Weekend Fun with Mama Kalibu & Olivia

Saturday marked 11 weeks since our arrival.  This week, we set a return date and bought tickets to come home, leaving June 3 and arriving June 5 (with some short stopovers in Europe).  That means we're past the halfway mark, with just under 10 weeks to go.  Still trying to stay present and keep doing what we're doing here, so we're going to try to resist the urge to do a countdown.  But interesting to mark this moment and look at where we are in the timeline of this adventure.

And the excitement continues!  On Friday night, our family went to a Rwanda Festival at Green Hills...

and then popped over to the airport to pick up Nana and Olivia!  Such a joyful reunion.

(This is Nana seeing Mazie in the flesh for the first time since Mazie's near-death experience.)

On Saturday we did just a little exploring near home, and then drove west back to the volcanoes region, one of the places we visited while Ahya was here.  Rainy season has definitely started and there was a big downpour while we were stopped for lunch, but it let up in the afternoon and was lovely by the time we made it to the boat launch for the trip to My Hill EcoLodge.  Got there around 5 and were able to enjoy a nice, relaxed evening soaking in the fabulous views (including a rainbow!) on Lake Ruhondo.  Fabulous dinner of tilapia and chicken brochettes as well.  The sunset didn't quite live up to the one we got during our earlier trip, but that was a high bar and it was still quite gorgeous.  Really nice spending time catching up and seeing Mazie especially happy to have her bestie-cousin here.

On Sunday, we took a little boat back to our car and drove up to Lake Burera, the "twin" to Lake Ruhondo.

We did a great little hike from the red dot on the map above up to the top of a hill where we could see both lakes, and hear church music from the valley below.  

Then we hiked back down and went for another boat ride around Lake Burera.  The rain held off again - it was overcast & we couldn't see the volcanoes but otherwise it was really lovely.  

A gray heron! IRL Wingpan continues...

We stopped for lunch at a great little cafe in Ruhengeri and then drove home.  

Nana spent some time sitting outside The Gate with Caleb & Lexi & all the neighbor kids, who were very excited to meet "Mama Kalibu."  Lots of hugs and smiles and singing and dancing.  I came down for a bit too and got to hold little Dianne on my lap for a bit - she's a fun one, probably close to 3 with a mischievous smile.  After a little bit, we headed out for a great Italian dinner at Brachetto to close out the weekend. 

This morning we all walked to school - Olivia gets to shadow Mazie for a day and check out Green Hills, and Nana got to see the big campus and drop Lexi off at her classroom.  Caleb, Nana, and I are home now and resting/working a bit, and then we'll head out to explore some art galleries and the big Kimironko market.  We've got some other plans to explore Kigali over the next few days, and then we'll head back to Akagera for another safari Thurs-Saturday before Nana & Liv head home Sunday night.

Kalibu is Back

Pretty darn happy to get our Mr Kalibu back last night.  Today happened to be his birthday and the kids all skipped school so we could spend a relaxed day together. Slept in, hung out with the neighbors (who are VERY excited he's back, and helped sing to him)...

had lunch & cocktails at 1000 Hills Distillery...

napped (hey there, jet lag), and went to our nearby Japanese restaurant Sakae for dinner at their hibachi table.  A nice day.  (He's up now prepping for his 2 am council meeting... right back into it.)

In other Kalibu news, guess who got his first tattoo about a month ago??  Check this bad boy out. He got it from the same guy who pierced Lexi's ears.  The art on the side is a classic Rwandan design style we see all over here, called imigongo.  I think the whole thing is adorable.  (Pretty sure that's what he was going for.)

Caleb's Log v.10 - Going Home

I have so many thoughts going through my head and I don't know how to structure this post.

Let's start with setting.  I'm in Munich, Germany with an 11 hour layover.  I don't seem to be having any issues with my flight, so it's a calm and wonderful day in this interesting city.  But this post is not about Germany.  

I don't really miss people.  I'm not sure if that's a sickness or a strength.  I love people alot (I have to spell "a lot" that way because of the alot creature.  If someone could draw a "people alot," I would appreciate it) If you've been in my life for a hot second, you've probably noticed that I love you. It comes in the form of big hugs, kind words, acts of service, and authentically loving you for who you are.  But, I don't really miss people very often.

Maybe I lack object permanence.  Maybe the shinny thing distracts me. 

The way that I have explained it over the years is that I'm so engaged with what's right in front of me, I could hardly be bothered by what isn't.  When I'm in Phoenix with my soccer team, I'm not thinking about my friends or family back home.  When I'm with my family in Mexico, I'm not thinking about my soccer teams.  I'm totally and completely and redundantly immersed in the experience I'm in.

