Cross-post- Faithful Politics

Hello family and friends,

I'm currently enjoying Christmas Eve with my sister and her family here in London, England. I'll post some photos later, but for now, here's an article I wrote for Faithful Politics, a website which is devoted to exploring the interplay between our Christian faith and our political actions and beliefs. The website was started last year by one of my good friends from Wheaton, so it's worth checking out the other articles on the site.

http://faithfulpolitics.org/2010/12/24/a-tale-of-two-kings-herod-jesus-and-the-glory-of-christmas/

It's Not Really Looking Anything Like Christmas

Another sunny, 77° degree day here in the tropics. Even though that's 50 degrees warmer than Littleton and London, and 70 degrees warmer than Medford, I'm not going to gloat. And although there is less humidity here than all of those places, keeping it mild and cool despite the warm sun, there's no sense in me bragging about it.


Actually, I am a little jealous of the snow and cold, partly because I'm weird like that, and partly because it is evocative of the most wonderful of times of the year, the Christmas season. (As I've mentioned before.) But I am trying to enjoy it as much as I can today, because if the news reports are to be believed, England looks something like this:

London, today

Which will be fun, as long as my plane lands. My next posts will be from the motherland, where I will almost assuredly have some Vin Diesel-like shenanigans with dirty diapers and baby vomit.

PS- Nuclear family- your Christmas gifts will arrive some time in January, I haven't sent or ordered or thought about them yet. Sorry.

When Moths Attack: UPDATE

I have no idea how, but this guy managed to squeeze himself through a crack somewhere and ended up in my kitchen. (UPDATE: There are two of them.) As you can see, he is very large. A cat was trying to get to him before I came out and chased it off to take this picture.

Commence: Operation Kitchen Liberation. Updates to follow.

Update:

Kitchen is secure. At approximately 9:33 PM, I approached the kitchen from the east. Preliminary visual surveillance showed no sign of the intruders.

Fig. 1: Preliminary surveillance. Visual contact: Negative.

After a brief delay dedicated to writing my will, I breached the kitchen door at 9:36 and cautiously moved inside. Knowing something of the habits of moths, I was careful not to touch anything, or put my hands in areas where they might be hiding. I could not see either moth, so I fell back to my room to regroup and rearm.

Fig. 2: Weapons

I again returned to the kitchen with sandals in hand this time from the north, and immediately laid eyes on bogey 1. As you can see in this picture, he had positioned himself perfectly for a sneak attack above the door I had previously used to enter the room. A chill ran up my spine as I understood his dark purpose, and wondered at the malice in his tiny heart.

Fig. 3: Evil incarnate

My attention immediately turned to the moth that I knew remained hidden somewhere in the room. I slowly went around the room, poking my sandal into bags and under cupboards where it might be hiding. The second place I searched was the corner with the trash bin. I hypothesized that the moth would allured to the smells of death and decay.

Fig. 4: An Ambush

I was, unfortunately, correct. No sooner had I kicked at the trash can than the moth launched itself at me. I dodged and parried its strikes, until I could put some distance between myself and that confining corner. This one was considerably larger than the pictured moth, who twirled his mustache and gazed through emotionless, dark eyes at the events below. Then without warning, the attacker flew out of the open door and into the night.

At 9: 45 I coaxed the remaining moth down from the corner by throwing things at it, then dealt it a death blow in midair with my sandal. I put its carcass in a paper bag and was taking it out to the trash, only to discover that the other moth was WAITING ON THE PORCH FOR ME. No joke, this moth flew at me again, then took up a watchful position near the porch light. If I could somehow make this house airtight, it would be so.

Bird-Sized Moths are now #1 on the list of Things I Will Not Miss When I Leave Rwanda.

I'm Still Here

Nothing eventful has happened, but I thought I should update everyone on how it's going.

Well, I'm sick. Nothing bad- just fever/bowel issues. If at home, I would just lay up for a couple days, but here there's always the worry that it's dysentery/malaria/typhoid. Probably not, but I'll let you know if it is.

Work is going fine, albeit slowly, because the major focus of my work has not yet started. This is kind of nice, as it allows me to work from home a couple days a week, and I've used the extra time to orient myself a little further with Kigali. I'm getting a better feel for the shops and how to get from A to B.

I ordered a desk for my room from a small furniture shop. They're one of these poorly located, not advertised, wouldn't know about it except that my friends told me about it, kind of place, so that's fun. After a very brief haggling session, I agreed to pay RWF 20,000, or $33 for just a simple table. But of course, Jerome told me that it would be ready in two days. That was nine days ago. Which I'm okay with, because I'll now be able to pay like half that amount. My goal is to get it down to 12,000.

