Head Over Heels (Caleb's Log v.9)

Hello Friends and Family,

Let me start by saying that everyone is fine and we’re going to be okay.  So, as you read below, you can get worried, but don’t overdo it, okay?

As you all know from our last post, we were robbed on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.  As you can imagine, it has called into question some of our assumptions of this place and some of our hopes for our experience.  We want our kids to experience something different from Louisville and something different from the US.  We know that will come with struggle and sadness and some scary moments along the way.  But, it’s not our intention to put our kids' lives in danger.  No educational adventure is worth the health and safety of our children.  And yet, here we are in the middle of Africa surrounded by danger.  No, Rwanda and Kigali are not suddenly dangerous.  The world is dangerous and Rwanda is no different.  I mean, it’s different, but the world is not free of risks.  As Katie said in her post, the risk of property theft is not unique to our new community. We’ve experienced it in every state we’ve lived in the US and I’ve felt much safer here than in most major cities in the US.

But on the way to school, there’s a section of the sidewalk missing and I keep thinking, does no one ever get distracted, not see the hole and fall into it?  I’ve posted about the traffic here, but pedestrians are not protected.  It’s real life frogger and you’ve got to be aware of that. 

Today, as the kids and Katie approached the school, there was one more major intersection to cross.  The huge traffic circle near the middle school.  This is a tough spot, because the road is pretty wide and cars don’t yield to pedestrians.  The good news is that the traffic gets heavy enough that it all just kind of comes to a stop and you can walk through.  Well, while they were waiting to cross, Mazie was standing on the back edge of the sidewalk, when another pedestrian walked by her.  In order to make room, she took a step back.  However, the sidewalk ended there and Mazie stepped back into nothing.  Behind her was a 20 foot cliff (retaining wall).  Her heavy backpack dragged her down quickly and she fell headfirst down the wall.  She hit her butt and backpack on the wall and flipped over a second time as she approached the bottom of the retaining wall.  She did a full flip and landed feet first in the concrete ditch full of water.  She fell 20 feet, did a back flip and landed in the middle of a concrete structure.  She bruised her butt and scraped her right arm and her thighs a little.  She’s absolutely fine.  However, a slightly different fall could have ended with her head hitting first on a concrete edge.  How she tumbled that far with no serious injury is purely remarkable.  A miracle, if you're into that sort of thing.

No educational adventure is worth the health and safety of our children.  Yet here we are.  An intruder in our home on Wednesday morning and our child falling to her near death on Thursday morning.  So now what?  Pack up and go home?  I mean, maybe.  Is this really worth it?  What are we getting out of this?  What are we learning and how are we helping?  Are we really at risk of dying on this trip?

The answer is yes.  Of course.  (sorry, there were a lot of questions in that last paragraph and I assumed you knew which one I was answering)  Yes, we’re at risk of dying on this trip.  But not in a profoundly different way than we’re at risk of dying on the flight over, or by going to a school in the US that might experience an active shooter.  It’s bullshit to pretend that we can entirely avoid risk. 

(live interruption of the blog, but it’s relevant.

Theo is going around checking all our doors to make sure we’re locked up tight for the night. That’s great, but having someone try to open that back door while I sit in the dining room is a bit unnerving. It’s Theo, right?) 

We’ve always attempted to parent our kids without a leash.  You all may know of it as “Dickinson style parenting” which is just a complicated version of “they’ll never learn their lessons if you don’t allow them to suffer some consequences for their actions.”  We want our kids to walk the world aware of their surroundings, trusting of those they meet, but aware of the inherent risks in the world. 

Is this strategy going to get them hurt?  Yeah, probably. But if the goal is to prevent them from ever getting hurt, that’s a game you’ll never win.  We’d rather give them the tools to identify threats, avoid negative outcomes, and overcome injuries (mental and physical). 

Are we actually accomplishing any of that here?  I don’t know.  Seriously. 

I just don’t think a stolen tv and a freak accident are reasons to abandon this journey.  We might need to slow down and talk more about some of these serious dangers.

It’s hard though, because we’ve been trying really hard not to look down on this country or the people who live here.  It’s hard to say, “In America, there would be a guard rail there to prevent this exact situation, so you’ll have to be careful here, since they don’t have those kinds of rules to protect human life.”  (You should hear the voice I’m using when I say that.  Total asshole.)

It does feel like Rwanda is stuck in the past in some ways.  Not stuck, just behind.  We didn’t used to have rules about how wide the railings on your deck could be until enough babies crawled through railings and fell.  They have fewer laws around worker safety, pedestrian safety, road quality, etc, etc.  Why though?  Just seems like people who make 2 dollars a day and don’t have running water have more to worry about than guard rails on a sidewalk.

Here's another example.  All over town the shoulders of the road end with a concrete ditch.  It’s about a foot outside the line and it’s about 3 feet deep.  It would take nothing at all to veer 2 feet to the right and drive into one of those ditches.  (I’ve seen one motorcycle and one car stuck in a ditch, so far.)  We would never allow that in the US.  So, Rwanda is more dangerous than the US.  Okay.  But no one outside the military owns a gun here.  So, there you go.  Suicide rates in Rwanda don’t come close to our epidemic in the US.

What’s gonna kill Mazie?  Maybe a terribly constructed retaining wall sidewalk situation in Kigali or maybe an out-of-control skier in Winter Park. 

We can’t live our lives in fear, but we need to not be idiots about the risks that are right in front of our face.

We’re not leaving here, yet.  We’re learning and growing and failing and succeeding.  We’re not done doing whatever we’re doing.

It’s hard to write this post, because we want you all to know how lovely it is here and how much we’re enjoying getting to know this place.  To tell you that some of the roads smell like sewage or that crossing the street is dangerous feels like a bad part of the story that we should just leave out. #VisitRwanda

In 7 days, Katie’s mom will be here to visit us.  In 9 days we’re going to Akagera Park for a safari.  Our first “vacation” of the trip.  We’re going to see rhinos and elephants and leopards and lions and all sorts of amazing natural beauty. 

It’s great here, but it’s also real.  It’s not perfect. 

Love you all.  Miss most of you!

PS

Some thoughts from Mazie about her fall.  And yes, these are real actual things she’s said.

1. She was really glad she didn’t get her hair wet, because she was having a great hair day.
2. Super bummed that she lost an airpod in the fall & is demanding new ones.  (Katie went down into the ditch to look for it - no luck.  Lost in a watery grave.) 
3. She thought it was pretty cool, because she felt like she was in a movie.
4. Can’t describe any of the actual falling. Felt like she was dreaming or something and then her feet were just wet and cold.

View from the top. She landed right next to that concrete square part in the ditch.

View from the bottom (as Katie was attempting the airpod rescue).

She's okay!!