Somehow, I've found a partner that is somewhat similar.  I can't speak to her emotions around "missing" people, but we both seem very comfortable being apart and not needing to check in each night or say sweet things like, "I miss you so much, my love.  Wish you were here.  It would be so much better with you."

Sometimes I feel bad about that, but I think my mom would call it healthy attachment.  I have strong relationships that don't need constant tending.

But here's the thing...

While I've been in Rwanda I have missed many things and many people.  It's obvious that this is a different experience than normal with a longer absence. But mostly, it's a lack of a decent replacement.  As much as I've made acquaintances and had lovely moments in Kigali, I don't have real friends.  I don't have brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, moms and dads.  Other than my immediate family, I'm quite alone and maybe even lonely.  So, I was really excited to come home to Louisville and see familiar faces and go to familiar places.  I was excited to hug and kiss and gently caress (Ross) the people that I love so much. 

It was great to be "back home" and I'm sure Katie, Mazie, Athena, and Lexi were all quite jealous of me, as they miss you all too.

Something weird happened while I was away.  Two things, actually.  One, I started missing my family alot.  I have been nearly brought to tears several times thinking about my wife and my children and getting to be with them again.  I can't wait to hold them and I might cry when I see them.  (I mean, I'm crying a little bit while I write this as I sit at a street cafe in Munich)  The second thing is that I started telling people that I was really looking forward to getting home.  In this sentence, home is Kigali.  It was so natural for me to say, that it actually took me off guard.  I'm finally back in LOUISVILLE and I'm saying I can't wait to get home.  Do I think of Kigali as my home now?  No, I don't   But great question.

Rather, this is the first time that I have profoundly understood the well-known phrase, "home is where the heart is."  (I'm crying again).  I don't miss Kigali or the things I'll do when I get back there.  I miss my family.  I miss my place in the world and it has become clear to me that there is no place in the world more important to me than my role within my family.  Being the father of those three perfect children and the husband of that remarkable woman is truly my home.  And it's been really far away for too long.  It will be 18 days when it's all said and done, which is not that long and it's also the longest I've been apart from any of them in 15 years.  

Some of you might be thinking, "what is wrong with this guy?  I feel that way every time I'm away from my family for any length of time."  First of all, I don't appreciate your tone of voice.  Second, you might need to work on your healthy attachment.  And third, I get it.  I'm just experiencing normal human emotions, but it's new for me and now I've blogged about it.

PS

Realizing I could have just posted.  "I really miss my family and I'm so excited to see them tomorrow."

I've wasted alot of time.and alot of energy.

What Have We Done?

It's another rainy Sunday afternoon and I've got a few minutes to write the next chapter.... 

Previously on here, I filled you in on our ongoing struggle to navigate all the having and not having/ giving and not giving business.  In the midst of our discussions about an overall strategy, our neighbor "Valerie" wrote us a letter requesting money to help with school fees and other needs.  We had already planned to meet with this neighbor and have a conversation with the help of a translator.  So what did we do?

With Caleb planning to leave on Friday, we had Valerie and the translator, Joyce, over to the house on Thursday Mar 2.  Through the conversation, we tried to learn a little more about her needs, and also some of the other programs and resources available in the area.  We had learned a little about these Village Savings and Loan (VSL) schemes, and asked Valerie whether she knew about and/or had participated in them.  She had heard of them but said she's never had enough money to participate.  (The basic idea is that you contribute small amounts of money to a savings account and earn a small amount of interest. If you participate for some amount of time/contribute some amount of money, you can receive loans at interest rates that are significantly lower than the 18-20% that most banks charge here.)  We discussed the possibility of going with her to the local VSL to learn more and possibly start an account for her.  We also talked a little about other neighbors, and how we'd like to help more people but aren't sure who to help or how, and can't really help EVERYBODY.  At a few points since we moved here, Valerie has brought people over to the house who have then asked us for money, and we've given small amounts (1000-2000 RWF, or a couple of dollars).  One thing we were trying to convey was that we would love her help and partnership figuring out who to give to and how to give.  So that was the intention of the conversation, but I'm not sure how much was really translating (both English --> Kinyarwanda and somewhat-removed-people-with-needs-met-doing-big-picture-thinking-about-general-giving-strategies --> person-with-pressing-needs-who-has-made-a-specific-request-and-is-wondering-where-this-is-going-and-are-we-actually-going-to-give-her-anything-or-not).  So at some point we got more specific and asked her about those needs.  Her letter had mentioned a few things... clothes & shoes for the kids, a mattress, school fees.  Our conversation focused mainly on the school fees - she has four kids, and said that she owed about 150,000 RFW (~$150) in fees in total.  (Her youngest is in daycare, which is expensive, and her oldest goes to private school.  The middle two are in public school which is inexpensive - just 5000RFW or so for each of them.)  We said we could give her the money to pay off those debts for now, and that we may be able to do more (for example, through the VSL) later.  She offered to have us go with her to the school to pay the fees ourselves, or to bring us receipts.  We told her we trusted her, and that she could make her own decisions about how to use the money.  She assured us she was going to use it for the school fees.  Caleb gave her the money, and she was very grateful.  