Only six days until Christmas break! I'm flying up to London this Friday to hang out with the Wallace family for a couple weeks. In case you're not a member of my family or otherwise not aware, my sister gave birth to little Georgia Ruth Wallace a couple weeks ago, so I'll get to meet my niece. Looking forward to that very much.

It's been raining for days. It's usually clear in the morning, but heavy, wet tropical storms come through in the afternoon that disrupt the power and the internet, along with making everything humid and preventing the clothes on the line from drying. This is the end of the rainy season- when I return to Rwanda in January, we should have at least two months without a drop.

Thanksgiving

L-R- Sam, Lisette, Davina

Thanksgiving abroad is an interesting affair. First of all, it doesn't feel remotely like Thanksgiving. It's in the 80s every day and sunny, and everything is green. I see friends posting on Facebook about listening to Christmas music, and I just have no real desire to listen to it- it's impossible to get into the spirit. I could go through the rituals of these holidays, force myself to eat turkey and listen to the PoG Christmas CD, but it's weird when the form is divorced from the context that I'm familiar with. It just doesn't feel right.

Which is why it's somehow appropriate that this was my Thanksgiving dinner:

This is none other than Khana Khazana, the best Indian food this side of the Mississippi. I didn't know that I liked Indian food until I ate here over the summer; all I had had before was those crappy buffets. It's pretty expensive for Kigali, but hey, it's Thanksgiving. Drinks and tip and everything was like $17 a person.

But, of course, the important part of Thanksgiving is giving thanks. I'm thankful for:

-A good job that has allowed me to come all the way over to Africa, meet a bunch of great people, and learn a lot;

-Family back home that is praying for me and has supported me through the last two years of unemployment and hurry quick I need to buy stuff for Africa;

-Housemates that are cool and I get along with;

-most of all, for Andrea and Dave's beautiful baby girl and my neice, Georgia. I'm very excited for getting to visit them over Christmas.

P.S.- my housemates are Sam and Lisette, Davina is a friend of Lisette's who hangs out with us on occasion. Sam (Philadelphia) is here teaching dance, and Lisette (Netherlands) is doing Malaria research for a Master's thesis.

Daily Commute

Andrea suggested that I post some pictures of the scenes I see every day on my way to work. So, praying that the moto driver didn't do anything crazy, holding the motorcycle with one hand and my camera in the other, I took some pictures from my commute to work this morning.

It's sort of boring to me, but I guess people have certain expectations of what a morning commute in an African city is like, so here's a little bit of my experience in Rwanda.

This is the street I live on. That trench on the right is typical of the gutters here- they're everywhere, even in poorer areas, and in the hills, even in some of the more remote parts of the country. The soil is pretty poor here, and they prevent the hills from getting saturated and leading to erosion or landslides. Occasionally cars get stuck in them.

On the road heading up towards the city center. This road is fairly new, as you can tell, and the the lanes in the opposite direction are still under construction.

Same road, getting closer to the city. Hopefully this gives you a sense of how hilly it is- the roads go around the hills in spirals with occasional switchbacks. You can see on the left how much dirt had to be removed- and this is getting close to the top, where it levels out a little. They'll eventually cover that bare face with a wall.

The city center. That tall modern looking building is brand new, the first of many such projects that are part of the government's 'Vision 2020' programs. This program involves eminent-domaining all the poor people out of the downtown area and replacing them with big buildings like this one.

The city center. This is the main roundabout in the center of Kigali, and you can see how well it is maintained, with all the grass and bushes. All of it is done by hand, with machetes and clippers. Even the grass. You may be able to see the fountain in the middle, which wasn't on this morning.

Going around the roundabout. In the very center of this picture and to the left is where all of the buses go. I catch my bus home pretty close to the new tower. Further left at the top of the hill is where the Union Trade Center (UTC) is, which is sort of a Western-style shopping mall. Also up there is the Simba grocery store, where I get all of my non-produce foods.

And back down the other side of the hill, to the Muhima district where VFC (Vision Finance Company, the MFI that I'm working at) is. The whole ride is about 10 minutes, and costs me 700 RWF (a little more than a dollar). I usually take the bus home, because that's only 180 RWF, or 30 cents. And it's easier to carry groceries on the bus.

Introducing Nigel

This is my current roommate. We are able to be friends because we do not eat the same food. I trust him fully with the chocolate in my room, and I do not encroach on his supply of cockroaches and mosquitoes (although he's smaller than most cockroaches).