Why Am I Here?

The river where some of the villagers fetch their water. It is 1:23 pm here in Rwanda which makes it 4:23 am in Vacaville, CA, my native home. Normally I would not consider talking about the time as being of importance. However, since moving to Rwanda, Africa, it has become something I must think about every day in order to stay in touch with my family.

I miss my family and my friends (furry friends included).  When homesickness sets in, the big question invariably surfaces, “Why am I here, in a foreign land, so far away from those I love most in the world?” The surface answer is, “I am here because I want to make a difference in the world.  I want to contribute.  I want to know I am doing something good in the world.  I want my life to be worthwhile.” Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is very important work. However, it is also important to be home close to my parents (they are 76 and 80 years old). My sisters miss me and I miss them. My dearest friends miss me and I miss them. There are so many ways that we support each other when we are living close to each other. In turn the support we give each other vibrates out to a wider community making a difference.  And then there is the love bond we have for each other…that love can only do enormous good in the world. I am a seeker. Sometimes I wish I were different.  Yet that is what drives me. My service is not altruistic; I do not believe that it, my service here, is doing any more good in the world than the love and attention that I give my family does. However, I must be me. Being me, sometimes, causes me to have conflicted feelings about where my duties lie. Don’t get me wrong, I am very excited to be in Rwanda. There is enormous need here. In the villages (umudugudu), where I live, people still kuvoma (fetch water) from the river...a murky, brown river. They not only bathe and wash their clothes with this water, they must drink it and cook with it. Because without water we cannot live, right? So they choose parasites over thirst and over death by dehydration. I know what I would choose if I did not have the privilege of always having access to clean water, which includes a water filter, bleach and a faucet in my compound yard that is tied into an infrastructure of water lines that come from "the source" (isoko).  The isoko is an obscure source of water that is, for the most part, clean.  Next week I will be hiking to this source to investigate and gauge its potential for distribution to a wider range of people. Returning to my original self-reflection, “What is required in order to do good in the world?” I believe that wherever we are, whatever we are doing and whatever the state of our lives may be, whether we live in poverty (or what appears to be poverty) or we live with privilege, "good for the world" comes from inside of us. How do we choose to be in the world? Do we choose: peace or discord, compassion or judgement, love or hate, war or peace, kindness or cruelty, generosity or stinginess of spirit? How willing are we to allow our highest selves to flow through us and into the world, whether we are shopping at a grocery store, harvesting a perma garden or building a akarima k' igikoni ("kitchen garden") in order to feed our family. I am in Rwanda Africa serving in Peace Corps because my Higher Self drives me to do this for my own development. I am not sure yet who or what I will be after two years of service in Africa, but I do know I will be a more refined vessel for the expression of my Higher Self...not because of the service I am doing here (though that is very important), but rather because I listened to my call. I did not let fear hold me back. And every day, here in this land, among these people (who are so different from me and yet so like me) I walk through the door of my discomfort to discover more fully who I am. I know without any doubt that when I return home, at the end of my service, I will have received far more than I am able to give.

 (Left) Village women carrying five gallon jerry cans, full of water that they fetched from the river (right).  They carry the water up the hill to their right (our left)  and then continue on a long uphill walk home to their village.