So for my little quiz, if you guessed A (give unconditionally), that's what we were attempting to do, with a little D (gather some more information first).  And given our conversation about what the money was going to be used for, it probably felt a bit conditional, so B isn't entirely wrong.  We've also been choosing C (don't give) for lots of other people who are certainly just a deserving, and E (give up and go home) is still tempting and will be correct at some point.  (Thanks to Paige and Gil for being brave enough to use the comments function and share your thoughts there.  My Dickinson Lab crew created a dedicated Slack channel to discuss their responses, which were pretty spot-on.  Others who read the first chapter and mulled things over on your own, I appreciate you too.)

So that was the decision.  But not the end of the story.  Caleb left on Friday, and Ahya was here until Monday.  That Saturday night while she was here, we were headed out to dinner (with the driver we hired while Caleb was gone, Fabrice), and as we left The Gate a drunk guy was there speaking a mix of English and Kinyarwanda and asking for money, persistently.  Other neighbors were around, including Valerie, and everyone was asking him to leave us alone.  We left for dinner, and when we came home a few hours later he was still there and the scene repeated.  I didn't give him anything.  It was annoying and uncomfortable, but I didn't feel unsafe.  His demeanor didn't strike me as threatening, just drunk and persistent, and between neighbors and the driver and Theo, I felt like we had people around to keep us safe.  But I decided to send a note to our landlord (landlady? land-person?), Odette, just to let her know and see if Theo knew the guy and where he was coming from (since I didn't recognize him as a neighbor).  (I did debate with myself for a while before contacting Odette... I didn't want to get him locked up or anything, but did want to err on the side of caution with Caleb gone and us feeling a little more vulnerable.)  She wrote back a little later saying she was sorry and that Theo was "informed and he said he kicked him out with neighbors."  She then went on to say that, "There is a lady below us saying to people around that you are buying them drinks and for that some individuals may abuse your kindness."  We confirmed that she was talking about Valerie, and she added, "She does not mean bad but to express your kindness but others take that the wrong way instead they start to beg."  Odette then left me a couple of voice messages asking us please not to give any more money to neighbors.  She also assured me that we're safe: "None can put u in danger."  I let her know that we're looking for ways to help and would love her advice.  She mentioned a sewing business around the corner she's given money to.  She's also coming to town (she lives in Ireland) in February, and we'll discuss more then.  On the one hand, I know that her perspective is only one perspective, and is shaped by her position and class, and we don't necessarily have to do what she says.  On the other hand, we're living in her house and have to navigate that relationship and our relationships with Theo and Violetta here, too.  It is, once again, complicated.

So where does that leave us?  A little stuck.  Our intention certainly wasn't to only give to Valerie and then retreat, but that's what we've done for the past couple of weeks.  Caleb left, and there was the exchange with Odette, and my attention has turned to keeping things running (getting kids to and from school, making food, working).  I've been friendly with Valerie and the neighbors (saying my "mwaramutses" and "mwiriwes") but I'm no Kalibu - my time outside The Gate has mostly been limited to coming and going, and I haven't held court with the kids like he does.  [Although... as I was writing this, I paused to help Lexi get a ball the kids threw over The Gate into our tree, and then ended up spending 15 minutes hanging out and throwing a tennis ball around with Valerie and kids.  That was nice.  I was also able to convey that Kalibu is coming home tomorrow, which brought big smiles.  That's going to be a whole scene.]  I have held off on pursuing the VSL scheme, and am still hoping to meet with the village head, but that's been on hold as well.  

