Rwanda Journal

And It Also Ends

Wednesday, 4 April 2007, 6:01 a.m.:

Since I am no longer in Rwanda, I am ending my Rwanda Journal blog.  It will remain up for a while because I know there are some people still catching up.

In the meantime, I will do a new blog. New URL:  http://rwandajournal.typepad.com/goal_do_not_die_of_bo/

And So It [The Adjustment] Begins!

Saturday, 3 March 2007:

 

I woke this morning to snow on the ground and snow still coming down. They certainly didn’t give me a very warm welcome. :-) I HATE WINTER!!! And it’s sooooooo much worse after spending a year on the equator. Brrrrrrrr! A very abrupt readjustment to a part of the world where there are four seasons instead of one very pleasant season!

 

I talked to my sisters last evening on the phone. Now that I am here, it is up to me to coordinate the service here in G’ville. This was not exactly what I originally had in mind when thinking about my repatriation period … especially since I am totally wiped out with jet lag, etc. All I want to do is sleep … in my bed in my little duplex back in nice, warm Kibogora overlooking beautiful Lk Kivu.

 

My first readjustment, albeit a minor one: I keep reaching to flush the toilet, and the handle isn’t where I expect it to be.  :-)
Second: I ran water out of the tap today for drinking and started to put it on the stove to boil.  :-) Third: Amazing! I don’t have to wait for someone to make the trip to

Kigali

to get mail!

And Then There’s Lambert Int’l Airport!

Friday, 2 March 2007:

 

It was a comparatively very short flight between

Detroit

and

St Louis

. As I looked down upon the heartland of

America

, I was humbled by the sight of all the fields, reminding me of all the blessings … and wealth … we have compared to how most of the rest of the people of the world live, and certainly anywhere in the third world! Not for the first time I prayed, “God, I don’t know why You saw fit to choose me to be born in Kentucky in this great country instead of someplace like Darfur or India or Somalia or Rwanda, but I thank You much for it … and help me to always be grateful and to show compassion for those who are so much less fortunate than I simply because of the location of their birth.”

 

Suddenly the Thomas Jefferson National Expansion Memorial came into view [otherwise known as the Gateway Arch or just simply the St Louis Arch], and I was overwhelmed with the sight of it. After 36 hours of almost non-stop flights, my journey was at an end! I was back home safe and sound. It was cold but sunny … and not snowing!! The wind, however, was brutal – at least, for someone who had just spent almost a year on the equator. Georgie and Cassie met me … with a warm jacket and even a blanket!  :-)

 

As I walked out of the terminal bldg, I encountered one more thing unknown to me for almost a year, this one not so pleasant. Just as I came out of the terminal onto the sidewalk, the wind blew someone’s cigarette smoke into my face. I almost gagged on it. For someone who’s allergic to it in the first place it’s bad enough, but having not encountered it at all for almost a year heightened my sensitivity to it … by the time I got into the truck, I was practically stumbling because my eyes were watering, and I couldn’t see; I was coughing and coughing, and I couldn’t breathe.

 

Riding along I-70 with my state of almost total exhaustion now catching up to me, I almost wept for joy when I saw the sign that reads, “

Bond

County

.” Home again. We headed to St Lawrence Catholic Church in time to pick up some take-out fish dinners to eat. What a lovely time to arrive back in G’ville … on a Friday evening during Lent.  :-)  Once we ate that, all I wanted to do was sleep. Certainly didn’t want to go out into the cold with the kind of clothes I had at hand!!

About Detroit

Friday, 2 March 2007:

 

It took over two hours to get through customs and Homeland Security! The terminal in

Detroit

is like one big, long –  very long – hallway. When I discovered that I was at one end with the int’l flights and that my United Airlines flight to

St Louis

was at the very last gate at the other end of the terminal, I knew I would only make it if I ran. I don’t run any more and wasn’t sure I could even make it to the other end by running without just collapsing in a heap on the floor. Saying a quick prayer for strength and looking at every clock I passed all along the way, I raced the entire length of the

Detroit

terminal dragging my suitcase and with my backpack with laptop on my back, arriving at my gate just as they closed the door. They were not going to let me on – told me I should have gotten there earlier. I showed them the tkt stub from my Amsterdam-Detroit flight and pantingly told them I had just gotten through security, etc. A call to the pilot, they opened the door, and I walked through it and onto the plane. I must have looked as bad as I felt because one airline host followed me down the aisle to my seat, took my suitcase and put it in the overhead rack for me, and then he handed me a large glass of water even as we began taxiing down the runway. He even went and poured me a second glass when I finished that one and let me keep it during take-off. And, yes, if not for arriving in

Detroit

ten minutes early, that plane would have already been airborne before I ever arrived at the gate.

