Inshuti

Inshuti means friend.

I think it’s somewhat telling that we learned this not from a friend, but from a waiter at a restaurant on Easter.  Caleb was asking how to politely get a waiter’s attention, and he told us we could say, “Umva, inshuti!”  Listen, friend.

Umva, inshuti.

I miss friends.  I was pondering this on Monday walking home from dropping the kids off at school.  With nearly four months away from home, and just over a month before we’re heading home, I’ve been thinking about what homecoming will look like and what I’m excited about.  Reconnecting with friends is high on the list.  I’m so grateful for everyone who has stayed connected with us through this adventure and helped us feel less adrift through the challenges and moments of loneliness we’ve had.  Let’s get specific. I’m grateful…

• For our Cottage Friends, for daily wordle check-ins and zooms as we were settling in here and basketball banter. Special thank you to Matt Smith for the joy and connection your March Madness Friendly brings year after year – it was especially appreciated this year.
• For Alli and Bryon, our friends-who-are-family. Grateful for the medical consults (luckily not too frequent) and check ins. I know Caleb loved spending time with you when he was home in March.
• For Lauren, and our intermittent WhatsApp conversations as we’ve both navigated away from home adventures.
• For Jessica and Teresa and Melissa – thanks for the emails and messages you’ve sent letting us know you’re thinking of us (and suggesting dance instructing as an alternative career option for Caleb).
• To our big extended family-who-are-friends. A special thank you to Mama Katie and Mama Kalibu and Olivia for making the long trip over here and sharing this adventure with us directly, and for staying connected and cheering us on at each step. Papa Kalibu, we’re very excited to see you soon, too! I’m grateful for some moments of connection-from-afar with my papa too, and for my brothers, who always feel close no matter how far away we are.
• For everyone I work with back home, but especially for my Hedgehogs. If I had to spend this many hours on zoom with anyone, I’m glad it was all of you! You’ve been an amazing support to me not only work-wise, but as catsitters (thanks, Hannah and Carla) and overall cheerleaders for this wild ride we’re on. (Stephanie and Carla, I’m sorry to miss graduation and am excited to celebrate you both in June!)
• To many others, including those I haven’t connected with while we’ve been away, and for relationships that may have been disrupted by COVID and life in general before our trip. I’m so appreciative for shared histories and past connections, and I’m excited to reconnect and rebuild community when we get back, knowing that it may not be the same as the one we left.

I was thinking about all of you on my walk (it’s a long-ish walk), and about the sense of ease and belonging your friendships give me.  Feeling “other” all the time has been one of the toughest parts of this experience, and I’m excited to find that belonging again.

Something interesting happened next, though.  When I got home, Caleb and I went to meet with Anaclet, our safari guide.  He’s an amazing human, nature expert, and conservation champion, and we’ve decided to invest in his business and help him buy a safari vehicle (to reduce rental costs).  We then stopped by Lambert’s office – he’s my colleague who leads the bridge project evaluation here and he’s been a wonderful friend and support since the day I emailed him in the fall asking for advice about our possible move to Rwanda for the semester.  He welcomed us at the airport when we landed and had us over for lunch during our first weekend.  He introduced us to Anaclet and guest lectured in my class a couple of weeks ago.  Inshuti. 

When we got home, we were greeted by the usual big crowd of small inshuti at our gate… Gille and Prisci and Tony and Simbi and Pasi and Diane and ModishaModishaModisha…. Neighbor Vestine (yeah, I guess I’m using her real name again) had tried to tell me something about Tony earlier when I got home from school dropoff but (persistent language barrier) I didn’t understand, so I called Anaclet and asked him to translate over the phone.  We sat in her (very small) house and she told me that Tony (who isn’t her son, but another neighbor kid) isn’t going to nursery school because his family can’t afford it.  (Blog followers will recall that we gave Vestine money to pay her own kids’ school fees a while back.)  With Anaclet’s help, I told her that Kalibu and I were close to figuring out a scheme to start accounts at the local Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) for several neighbors, including Vestine and Tony’s family, where we’d be able to deposit money each month for each family to spend on their needs, including school fees.  Lots of hugs and smiles and blessings.  (This SACCO thing is in addition to the possible food scheme Caleb wrote about… it is the season of schemes.  Vestine’s SACCO account was successfully established – after an unsurprisingly complicated and long and confusing process – yesterday.)

