We can be people who live gratefully. Grateful living, that is the thing. And how can we live gratefully? By experiencing, by becoming aware that every moment is a given moment, as we say. It's a gift. You haven't earned it. You haven't brought it about in any way. You have no way of assuring that there will be another moment given to you, and yet, that's the most valuable thing that can ever be given to us, this moment, with all the opportunity that it contains. -David Steindl-Rast, Ted Talk
Moment #1 The Sunrise: The mountains rise up grandly east of my house. At this moment the sun is not totally over the mountains but I can see it coming. Its light is a premonition of the warmth of the day ahead. Yet it’s still cool from the night, the coolest it will be all day and I love it. If I look to the north, on a clear morning I can see the tall volcanoes from Virunga National Park in the distance.
I then brush my teeth and take my malaria pills. I make a cup of coffee and bowl of oatmeal. Then on the walk to school I usually listen to a good morning playlist on my iPod, which gets me all pumped up ready for the day. Listening to my iPod goes against all cultural norms here, but in the morning there is usually few people around.
Moment # 2 Entering the Teachers Room: I love this moment because it reminds me of how much I like the people I work with. I walk around the room and shake everyone’s hands. We wish each other good morning usually in about three or four different languages, French, Kinyarwanda, Kiswahili, and English. We laugh and joke about language and culture, before we begin our work.
Depending on the day I take time to prepare for my lessons or I dive into teaching. I teach my middle school students for five hours every week, so we have really began to bond. I teach the older students only for two, but their class is just about communication so we get to do more interesting topics like leadership and development. My third favorite moment happens while teaching:
Moment #3 The Students Laughter: Sometimes I have to be especially ridiculous or sometimes they are laughing at me cause there is chalk all over me, but either way it’s a connection. It brings us together on this journey of English class, in which in different ways we are both struggling through.
For lunch I go and eat with a local primary school teacher. The first few weeks I made the trek all the way home and then back to school to help with projects, which just led me to being very exhausted by the end of the day. So now I eat lunch with Tatianna and her family. Tatianna is like my big sister in a lot of ways. We are in choir together, and she has always taken care of me, so it’s fitting that now we eat lunch together. Her husband, Alphonse, is currently out of work but he is normally a mason. He makes lunch, which is pretty delicious usually there is a salad with cabbage and carrots, rice, beans with greens, sometimes soup. On market days they serve avocados and bananas too. The conversation is often awkward and more often we eat in silence due to language barriers. I think the more I go the better it will be. They have three children: the eldest is a girl, then a very quiet boy, and then the youngest is also 3 year old boy whom they call, “Petit.”
Moment # 4 Petit and the Eyebrow Raise: Because of the awkwardness of lunch I often try to make conversation with Petit, him being the most talkative of the children. I rarely get full responses from him though but instead just a long eye brow raise. I’ll ask, “Ura haze?” (You’re full?) Eyebrows go up. “Ugiye gutembera?” (You’re going for a walk?) Eyebrows go up. Its like his own little secret language. Eyebrows up yes, nothing probably no…but I’m not entirely sure. He’s adorable anyway and makes the lunch hour pass with some laughter.
In the afternoons I have free time to work on projects, help with clubs, visit the health center etc. When I’m free I have been working on making a list of all the books in our small community library. On Wednesday I help with GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and BE (Boys Excelling) clubs at the school where the students learn about good health both physically and socially. The clubs still need a lot of work but we got them started this term at least. Then on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons I have my Kinyarwanda Lesson with Theogene, a teacher at GS Kibangu.
Moment #5 A Real Conversation in Kinyarwanda: Okay so this is a bit of stretch because they definitely don’t happen every day, but they happen often enough. That feeling when I finish a conversation and realize that I understood more than I didn’t, and that I do seem to be getting better. These happen in my Kinyarwanda Lessons, at the health center, with people on the street, but they are beautiful moments of accomplishment and gratefulness that I finally understood a conversation that didn’t consist of just how are you? I’m fine.
Once the lessons are over or the clubs are finished, I go home. I usually do some dishes in my washbasins while chatting with Rhea, my neighbor. I do my pilates work out and take my bucket bath. Then I make up something for dinner, usually a pasta or rice dish.
Moment #6 Watching “Friends” while Eating Dinner and Drinking Hot Cocoa: I love the moment when I finally get to sit down and just tune out for at least twenty, if not forty minutes. Luckily I have all ten seasons of Friends so it’s lasted me the last three months but I’ll move on to another series after. The feeling of finishing the day and taking a little time out. I’m off duty for the rest of the evening, and I can just relax into me time. I look forward to this moment, and cherish it as a sort of “America” time.
Once Friends is over and I’m full of food. I get ready for bed. I always go outside while brushing my teeth and by this time its dark the sun having had set at 6:30pm.
Moment #7 Looking at the Stars- There are so many stars here. They seem to go all the way to the earth and the horizon. I feel humbled gazing up at them, and when there is a moon I think of my family back home looking at the same one. In this moment I feel so lucky to live in such a beautiful place-so uncluttered by the light of the “modern” world where the little things are beautiful and life is every expanding.