Leaving Europe Behind

Friday, 2 March 2007:

 

Early in this flight, I realized that my turn-around time on my next stop was going to be very, very close. I prayed, “Now, Lord, You know that I don’t want to miss my flight to

St Louis

, and You know how close it is going to be. If You have a reason for me to not be on that

St Louis

flight, then that is fine, but if there is no reason, please get me through customs and Homeland Security in enough time to make my

St Louis

flight.” We flew over the

UK

, Scandinavia, the North Sea,

Iceland

,

Greenland

, and on to the North American continent. We entered North American air space via

Nova Scotia

. Arrived

USA

via

Detroit

.

 

As we were preparing to land in

Detroit

– where it was again snowing :-(  - the pilot came over the loudspeaker to do the usual things … giving the local time, local temp, etc. Then he said something a little out of the ordinary. “We will be landing here in

Detroit

ten minutes early. For some extraordinary reason unknown to me or anyone down below, about halfway across the

Atlantic

our headwinds very suddenly and abruptly changed to tailwinds.” In my seat, I, without thinking, raised my thumb and said, “Yes.” The man next to me looked at me as if I were from outer space or something and asked, “Why are you so excited about ten minutes?” I proceeded to explain to him that I considered those ten minutes an answer to prayer because of the tight turnaround time in

Detroit

. He laughed and said, “You really believe that a god is interested in whether or not you make a particular flight?” “As a matter of fact, yes, I do believe that the one true God is concerned about every detail of my life.” He didn’t change his opinion, but a little seed of doubt was planted in his mind that he might be wrong about God.

 

The conversation ended there because people were getting their luggage, etc, in preparation for landing. And my mind also was distracted as the wheels hit the runway and we began rolling to a stop. Old Glory suddenly broke into my view. Having not seen the red, white, and blue American flag for almost a year, I was suddenly overwhelmed to tears … literally … at seeing it. With all its faults and imperfections, thank You, God for allowing me to born in the

United States Of America

!

Farewell To the Continent Of Africa

Friday, 2 March 2007:

 

Enroute to

Nairobi

, we, of course, flew over the Serengeti. What a beautiful and, mostly, untouched place! Could see the animals from the plane, but we were too high up to get anything more than just little specks on my camera.  :-(  I could see giraffes next to the runway at

Nairobi

, but, of course, by the time we had landed, they had run off. More mere specks again on the camera. Walking across the tarmac, they said it was about 40^o – that converts to over 100^o on the Fahrenheit scale.  My KLM flight out of

Nairobi

was almost back to back with my incoming flight. I had time only to get to my gate and board almost immediately. When my KLM flight took off, it was dark. Again my time in the air over most of the continent of

Africa

was during the night. :-( According to the in-flight tracker, we did presumably fly over Mt Kilimanjaro again, over the

Sahara

Desert

, and

Morocco

. And a very fond farewell to

Africa

.

 

The sun was rising over

Naples

when we arrived back in European air space. The sun was up and shining down on the city of

Rome

as we flew over. Having seen plenty of pix of the

Vatican

, I recognized its speck immediately even without having ever been there myself. From there it was on to

Austria

and the

Alps

. However, as high as we were flying, they did not show up as anything very spectacular on camera. :-( On to

Germany

where we began to descend some and fly lower. When we landed in

Amsterdam

, it was snowing. Walking across the tarmac from the plane to the terminal, I was certainly not dressed for snow! Brrrrr! In

Amsterdam

I again had time only to get to my United Airlines gate. And off I go into the wide, blue yonder again, leaving the

Netherlands

behind. [Oops! Wrong branch of service!  :-) But I can hardly say that I was with the caissons as they go rolling along unless we roll them all the way across the ocean floor!]

 

More from my hand-written notes later.

I Leave Rwanda Behind

Thursday, 1 March 2007:

I was planning to use the last couple weeks of April and early May to do the tourist things. Since I won't be able to do that, I did, at least, do some souvenir shopping for fam and friends this morning.  It didn't really take very long since I knew exactly what I wanted.  Innocent took me around and made sure I got everything I wanted and didn't get cheated.

