too much happening

Wanted: full time blogger/documentarian

We cannot keep up with ourselves.

Since last post (5 days ago) we have done multiple things that all require their own in-depth & well-constructed posts.  Namely:

1. Toured Western Rwanda - Nyungwe rainforest, Lake Kivu, Northern lakes & volcanoes region. So beautiful and so different from our safari last week!

Fabulous rainforest

Most amazing sunset ever - Lake Ruhondo

2. Hired an interpreter & had an extended conversation with our house staff, Theo (guard) and Violetta (housecleaner), covering their personal histories (challenging and tragic), their aspirations (opportunities for their children and themselves), our place in our community (should we let the kids come in The Gate?? Should we give them stuff? It's very. very. complicated.), and more mundane aspects of house management (where should we put the shoes that we want/don't want to have washed?).  Emotionally exhausting... extended post needed on continuing process of confronting global inequities & our micro/interpersonal & macro/systems-level role(s) / inadequacies in addressing them.  (I'm finding myself needing to cycle between looking at/ looking away... as noted, much longer post needed.)  Interpreter is scheduled to come back on Thurs so we can talk to our neighbor, Vestine, and the village head.  Goal: figure out how we can be good neighbors, or not bad neighbors, or ???, in this particular context.

3. (Earlier today- present) Field trip back to N Rwanda with a team of local & CU Boulder researchers + billionaire philanthropists connected to Bridges to Prosperity and other development projects.  Mom & Caleb joined for the morning to see a school (where my CU Boulder colleague Evan Thomas & his team have installed water filters) and a B2P bridge, and then Ahya/Caleb went home and I continued on with the team to stay overnight in the volcanos region and visit some more sites tomorrow.  More thoughts than I have the capacity to relay rn on research, power structures, imperialism, capacity building, knowledge ownership, etc etc etc.... [Sidenote: This blog's many Caleb-aficionados will be interested and likely unsurprised to hear that he was pulled over by the Rwandan police & our registration-equivalent paperwork was confiscated (the person we're renting from apparently doesn't have the right license), and then 5 MINUTES LATER he/we got a photo speeding ticket... some things are universal.]

Here we are on this bridge, with Christian.  He's great.

The team at dinner.

Headed back to Kigali tomorrow.  Caleb goes back to CO on Friday for 2.5 weeks, which will be an interesting next chapter.  Taking applications for short-term drivers/ neighborhood diplomats / financial managers, along with the previously-posted documentarian position.