I’m not going to lie, this place has been hardcore testing the limits of my patience and my comfort zone and making me question myself a lot. As one of my best friends Luca told me based off of our long messages and brief conversations, I have been doing a scary amount of thinking this past month I’ve been here in Rwanda. Here are a few of my thoughts.
Now that I’ve been here a month, things have settled down a little and I’ve accepted this situation that I’ve found myself in and gotten a little more comfortable. I still get frustrated a lot though, and this experience never ceases to find new ways to piss me off. Trying to adapt to this lifestyle has reaffirmed things I know to be true about myself, and also has made me think deeply about what exactly it is I want to do with myself in the long run. Although I do find myself kind of internally angry at things a lot (like screaming children in the house, buses that don’t arrive, etc.), which is scary because I don’t consider myself a person with a lot of anger, I realize that it’s mostly because of me and my own personal reactions, and the country and its people have nothing to do with it. I hold nothing against them at all. This is how they live, and I don’t believe that they should want to change it at all, and my being bothered is just because of me. In fact, as I will write in another entry, learning about what these people have lived through instills a sense of awe and horror within me, and it means so much to me to be able to hear their stories. But I have always been an impatient person who likes to plan things and have things go according to plan, and the fact that time isn’t taken seriously here has taken a toll on me. I’m slowly learning to accept that nothing will ever go according to plan, and “plans" will just be vague ideas that solidify as they are carried out and not beforehand, and that I have no choice but to see it as so. It’s annoying, but hey, at least I don’t have a Harvard workload to also be dealing with and am only left with way too much time to think.
Generally, I’m kind of tired. I’m tired from having to deal with my internal frustrations and having to try to live on much less than I’m used to, and most of all I’m tired of constantly being stared at wherever I go and receiving attention I do not want to receive. At all. (Also of getting mistaken for Chinese–I am so. Done.) I even get annoyed when little kids wave at me or come up to me and randomly hug me at this point, though a lot of the other Americans love it (good for them). Of course, I don’t show it. I just smile and reciprocate. I mean it’s nice to see that people care and are maybe just trying to be welcoming, but it gets so overwhelming. The thing is, I don’t want to be special, and one of my favorite things that can happen is when I’m standing in a public space and nobody turns their head to have a second glance at me. Based on all of this it turns out that when I’m in a new place, all I want is to be able to integrate myself into the lives of the locals and be able to get around like a normal citizen with nobody gawking at me or noticing my presence. Through being anonymous, I feel welcome and at home. I’ve been able to do that in Europe, I’ve been able to do that in South America, but here? That is never going to happen, and it’s mostly because of how I look. No matter how well I learn the language, no matter how comfortable I will eventually get here, the way I look will always separate me from the Rwandans and even existing here, I will bring attention to myself. I’m not even white, I even come from a formerly colonized country too, but at this point I’m also American, and given the history of Americans and foreigners here, I’m just at unease a lot. I did not anticipate at all that this would bother me this much and it’s been difficult coming to terms with it. I don’t think this will all turn around and I’ll suddenly love the attention I get–some people can deal with that really well!–but I take solace in the fact that I’m not going to be here for that long. Thus I focus my efforts not on trying to get over my discomfort, but trying to learn as much as I can and experience as much as I can.
Hopefully this kind of tiredness is just part of the growing pains and adjustment period that accompanies the beginning of a new journey. Actually, I know it is. I’m also a fairly optimistic person and know that even if I won’t get over my hatred of constant attention, it won’t be making me as tired and angry as it has been during the first month. The beginning of a thing like this is always the hardest part, and I’m confident that things are looking up. I have wonderful friends both from my program and from this city, and my host family–even if I wish they would take me out to do things in the city and not just stay at home/work all the time–has been treating me very well. They’ve even referred to me as their daughter. I have a feeling I’ll also be enjoying my time here a lot more during the Independent Study Project part of the program, a month where we’re going to try and live independently while working on our research in small groups in our own house. I’m actually super excited for that and for the opportunity to try and live with other people my age who understand everything I’ve been going through and can be an amazing support system. I think once I get to be more independent I’ll enjoy my time here a lot more and my discomfort will be marginal.
However, another kind of tiredness has also been slowly creeping up on me, one that I didn’t anticipate would show up this soon. I’m kind of tired of constantly traveling from place to place. The me last year would have hated the me now for saying something like that, but it’s true. For around the past five years, I’ve been lucky to have been able to see so much of the world and meet so many people and learn things I never would have if I didn’t have the chance to travel, and I wouldn’t change any of it for a thing. I became one of those people who’d jump at the chance to travel anywhere at any time without any second thoughts, but now that I’ve been to 24 countries around Asia, Australia, North America, South America, Europe, and now Africa, I feel satisfied for the time being and want to see what else I can do with my life. Usually people who jump into long-term or constant travel develop a taste for travel after being too bored in the same place and wanting something more out of life, and travel opens their eyes to the world or some shit like that and then they become people who can work from anywhere with wifi and just keep moving from place to place and writing about their experiences, but it seems like I’m moving in the opposite direction. Not to mean at all that I want to stop traveling, oh no. I just think that after I graduate, it’ll be good for me to settle down in a city I adore (I’ve found quite a few) and try to work and lead a normal stable life, actually find a boyfriend, travel together or solo or with friends during breaks or for work obligations and not on massive long term trips where I have to get used to living with no running water and no wifi. (I’m sorry, I know how spoiled I sound saying that, but I will now readily admit that I am spoiled.) And in terms of a place where I see myself living the next stage of my life when I attempt to temporarily settle down, it’s definitely some big city in Europe. As strange as it is to say, here, I’m homesick for Europe. It’s probably because a bunch of my European friends have just been sending me messages asking me how I am and how things are going, and we have great conversations which remind me how well I vibe with them, and I miss the time I spent with them in their countries. I remember talking to advisor people around Harvard freaking out about being a senior by the time I return, and they would reassure me that usually, people who study abroad are a bit more clear with what they want and thus adjust well to being back and dealing with the postgrad search. I can now see this happening, and know that when I finally return to Harvard I’ll be ready to plan for what’s next (which will definitely be seeing how I can move back to Europe somewhere and develop myself professionally for an eventual international career because let’s be real, there’s so many more places to see and friends to reunite with).
I realize that this entry has been uncharacteristic of me on many levels, but that’s just part of growing up as a person and trying to figure out who I am and what I want out of life. There hasn’t been that much of the “I’m so in awe of this place and everything around me going on wow” as there has been in some of my previous traveling entries, but I just think that adds depth to what I have to say about the life I’m living, the immense amount of privilege I realize I have, and my hopes for the future. Even if it sounds like I’m having a hard time, I really do believe that this is the best thing for me to be doing at this point and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m grateful for everything I’ve been experiencing here, and no matter what ends up happening, will have no regrets about it. This opportunity is certainly going to inform part of what I do with my life in ways that I can’t even fathom yet, and I know that when I look back on this all in the future, I’ll have a better idea as to why I ended up doing it and why I should be proud for having done it. No matter how intense this love-hate relationship gets, Rwanda will forever have a special and well-deserved place in my heart.
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