After talking to Vestine, Caleb gave me a ride to Question Coffee, where I met with Maria and Elias.  They’re academics at the University of Global Health Equity and the University of Rwanda, respectively, and are part of the team I’ve been coordinating to submit a proposal for an East African Climate and Health Center.  We had a great brainstorming meeting and settled on two potential pilot projects looking at the climate & health impacts of Kigali’s 1) Car Free days and 2) urban wetland restoration initiatives.  We’ve got another meeting with our larger team, including the Dean of the U Rwanda School of Public Health, next week.  Before I left, I chatted with Kevine, the Question barista who threw Lexi her surprise bday party back in January and now comes by to say hi and babysits and has helped translate for Caleb to learn more about how to set up the SACCO scheme.  Also ran into Jean, who works on water quality projects and is also a Lambert connection and frequent Question patron.  Meanwhile, Caleb was meeting with Emmanuel, a corporate attorney he met golfing who is helping with the legal side of our Anaclet/Great Native Safaris partnership.

Somewhere in there we also met Odette the landlord, who came by with an IT guy to see about setting up some security cameras Ahya brought over after the TV robbery incident.  (We’ve been unsuccessful getting them connected, as have the 2 previous IT guys who have tried.  Guy #3 didn’t have any more luck – we think it’s an issue with the wifi configuration.  Anyhoo.)  It was really fun to get to know Odette and her friends/family during her visit… we went out for drinks again with her and her cousin Ninisa on Tuesday night before her flight back to Ireland on Wednesday.  She says we can stay at her house for free when we come back to visit, and we started scheming on a future visit to Ireland too.

The point is: while I miss the level and quality of friendship I have back home, we’ve sure made a lot of connections here, and some of them even feel pretty inshuti-like.  Many are complicated by / involve financial transfers (like our first inshuti, the waiter)… but we also need and have been helped by all of these friends, too.  I think a lot about reciprocity these days (I have a whole research project around this concept, inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass) and how give & take is really a part of all true relationships.  So while these friendships are different and new and more explicitly transactional and lack the comfort and shared history of many back home, they’re rich and nurturing in their own way, and have certainly been central to this whole experience.

It feels like we’re stepping into the last chapter of this whole thing.  The draw of looking forward is strong, and I’m trying to balance it with my desire to stay present and see this through, finding a sense of resolution and closure which includes a commitment to continuity – a plan to maintain the relationships here as we reintegrate into and reform our communities back home.  It’s not over yet!  Grateful for all of you for sticking with us.

***

One more note, while we’re on the subject of inshuti.  I’ve shared before that Athena’s had a tough time connecting and making friends here.  It’s been an ongoing struggle and I’ve been really impressed with her overall good attitude, while also trying to keep pushing her to examine and let go of the fears keeping her from being her full self.  The last week, something seemed to start shifting, and then on Thursday, she came home bubbly and full of stories about new friends she’d made (mostly boys) and conversations she’d had.  Her homeroom teacher sent me an email with the subject line, “Magic Happened.”  (He’s been a great support for her since we got here.)  Here’s the message….

I don't know whether Athena has told you about it but today the magic happened. Athena eventually opened up and went out of her comfort zone and started talking to her friends openly. Usually, I make it a point to sit with her in the dining whenever I find her alone on the table and some friends of mine in grade 7 to avoid her being lonely on the table but today, I found her with some other classmates and she was in a conversation with them. I liked it and did not interrupt them. To my surprise, it continued in class after lunch and I heard all her peers calling it a miracle that happened.

Anyway, I couldn't wait to share the good news with you. I would love to know whether she mentioned anything like that to you.

I’m not sure why this finally changed, but I’m so glad it did and I’m excited that her last month here may look different and involve some more inshuti-time. 

Signing off, from Zanzibar... got here this evening for a weekend trip.  The adventure continues.

Trying out new patio furniture Odette bought with Theo and Violetta, more inshuti-like helpers