I've been reflecting on direct giving, and have realized that there's a big difference between that as policy or program (where an org gives to lots of people in a structured and fairly impartial way) and as an interpersonal exchange.   It's hard for the latter to truly be unconditional... we may not care what Valerie does with the money we gave her, but we do care how she treats us, how giving to her affects our relationships with this community, and also how we're affecting relationships within the community - are people resentful of Valerie now that she's gotten and they haven't?  That makes it messier, but the fact that giving interpersonally is necessarily relational also makes it powerful.  Reciprocity is something I've been thinking about a lot in my work and personally... giving and receiving in all kinds of relationships (among people, between people and planet... Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer has lots of wisdom to share on this subject).  There's part of me that wants to just give and make problems go away, the big ones (poverty, injustice) and the smaller ones (having people keep asking us for money).  But that's not how it works.  Giving connects us.  It creates bonds that go both ways.  We're just starting to understand what that might mean right here, what we want it to mean, and what it means whether or not we want it to.  Lots of learning left to do, and we'll probably keep making mistakes too.  Also trying to be ok with that.

...

There were two things I wanted to write about today.  Because I wrote the first part of this story earlier this week, I felt obligated to write this part first.  If you've made it this far, you can see that that took me a while.  The other thing I wanted to write was on how I miss my husband, who is currently in Germany en route back to us.  I miss him not JUST because it's convenient to have him to drive me around rather than having to coordinate & negotiate payment with other drivers, but also because of who he is and the way he balances me and how he sees the humanity in everyone.  I'm glad he got to go on this adventure and was able to check in and connect back home, and the last couple of weeks have gone smoothly and been a nice slow-down for us in a lot of ways... less running around, more quiet time and work-catch-up.  But I miss my partner, and I need him back.  Without him here, I've felt a stuck, paused, and I am excited to continue this complicated and wonderful adventure together.  

[I've also been made aware that he has been writing while on his layover in Munich and will soon be posting something that will make this meager little "I love you honey" at the end of an overthought post look fairly emotionally inadequate, but such is our relationship.]

Congrats on making it to the end of this very long post, which took me enough time that the sun is back out.  

What Would You Do?

 A few days before Caleb left, our neighbor gave him this letter:

(Note: Among the many ethical quandaries I've been grappling with on this trip is the question of when to use people's actual names in these posts... the researcher in me is wary of identifying people who haven't consented to being characters in our blog.  We've referred to this neighbor by name before but I'm going to call her Valerie for now.  I'll continue to refer to some others, who are more like friends, by name.)

If you got this letter, what would you do?

Today I'm going to give you some (perhaps over-complicated) backstory.  In a day or two I'll share what we've actually done so far, and where we are now.  

As those who have been tracking our progress may know, the question of our purpose and role here is an ever-present and unresolved quandary.  For me, a couple of decades (almost) of international development work has left me humbled... I've seen how much work there is to do, and how hard it is to do things "right," and how often we (Westerners, academics, aid orgs) come in with our ideas about what is needed and what will help, without understanding or meaningfully engaging with the people (in this case, Rwandans of all classes) who actually have the expertise to know what they need and what might actually work.  These are generalizations and there are absolutely exceptions - organizations building strong partnerships, doing great work, and making real progress.  But without knowing a lot about Rwanda or the groups working here before we arrived, I've been wary of jumping in and "helping," and have been trying to prioritize meeting people and building relationships and gathering information before we act.  And for me, that has looked like doing what I do best: networking with other academics and researcher-types, and doing lots of thinky-thinky stuff like this business right here.

But that's me.  Unlike on prior trips to Africa, this time I brought a non-academic partner with a distinctly different disposition and problem-solving approach.  Caleb and I share a commitment to relationship building, but while my approach has been to network through work channels, Caleb just dives in and gets to work connecting with anyone we meet.  In our first house, there weren't many neighbors out and about, but he sat and had beers with some guys around the block one day, and went back to someone he met there to get a haircut.  On our safari, he connected with our guide, Anaclet, learned some more Kinyarwanda, and asked lots of questions to try and understand everything we were seeing as we toured the country.  Through golf, he's connected with a whole different segment of Rwandan society and learned a ton from lawyers and business people and the head of the freaking UN.  Here at our not-so-new-anymore house (sidenote: we've now been in this house for about a month and a half, and in Rwanda for 9 weeks!), we have MANY neighbors out and about, and Caleb has made a point of getting to know as many of them as possible.  "Valerie" lives on one side, and is the parent of 4 of the 15-20 kids who know us and flock to The Gate (and beloved Mr. Kalibu) when we are coming or going.  Caleb knows most of the kids' names and, through the language barrier, has done his best to forge connections with Valerie and a few of the other adults.  He bought some stools so he could pour himself a beer and sit outside The Gate and interact with the kids and be in the neighborhood.    

