Hope and hope again

Here I am still in Rwanda, which can either be indescribably beautiful or burdensome depending on the frame of mind. The last two days I struggled with burden, and hence my absence from the computer. I went to check my Dossier at the Ministry and who I needed was out in the field again. Till today it turned out, but all the while I knew it could be till Tuesday next week. And man did I get slammed with grief and fear and "what the fuck am I doing here"'s. Suddenly the idea of being in the foreign land seemed like the most random and asinine (no idea how to spell that word and I refuse to look in the English-French dictionary on the shelf behind me) idea. No not idea. Reality. What was I thinking to come here to this place. I could come home and call it a luxary vacation. A failed mission, but a trip of a lifetime.

So, I despaired. I read before I left that to despair is to turn your back on God. I even wrote it in my journal so as to remember it. But that didn't keep me from doing it. Each time I called Scott in hysterical tears he told me to pray. But how do you pray while your back is turned?

In my mind this was taking too long. I have become homesick and the idea of being away from my beautiful beaming daughter is eating the flesh from my bones. Literally. I stopped eating for two days and I am back down to my waif-like self in stature. All that weight I packed on for months prior to travel has melted away. So, the urge pulsated through me, even moving my feet to walk to the airport and book the next flight home. I yelled at them and they stopped. I am stuck in some thick used motor oil between my baby at home and the promise of a baby here. I can barely move and if I do, I don't know which way to go.

On the day that I am told I cannot volunteer in the orphanage until the Minister has signed my documents, I go walk the street. My eyes are puffy and red where they are not dark with circles and my contacts have turned to foggy lenses like the ones you wore as goggles when you swam as a child. I have been crying all night long. And the day before.

A little boy follows me. "Bonjour" he says. I get ready to say no to him, as is my policy here. I know when a child politely says Bonjour, he is poising himself to follow while keeping his eye on the zipper of my new Vera Bradley handbag. His way of begging. I could ignore him, but my other policy is that when I refuse, I always look into the being of the child and see him first. I always lock eyes so that I can feel what it is I am refusing him and who it is that I refuse. He is small. Dirty. A network of stitches adorn his left brow and I contemplate where he has obtained medical care. "No" I say in French.

But he follows me still. He does not lay eyes on my purse. Instead, he keeps my gaze despite my effort to keep looking ahead to the sidewalk as I walk. "Je fait". He's hungry. "Je mange". If I had food, I would surely give it to him but I have nothing other than a thick stack of rwandenese francs and tears gallore. I ask "you want to eat? Come with me." I have a plan. A plan that will at least help him with his hunger and me with my stuckness.

He follows me to my hotel. I motion to him to stay at the door, and I go inside to the bar turned breakfast buffet. "Can I buy breakfast for my friend, please?" motioning to the door where he is obediently standing. Of course I can. So I sit him down and proceed to get him food which proves to be difficult since I can't communicate with him. A beautiful young woman named Hope of all things comes over, her heart three steps ahead of her body. She flows like cinderella's fairy godmother around this child, sweeping him up to wash his hands, patting him on the head and unfurling a napkin in his lap. She brings plate after plate of food to him, opening up fruit and peeling eggs, clearing away the wrapping as he eats, keeping the tea flowing. She looks natural. Beautiful . Angelic.

She can see my awe of her and in her minimal english she tells me she loves orphans. "Mmmm," I sound. That is the correct rwandan response. "Me, I was orphan." Hope says, and I see the tears in her eyes.

This is a perfect moment, one I have managed to snap a photo of. Three of us, all wanderers of some sort, coming to the table with our burdens and feeling the goodness of life still.