More about the Leaving Part

It’s 4:35am in both Kigali & Brussels, and we’re somewhere in between the two.  Over the Mediterranean, just north of Algeria, with a little less than 2 hrs until touchdown.  I slept for about 3.5 hrs.  Caleb, Athena, and Mazie are out now.  Lexi’s awake.  Taking some time to record the narrative of our departure.

Between the Sunday Block Party and the Thursday Green Hills and adult friend dinner farewells, we had a Wednesday afterschool gathering at Pili Pili with two of Athena’s friends (Tony & Jafet) and 6 of Lexi’s (Sophia, Ola, Hadrian, Tapuwa, Daniella, Raina).  They all had a great time playing football and swimming and eating pizza.  So wonderful to see the lovely friendships that blossomed for both of them – everything I could have hoped for at the start of our trip. 

On Friday, Caleb, Athena, and Mazie got up at 6am to watch a recording of the Nuggets-Heat Game 1 in the NBA Finals, and then Mazie went to school (her choice) while the other kids and Caleb and I spent the day packing.  A big job after 5 months here.  We got through most of it by the end of the day, pausing to have lunch at Taboo.  Kevine came over for a bit in the afternoon to help.  Around 5:30 we headed to Boho for a last family dinner.  

Around 7, Jeeya, Lena, and Jeeya’s dad Pravin picked Mazie up to go to a movie (The Little Mermaid) with several other friends.  (Pravin also brought Caleb a golf trophy… he’ll have to tell that story.) 

The power went out at the restaurant for a while after Mazie left… people improvised cellphone flashlight + liquid lanterns until the power came back on, we paid our bill, and headed home.  Caleb drove to pick Mazie and her friends up and captured some sweet photos of goodbye hugs at the end of the night.

On Saturday morning, everyone but Mazie got up for 9am breakfast at Casa Keza with Gisele and her kids.  From there we stopped by Kimironko market to pick up a couple of bags to finish packing… I said we ALMOST finished on Saturday.  Hadn’t quite managed to fit everything in to the available luggage.  So we had one last opportunity to navigate the chaos of the market and congratulate ourselves on how much we’ve learned… in and out in 10 minutes (including a quick run to the ATM) with reasonably priced items.

Got home a little before noon and finished packing, and then Caleb took Mazie to have one last coffee date with Lena while Lexi, Athena, and I made little cards for all of the neighbor kids.  Our flight was at 8 pm and then plan was to leave our house around 4:30.  At about 3:15, I remembered that Caleb had dropped off a jumpsuit of mine at the Rwanda Clothing Company to get tailored.  (If you watched a video of me dancing at the block party, you may notice that I couldn’t raise my arms very much due to the sleeve design, so I wanted to get that fixed.)  Caleb was on his way back from picking up Mazie and our rental car was getting picked up at the house, so I jumped on a moto and rode about 15-20 min each way to pick up my goods.

I got back to our street at 4:10 – Lambert picked me up in his car as I was walking from the main road where the moto dropped me off.  Anaclet had already arrive at the house in his safari vehicle (Ingagi) and we finished loading luggage into the two cars.  And then it was time for final goodbyes with our neighbors.  We had written cards in English to Theo and Violette and Anaclet wrote out the Kinyarwanda translations.  We gave them cards and several big hugs, and then gathered with neighbors in the driveway – maybe 5-7 mamas and most of “our” close kid friends.  The kids gathered around us and we gave a little speech, with translation help and videography from Anaclet.  The cards the kids and I made for each kid said:

On one side: You are PERFECT.  We LOVE you!

On the other: Muri beza. TURABAKUNDA!

We all signed our names on the bottom.  Our goodbye speech followed that theme.  [I'll figure out how to get Anaclet's video and add it here.]

I love all of the kiddos, but this little Isimbi found a special place in my heart.

More big hugs for all of the kids and mamas, and now the tears were really flowing among the mamas and a couple of the older kids and Caleb and I, while the younger kids mostly seemed puzzled by all the adult tears.  Once all the hugs were given, we loaded up in the two vehicles and drove to Question Coffee for one final visit.  

Kevine was working, along with several other employees we’ve gotten to know.  We gave the whole staff a postcard from Colorado (thanks for bringing those, Ahya!) with a note thanking them for taking such good care of us since we arrived.  As we were about to leave, they all came out and presented us with a small gift box (coasters & a travel mug), thanking us for our kindness and telling us they’d miss us.  And then it was time to head to the airport!  Kevine came along, and our two cars made their way through an elaborate security check (requiring the removal of all approx. 1100 items of luggage from the cars for inspection) to the dropoff.  One more round of hugs for Lambert, Anaclet, and Kevine, and that was that.  Goodbye to Kigali.

The sun is rising and this photo is also a selfie.

We’re about 35 min from Brussels now.  A few sleepy thoughts.  There will be lots of processing and reflecting on this whole Rwanda thing over the days/weeks/months to come.  I think the most obvious thing that sticks with me right now is how deeply happy I am with the connections we made.  Each one of us, in our separate and shared ways, put down some real roots and opened ourselves up to friendships in ways that I’d hoped for but couldn’t fully picture… from the bold and open 8 yr old, to the strong-willed and proud 11 yr old, to the skeptical and independent teenager, to the researcher who has tended to keep more emotional distance in these environments, to the curious and heart-forward entrepreneur.  That made it hard to leave, and I'm so grateful for that.  Part of our dealing with that hardness has been telling ourselves and everyone that we'll be coming back, and I'm sure we will, but it also kind of feels like telling ourselves, "It's ok, we'll get a new pet!" after a pet dies.  It might be true, but it's not really the point.  I want to allow space for this sadness at what has just ended, to just hold and look at the beauty of that thing before moving on to the next.

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Wrapped up and posted this from our Brussels hotel room - made it here around 9:45 am after making it through customs and taking the wrong train from the airport... we're here for the day, fly to Munich tonight, and then fly to Denver from there tomorrow (Monday) afternoon.  We'll save this European stopover for another chapter.