The problem, of course, is that as much as Caleb (and I) want to be able to just connect with our neighbors as people, there are some huge barriers to doing that.  One is language, and another is history (colonialism and its aftermath and the expectations of what "muzungus" like us are here to do), and another (closely related) is the enormous wealth gap between us and the obvious "we have and you don't" reality hanging over everything.  And so from the first day we arrived, our "chats" with people we've met here have often included requests for money.  And we've given small amounts... 500-1000 RFW (about 50 cents - 1 dollar) to people we've passed on the street or in front of our house.  While we've struggled a little with who to give/not give to, it's also felt easy to say yes: we have, and they need, and not giving feels hard to justify.  So we were kind of puttering along that way, giving a little here and there, and still trying to think about how to do more, and more effectively.

Back to wonky me: One line of anti-poverty work I've been intrigued by over the past few years, but haven't had much direct experience with myself, is something that academics and policy-types have given the overcomplicated name of "unconditional cash transfers," which actually just translates to "giving people money."  Here's one non-profit that's been doing this all over the world (including in the US), and several governments have also been trying this out.  It's closely related to the "universal basic income" concept, and the logic is mainly that one really good way to make people not-poor is to give them money.  Rather than picking one particular problem to solve (education, or food access, or water, or ...), the idea is to put the decision of where to spend into the hands of individuals facing varying challenges and allowing them to prioritize their investments.  It's an appealing idea to me, and is backed by some solid evidence.  During our safari, I was sharing this concept with Caleb and Ahya, and thinking about how we might give directly to our neighbors: this felt like a nice melding of my approach (science! research!) and Caleb's (real actual humans!!).

To explore this idea more, we hired a translator and were planning to talk with a few different people to assess what structures already exist and how we might work within those to develop our direct giving approach.  We had Joyce, the translator, join us at the house one day and chat with our house staff, Theo and Violetta.  We were supposed to meet the village head, but ran out of time in the days before Caleb left.  We had plans to have Joyce come back so we could talk with Valerie, and then the day before we had planned to have this conversation (which we hadn't told Valerie we were planning to do, because we couldn't communicate with her without a translator), she gave Caleb her letter, which she found someone to translate for her.  

So.  Now we're sitting with a real neighbor who needs and is asking us for help.  What would you do? (Vote in the comments.)

A. Give, unconditionally.

B. Give, with some conditions.

C. Don't give.

D. Gather more information before making a decision.

E. Give up, pack your bags, and go home.

What did we do?  Stay tuned to find out.

Girls Weekend

Fairly low key weekend for me & the kids.

In Caleb's absence we hired Fabrice to drive us around when we need it.  I had him take me to the market Saturday morning to get food for the week.  In the afternoon, Mazie had a playdate (she doesn't like that I'm calling it that) at a friend's house.  Apparently about 10 kids were there, boys & girls, and they played video games and hung out.  Mazie reports that their house was big (like ours back home) and nice and wonders why we aren't living in a house like that here.  

Dropping Mazie off...

Athena, Lexi, and I went to Umusambi Village, a wildlife reserve set up for Grey Crowned Cranes rescued from captivity. Great ecopark with walking paths, lots and lots of birds, and a nice "Nature Bingo" game for kids that kept them entertained.

Check out these ants!

Then we picked Mazie up and had dinner at Sole Luna (pasta & pizza).

Today was a quiet mostly stay-at-home day.  Mazie had a short field trip for a school service-in-action project in the afternoon, but Lexi, Thenes, and I stayed home, made corn tortillas (with corn flour Theo gave us from corn he dried out in our yard, and with the tortilla press Ahya brought) and banana bread, and enjoyed a real big rainstorm.

Ready for another school week, and looking forward to Caleb's return a week from tomorrow.

Alone. Definitely not lonely.

I'm sitting on my back porch having lunch. Kids are at school, Caleb is in Colorado, and Ahya is currently on a plane from Addis Ababa to Washington DC. I believe Theo went out to church (he showed me a Bible and pointed out before leaving this morning). Violetta may be around but I haven't seen her in a while. For probably the first time since we arrived, I have no plans today between walking the kids to school at 8 & walking to pick Lexi up from after school gymnastics at 5. (M & A will walk themselves home at 4.) I've been relishing uninterrupted work time - I wrote up some notes this morning about a potential collaboration with the U Rwanda School of Public Health around climate & health research and education and sent those to the Dean of the school, who I met with a couple of weeks ago. Also spent some time checking little things off my work list... finding receipts, responding to emails, reviewing student admissions applications. I also signed up to give a short talk for the Green Hills Primary students tomorrow for International Women's Day, so I've gotta figure out what I'm going to tell them. Will get back to that in a minute... for now, soaking up the relative quiet and taking some deep breaths.