Everything Starts in a Minute…

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Do you remember a moment that shifted the trajectory of your life? Perhaps it was the moment you first made eye contact with your (now) wife on a speeding train? The moment you held a little white stick in your hands and saw confirmation of your upcoming role as a mother? The moment you first Googled “volunteering internationally” and began to dream about an overseas adventure?

Sweat pools on my upper lip as men in traditional muslim caps or sloppy white t-shirts yell out in stereo, “Hey Lady – I give you good price” or “Hey lady – it’s free to look”  as they point inside the dim interiors of shops cluttered with giraffe statues, Reggae inspired Zanzibar t-shirts, and canvas paintings of African stick women balancing baskets on their heads. As I wind from one narrow street to another, I explore each crooked lane and alley of Stone Town until I finally find a shop without a hustler at the door. Continue reading →

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“Zanzibar is Half-Paradise…”

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With sand between my toes and the sun at my back, I saw him coming and scanned the beach for an escape route. Still feeling raw and emotionally beaten up from the pain and injustice I witnessed in Rwanda, I craved SILENCE. I didn’t feel up for the sales pitch I knew was coming.

“Jambo….Hello…” he called out in a combination of heavily accented English and Swahili, “lady – where you from?”

For a moment, I wondered if I could feign deafness, but instead I called out “Canada” over my shoulder and kept up my steady saunter through the slippery white sand. Continue reading →

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Panic in Dar Es Salaam…

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Panic gripped the people of Dar Es Salaam today as rumours of a massive Indian Ocean Tsunami circled through the crowd of patients, doctors, and nurses on the Paediatric Oncology Ward of Muhimbili National Hospital. With rain bucketing outside the windows, I struggled to process the words coming out of the doctor’s mouth.

“There has been an earthquake and a tsunami might hit the coast of Tanzania”, she explained. “You should go back and get your things, but move to a different hotel, further away from the ocean.

People chattered all around me – their voices elevated, their gestures pronounced. After 3 months away from Canada, I have grown so used to not understanding the conversations around me that I had no idea that the earthquake and threat of tsunami conversation had played out on repeat over the last hour (both in the hospital and on social media sites all over the country). Continue reading →

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African Ambulances and All-Nighters

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This morning, I awoke to the sound of rain, trumpeting its arrival on the roof like the percussion section of a high school marching band sandwiched between floats of Leprechauns and Irish Princesses in a St Patrick’s Day parade. Now, with the tide rolled back as far as the eye can see, the scent of salt heavy in the air, and the clouds tucked around me like a grey Vancouver blanket, today feels like as good a day as any to break my Zanzibar Silence and tell you a story.

It started back on March 22nd. The day I turned 33 amidst baby spit-up and the Motherless Children of Rwanda climbing my legs like the iron bars of a jungle gym. By late afternoon, I arrived back at my volunteer house, sweaty, dirty, and in desperate need of a REAL shower (instead of the bucket and cold water awaiting me in the closet-sized bathroom with the door that didn’t properly close).  Continue reading →

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The Sound of Silence…

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The hum of a gelato machine rumbles behind me as I squint and wait for my eyes to adjust to the airport’s dim lighting. Across the expansive back wall is a life size mural of the rolling hills of Rwanda, complete with coffee plantations and caricatures of generously hipped African women carrying wicker baskets on their heads. I sip my cappuccino and watch well-dressed people file through the front door and load their luggage onto a whining belt. As I wait for the announcement that will allow me to check in for my Kenyan Airways flight to Nairobi, tightness inches up my esophagus, like the rising mercury in a thermometer, and I have to look down at the floor to hide my tears.

As I steel myself to say goodbye to a country of people who are more gracious, welcoming, and kind than most I’ve ever seen, numbness finally sets in. I am still processing stories and images from people who have survived worse atrocities than most of us will ever know in our most horrific nightmares. People who, in spite of coming face to face with the devil, have a deep and abiding faith in the Power of God to help them endure anything. Continue reading →

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When Was Your Last Heartbreak?

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Do you remember the punch in the gut feeling of saying goodbye to someone you loved for the last time? Maybe you spent endless days strategizing about whether you could somehow win her back. Or, maybe you invited your friends over to drink gallons of cheap wine while you said good riddance to him and then updated your online dating profile.

For me, the heartbreak is so razor fresh that I can feel the warmth of his little head as he burrows his face into my chest – fighting a yawn and wrapping his tiny fingers around my arm; I can see her running towards me – arms outstretched and legs pumping, as she waits for me to lift her onto my hip; I can smell the rice and beans smeared all over his face as I shovel a bite of lunch into his wide open mouth; and I can feel the weight of his 10 year old palm in my hand as he looks at me in confusion when I explain I can’t come back Ajo (tomorrow). Continue reading →

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Rwanda – “Our Nightmare & Our Dreams”

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“It has been estimated that 90% of the children who survived (the Genocide) in Rwanda saw someone they knew die a violent death during that time.” Romeo D’Allaire – Shake Hands With The Devil.

In the opening scene from Romeo’s book, he tells the story of coming across a small boy, walking barefoot down a gravel road. In spite of the risk of taking fire (this was during the height of the conflict), D’Allaire got out of his vehicle and followed the little boy down a rocky lane. The child entered a small hut and ran over to bury his face in the skirt of his dead mother. His parents had been bludgeoned by machetes and clubs and left for dead at a little table. This child had been alone for a days, with no food, water, or protection as the bodies of his parents slowly decomposed.

This image continues to haunt me and I can barely swallow the lump in my throat as I think about that little boy. A child  - much like the one I’m holding in this picture. An innocent child, who in an instant became one of the 300,000 orphans created by the Rwandan Genocide. Who somehow survived the senseless killing of over a million people in the span of 100 days.

Unlike in many conflict situations, the women and children of Rwanda became a direct target of the extremist Hutu Interahamwe to ensure another generation of Tutsis did not emerge. Murderers used machetes, clubs, guns, and any blunt tool they could find to inflict as much pain as possible on their victims. Children were frequently forced to participate – by killing neighbours and friends and sometimes women were even forced to kill their own children. It’s devastating and unimaginable, isn’t it? Continue reading →

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