Work: Last week, we officially opened the Gashanda Health Post. We had representatives from the local sector, the District, the radio station, and the church, plus people from the local community (including the whole primary school across the road, once they got out on lunch break). We had a dancing choir for entertainment, and a couple crates of fantas for the VIPs, and a good time was had by all. The Post is seeing more patients all the time, and has seem almost 500 people since opening its doors.
At this point, the main part of my work has been saying goodbye to people I have worked with. Today I’m having my last sewing session with the ladies at the local prison. Earlier this week, I had a party at the house for the association of sex workers I have been working with/hanging out with. Somehow, nothing ever quite worked out with actual programming, but I’m hoping to connect them with a small loan program once I’m gone. And at the very least, I gave them all my old clothes (weirdly, before I left America, I donated all my clothes to HIPs), and we had a nice time. It was hard saying goodbye to the women I’ve become close to in this group – they are some of my favorite people I’ve met in Rwanda, and the sources of my best conversations, held in my mutant Kinyarwanda. They have been generous, open, funny, and patient with me, and they don’t have phones or internet, so I have no idea how I’ll ever keep in touch with them. I am losing it as I write this.
Life: I’m not just saying goodbye to my Rwandan friends and coworkers, I’m saying goodbye to our Peace Corps family, and other expatriate friends. I know that Peace Corps frowns on this, maybe rightly so, but these relationships have been incredibly important to me throughout my time here. So, last weekend, my former colleague and current friend helped organize a hike that Tom has been talking about for months. The idea is that there is a hill called Agatwe Ka Musaza, or little head of the old man. All Rwandans tell us it’s a huge hill, with a rocky, boulder-strewn top. By the time we got there, we realized that we were driving along to the top of the hill, and the rocky nub at the top took approximately 5 minutes to climb, after 2 hours in the car. It was pretty though, and after we admired the view from the top (we could see Tanzania and Burundi quite clearly, but not the Virungas, as people told us), and the Ankole cattle grazing at the bottom, we continued on to Rusumo falls. At least got to climb up to a promontory, looking out over the falls into Tanzania again, over the rocky cliffs on either side of the Akagera river.
I guess these last two weeks have also been about saying goodbye to Rwanda itself, which as I’ve said before, is achingly beautiful. On the day of our 9-hour walk, we passed a little lake just a bit outside of town, and we had wanted to go back to spend more time there. Yesterday was our last chance, so we packed a picnic lunch and headed our into the valley, tramping around fields to find the right path to take us there. It took two hours to find it, a little lake surrounded by trees and full of water lilies. We managed to cut through the yards and fields around the lake and ate lunch on the shore, with only a little idle curiosity from the ladies doing laundry further down the banks. It was perfectly timed – we set out when it was still cool and misty, and by the time it got sunny, we were already sitting under an acacia tree. We finished and admired the dam on the other side, and the view of the miles and miles of rice paddies irrigated by the lake, and then headed back. The clouds got black and it did start to rain, but not for too long and we were prepared. We just got to see people leaving their fields for lunch, holding banana leaves over their heads as umbrellas. It took a little while to find the path that would get us out of the valley and back to the top of our hill. So, we walked through some fields, and then up the rocky slope through Eucalyptus trees, and when we got to the top, mud splattered and sweat stained, the first person we saw on the dirt road was a guy wearing spotless white pants and shoes.
Making things: In the last week, we’ve been going out to eat a lot, but baking tons of stuff as I work my way through my stash. Yesterday I made my grandma’s apricot bars again, with the last bag of dried fruit I bought in the US on my trip home last year. I’ve always meant to post pictures of exactly how I do the baking in the “Peace Corps Oven.” First you light a charcoal stove, then put a big empty pot on top and cover it. When it’s preheated, you put a tin can inside, and your baking dish on top of that, and cover the pot again. And then, you have baked goods in Africa.
No bake cookies that don't set up make perfectly good icing.
And so, this is it. My last blog entry from Kibungo. Even when I wasn’t living at this site, I would confuse people by calling it “home.” I’m not sure exactly what I’m feeling, because it doesn’t seem real. This week has nailed down Kinyarwanda words like, “to say goodbye,” “to miss,” and “forever.” People keep asking when we’re coming back. Sometimes people jump in and say “she’ll come back after she gives birth, and then she’ll bring the baby.” And I definitely believe that I’ll come back. Another PCV who has already gone home wrote that he didn’t fully comprehend that it was over until he saw the lights of his hometown. I think it’s going to feel like that.
