Leaving Rwanda

I now find myself in London. As excited as I am to be here I find my heart is… displaced. I think that a piece of my heart will always be in Rwanda!

In Rwanda my friendships were strengthened and fortified among my cohorts. I will always have a special connection now with those I traveled with.  Applied Theatre tends to be intensive work. Intense in many various aspects: time-wise, mentally, physically and emotionally. What a blessing to work with so many wonderful people!

Helen and Chris were so wonderful to learn from to work with, to lead, and to set us all up for success.  I have wonderful things to say about each and every one of my classmates. Each person played an important role in the development of our projects, in sharing the load of the work, in understanding one another, in working for the benefit of the group. I am thankful for the time and talents and efforts that everyone put in to make the work all that it was!

New friendships were developed and all of the students from KIE as well as the KYC are now a very important part of my life. There were so many conversations and sharing of cultures and hopes, dreams and desires. All founded on the common ground of a love for drama and theatre.

Amazing! I cannot adequately describe how I feel and I am having a hard time spelling out all that I have learned and how I have been affected and largely my life has changed.

I am still processing everything.  I spent a good amount of time in Hyde Park yesterday, sitting, thinking, and reflecting. For some reason as soon as my pen goes to paper I have a hard time putting all of my thoughts into written word. Hopefully as I continue to reflect and write my words can become more suitable in describing my experiences. I still have a final paper to write, this experience is counted as schoolwork after all. 

On my faebook status I wrote: “Packing...my heart is breaking! I don't want to leave Rwanda...I will be back! (don't know when, but it will happen!)”

Rwanda is like poetry to me. As I said before even the way that the Rwandese people speak its like poetry! I have not been able to articulate my own poetry for Rwanda yet… but I love what my lovely Amy wrote on the Project Rwanda blog and I echo her sentiment! Read here:

http://projectrwanda.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/echoing-memories/#respond

I do want to share a little bit of what I wrote in my personal journal…

“I knew that Kigali would be a potentially life changing experience. Traveling Internationally always is.

But I didn’t expect it to be this way. I don’t think that I was prepared…Yet I don’t know if I could have been prepared for all that Rwanda was…and IS to me!

The ache in my heart is manifest through the tears that stream down from my eyes as I sit on the plane that is going through pre-takeoff procedures on the tarmac at the tiny Kigali international airport.

As the plane starts to move with a small jerk forward my stomach drops and it triggers more tears.

With this small movement my heart is pulled…forced into the realization that it’s happening… its inevitable. I am leaving the land of a thousand hills… and a thousand smiles (as Jimmy would call it).

Interesting how some of the shortest chapters are the best/most exciting/life changing and impactful…”