driving a thousand hills

Y'all. I sat with my computer and refused to let it fall asleep and the internet didn't drop out, which means that I was able to put up some pictures! 

Jesse and Moses, the triumphant archers. Every banana tree quakes in fear at the sound of their names.

Sunday after church, I went with the Kings and some other families to an orphanage a host of towns over that was opened and run by Ros Carr, the woman who wrote Land of a Thousand Hills. (Don't worry, I haven't read it yet either.) She wrote this book all about her life in Rwanda, and I think it's fairly well known. And she wasn't kidding about those hills. I had to seriously concentrate to ward off car sickness. She was good friends with Diane Fossey, the gorilla lady whose life/work were featured in the movie Gorillas in the Mist. (Yep, haven't seen this one either.) We got to see her house and the gardens around it as well as the orphanage, which no longer houses children but is to be converted to a community center and museum. We had packed a picnic lunch, so we all gathered in a small clearing in the gardens to feast. As lunch was winding down, the Intore dancers arrived to perform some traditional Rwandan dances. 

There was a joy and grace to their movements that no picture could adequately capture, but I did my best. The dancers were backed by a drum line and singers.

I actually can't emphasize their grace enough. Every movement was perfectly fluid.

The men and women had large clusters of what were essentially bells that rang out with every movement. Moses, Lydia, and I bent down and put our hands to the ground to feel the pulse that shot through the ground of their every jump. For one dance, the men had these long white hairpieces (made from a plant) that they would whip around sending pieces of grass and dirt flying into our laps.

This is the moment that all white people grow to dread. There is a performance going on that requires rhythm, and we don't have any, but it seems that they may be pulling up audience members to perform with them. I tried in vain to make peace with my dear and fluffy lord, but I was the first audience member to join the drum line. Thankfully, the man next to me has a simple one-two beat going, so I stuck with him. I guess that some bit of my mother's African upbringing traveled from her heart to mine and I was able to keep up with the other drummers. Eventually, Moses took over the drum on my other side and we laughed so hard while giving the drum beats everything that we had. On the drive home, I confessed to Moses that I had been concentrating as hard as possible and hoping with everything that I had that I would not mess up the beat.

I have been reading a lot. It's the dream because I read so much in college, but none of it was by choice and so much of it was dense textbooks and papers. (Did I read everything I was supposed to? No. But it was enough. Trust me.) I finally have the time to read whatever I want, and it is amazing. The book I just finished is called Running the Rift written by Naomi Benaron. It is a historical fiction account of the genocide in Rwanda. I put off reading it for a super long time because I am here, and I honestly don't want to think about what happened likely on the street I walk down to get to school every day. So much pain, so much brokenness, too much real. But, I need to learn these stories, and I need to know what happened. When you live with people, you get the honor of walking in their mess with them, and you can only hope that someone decides to walk with you in your mess right back. So, I started reading. 

The book is about a boy who lives in Rwanda and has hopes of running in the Olympics, but he has the wrong mark on his ID card. With each tap of my finger (I would say "turning of a page" but I was reading on my Nook, so there weren't actual pages to turn), I felt this sense of impending doom. I knew what was coming as the book progressed. And just now as I wrote that sentence, I have to wonder what people felt like in 1993 when/if they knew something was coming and each day was the turn of a page. I won't ruin the story, but I recommend that you read it if you are at all interested in Rwanda and the genocide. The main character was so easy to relate to, and the writing made such a horrible tragedy just digestible enough for me to make it to the end. It was a wonderful book.