them here, i think i'm in heaven.) The lovely Meredith Aulie was married on October 6th, followed by my sister, Eve Annemarie's (aka "Bunny") wedding the following week. Both weddings were breathtaking in their own right. You can't beat an outdoor wedding in October. Meredith's took place at honey rock, where lots of barn dancing and getaway boats were involved, and bunny's was in the field at our house in big rock, beneath a beautiful gray sky and lots of candles.

this is my 5th sibling to marry, so you'd think we'd have the routine down by now. Well, we're not really the sort of family that "gets routines down". So every wedding is another series of "dramatic deja vu"s. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all. I mean, how can you beat a week of the extended Frost clan, the singing von trapps and staying up till 4am playing "who would you marry in your family" games? I know I can't.

i could have done without all the sympathetic looks and the "don't worry, i'm sure you'll find someone" comments. Katelyn Aulie invited me to join the OSNYM (Older Siblings Not Yet Married) club. In our club, we rejoice in our singleness, don't feel sorry for ourselves and utterly reject the notion that just because your younger sibling is married before you, you should feel terrible about your life.

in the last two weeks home, i turned 24 (woo-hoo), spent a lot of time with my beautiful friends and family (whom i appreciate more than ever before) and finished my last 4 tests (!) in Biology 100 at Waubonsee Community College with a smashing 68.5 %. That's 3.5% over what I needed to pass and graduate from Wheaton! I really showed them.

CAMEROON:



On November 4th, i took off for Cameroon, a medium-sized country (bigger than Rwanda, smaller than Sudan) on the west coast of Africa, for the 3st (you heard me right: 3st... pronounced "THIRST) Annual African Continental Cycling Championships! Our team from Rwanda was competing so Jock Boyer (the team's coach) invited me along. I was the "Technical Advisor" for the team, and I totally fulfilled my roll. I mean, I passed out water bottles and everything... and that required a lot of technical advice ("go, go go! Faster, faster, faster!"). I was awesome

But seriously, Team Rwanda actually was awesome. They got 4th overall (with 16 countries competing) and they only started training in Feb, and before then none of them were trained bikers. it's also a HUGE thing for Rwanda to have something hopeful to put their name back on the map in a positive way. so we were pretty proud of them. and you'll never meet sweeter, more humble athletes (i can say that after spending the week with all the african national teams). no pretense.

(if you have 4 minutes to watch a beautiful video about the team with sweet shots of rwanda, go to

http://www.projectrwanda.org/video/team_video.php

It's basically a music video. you won't be dissapointed, i cry every time... and i don't even like biking :)

I wish you could have seen these guys ride. Some of the best athletes in africa, zero % body fat, trucking up these hills, sweating like pigs, for 3 hours. It was pretty remarkable. And there I was. The out-of-shape white girl, standing the shade and handing out water bottles and jel packs every 12 minutes. :)

"It's a choice"... Jock says.

Cameroon itself was stinky, dirty and i never want to go there again, not ever. I can't really explain it, but something in the air was off. Because I've lived in dirty places before, and it didn't bother me. But this place was dirty on a deeper level. Like corrupt. It made me want to leave from the moment I arrived.* This feeling was aggravated by the fact that we were mostly contained to our hotel. The guys would go out riding and I would walk around the stinky market. But only during the day because at night, I would get attacked, so they told me.

I went to the market one day to take pictures and got yelled at (and i mean told off), at length, by 4 different people for taking photos. In all my years (i'm really old) of taking pictures overseas, that's never happened to me.



one day i was walking in town with my new friends, Daniel and Fre from the Eretrian cycling team (Eretria is a country in east africa, above ethiopia. I'd never heard of it either... and i still can hardly pronounce it). I felt prompted, by the sketchy feeling of the place, to carry all my money in a belt-wallet, under the waistband of my skirt. We stopped to buy some bananas and I dug thru my wallet to find 200 francs. Daniel started giggling and Fre explained, with a grin:

"he is funny at you because you are pulling money from your underpants."

the worst part of cameroon, besides the people yelling at me, being trapped in a ghetto, and keeping money in my underwear, was the endless supply of bad meat sauce...which i couldn't stomach so i ate salad that had been washed with bad water... and the rest is history,


(dysentery enters, Stage Left)


thanks for listening to this somewhat harrowing, somewhat strange tale...


Maggie



*Mind you, this is simply one person's honest impression of her limited experience of cameroon which is obviously a much larger country. I would hate to do this hurting country further damage by turning everyone completely off to it. It's a dark place, and dark places need light.

ps. if you wish to be further grossed out by the condition in my intestines, or if you just like details, go to http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/travel/diseases/amoebic_dysentery.htm