My flight was at 12:24 p.m., so Betty got me to the airport by 10.  Good thing I was a bit early because, as frequently happens, the stainless steel and titanium in my back set off the metal detector.  The difference this time was that when I handed them the card from my surgeon showing the location of the metal, they didn't know what it meant.  So, for the first time ever, I got pulled aside out of the line off in a corner and had first the wand scan and then got "patted down".  When they were finally convinced that I was, in fact, no threat, they let me go on my way.  They were already loading when I got to my Kenya Airways gate.

We had a forty-minute stop [not getting off the plane] to let some passengers board and disembark in Bujumbura.  I have some pix from there, taken through the plane windows, that I will also post when I get my camera back.  There were 51 planes [counting ours] sitting on the tarmac while we were there. Only three of them were commercial flights.  All the other planes were UN planes -- from choppers to big transport planes and everything in between.  They were loading and unloading troops, all wearing the blue UN beret.  Having not heard any news of Burundi that would warrant the presence of UN peace-keeping forces, I cannot say why they were there, but they most assuredly were there.  I learned from the English-speaking airline host that, even for a forty-minute layover, we would have normally been allowed off the plane to stretch if we chose. We were not allowed off today because of the presence of the military troops.  Once back in the air, we headed to Nairobi.

More later.  Time to do my Sunday morning things.

Kibogora Departure

Wednesday, 28 February 2007:

Last night I walked around the compound with my camera taking pix of my last sunset over Lk Kivu. There were some tears as I took the pix, knowing that there is the very real possibility that I may never again lay my eyes on this beautiful, beautiful place.

Innocent drove me into Kigali today.  He asked me twice if I was coming back. As we neared Nyungwe National Forest, I remembered hearing that there were baboons there although I had never seen them in my several times traveling through.  I prayed and asked God, "If it's okay with You, it would be nice to see the baboons this trip through the rain forest ... especially since I don't know when -- or even if -- I'll be back here again.  But it's not the end of the world if I don't see them.  It's okay either way."  Just as we were getting to the other end of the rain forest and ready to exit, Innocent had to actually stop the car because there was a whole community of baboons, about 40 or 50, just congregating right in the road.  A car just entering the rain forest from the other direction was stopped with the abazunga standing in the road taking pix.  So I did the same thing.  Innocent was all smiles that I got to see the baboons -- to look at him you would have thought he personally arranged it for me.  :-)  As soon as I get my camera back from someone here who has borrowed it, I will post a pic -- or three -- of the baboons.

Next installment from my handwritten notes later.  Need to eat breakfast now.

Up & Running!

While in Rwanda, my ISP back here went out of business.  I have been searching for a new ISP.  While getting my new internet connection straightened out, my PC ... after sitting idle for a year ... failed to boot up.  :-(  New PC [with flat-screen monitor :-) yay!!!] delivered today.  All hooked up and ready to go on DSL.  It is now just about my bed time, but I will be back blogging within the next few days to give you the details of my interesting, if quick, trip back here to the States, more details on my mom, my plans so far, etc.  I am fine, missing everyone in Rwanda, especially the ones I didn't even get to see before my abrupt departure, and slowly readjusting to being back in the US.  Nice to be able to drink water right from the tap without boiling and filtering it first.  :-)  However, I sure do miss the view of Lk Kivu with the volcanoes in the background!  And being able to eat avocado and guava and macadamia nuts, etc,  straight from the tree.  :-)

I have spoken briefly once about my time in Rwanda with my AMVETS group. Most everyone else has been giving me a little time to get through my mom's funeral, adjust, etc.  However, beginning in a week and a half, when I speak to our church missions group, I have six speaking engagements set up ... including an interview at the local radio station, WGEL, again.  For now, I am off to bed.  Catch up with you all some time in the next few days.

Out Of Africa!

Saturday, 3 Mar 07, 2:14 a.m. CST:

A very hectic week!  But I am out of Africa and back in G'ville.  My mom's funeral is next week.  I will come back here later and update all that has transpired with all the little details, but right now just didn't want anyone to think I was getting careless in my blog/journal-keeping.  I am awake and up because my body is still on Rwanda time.  Will have to get back in sync after crossing 9 time zones.