It is just a reality that many of the things we experience are truly more frustrating than funny. It is a simple truth that culture shock is a reality. Many of the things we have experienced this week have humor but the burden of them has made the humor marginal.
I have to say that one of my most frustrating issues this past week has been in the area of giving and getting directions. In this country there are few if any street signs. The ones that do exist should not because no one notices them and no one can remember the names of the streets even if they live on them. So imagine trying to give directions to a man on the phone who speaks english only slightly and even that is mixed with french. He has to come from the
middle of Kigali to our district (suburb) in order to set up our internet. He calls me on the phone and says he is on his way. My directions are like this. "Okay, where are you"? His response is in french since the word hello did not clue him in that I was english. The fact that I did not say bonjour did not register to him. He says, "I'm on the road to the Senate". Fortunately I know that road. I send him on his way in the direction of a small grocery store and finally a round about that he does recognize but that is the easy part. Now it is time for the dirt roads. The road does not have a name so we say Niboye road because that is the district that the road cuts in half. After that the exact instructions are, "go 2/3 of the way to the end and go down the mountain until you reach more dirt roads with more small markets on the corner. In Tyler it would be like telling someone to go to the corner with the bank on it and turn left. I finally had to give up and go find him. However I'm finally over the nostalgia of the bumpy dirt roads and I'm tired of being stared at as I bounce all over the road when I drive. I did find him and finally I have email.
The blessing this week is that I was finally able to finish my application for visas and was able to turn them in. This was on my third attempt. The first day it took all morning to get my documents (marriage certificates, medical license and all the kid's birth certificates) copied and notarized. The immigration office closes at noon. The second day we arrived at the immigration office and I discovered that I was supposed to fill out my applications online but had not. God intervened again. Charles, the amazing man at ATN who is in charge of helping us get "official" was able to coerce someone to print them for me so I could fill them out. After scurrying to complete them before our number was called (we failed and had to get a new number) we walked to the desk and after reviewing the documents the agent said we could not proceed because the back ground in our photos was too grey. It was not nearly white enough. Again the word impossible (to which there is no answer, you have to just hang your head and walk away). We had to leave, go get all the kids and take them all to downtown to get pictures taken. I had to ask them to take them twice because they were really bad the first time. She took, "needs to have white back ground" to mean "needs to be washed out with really bright flash".
I prayed last night that God would keep the rules the same today. Here in Africa rules change from day to day and from person to person. I prayed that the person I encountered would follow the official rules and be a person of peace. I got up early and was the first person there and when I approached the agent and gave her the applications she said her name was the same as my daughter, Grace. I told her about Grace and how she got her name (I thought she would cry) then I figured since she was stuck there and appeared peaceful I would just preach to her about the meaning of the word grace while she did my paperwork. In the end I was able to finish the process and now I just have to wait for final approval and we will all be "official".
In addition we were able to go to church with our neighbors this week. The service was three hours long (no classes or breaks) and the kids were almost dead by the end. So was the lady whose job it was to keep the kids in line. The kids don't sit down front but have to sit at the back of the room under the eye of the "kid Nazi". I kind of liked it. She had to keep bopping Samuel to get him to stay seated. Don't blame him though since he is not used to such a long service. The joy in it was just the walk to church. The neighbor kids and our boys just love playing together. Aaron is so happy to have them near during the day.
(blurry but Aaron and Samuel playing soccer with neighbors)
(walk to church with neighbors)
We had a hard week and this was just the beginning of our struggle but we are blessed by God's constant affirmation of our presence in Rwanda and we enjoy seeing them come to us over and over. Please pray that he will continue to lay these in front of us and continue to pray that in all that we do we find people of peace in which we can form relationships with and prayerfully invite them to discover God with us.
Blessings to all of you.
Brian
p.s. One last funny image. We had to have our gate fixed this week because the hinge broke off. I had to call the landlord to send a crew to fix the all steel gate that weighs about 500 lb. When they arrived they brought their welder and needed a place to plug it in. When I walked in the gate I noticed a wire (not extension cord but real romex wire) with no ground leading to my back door. When I looked down this is what I found. No plug, just stripped the wires and stuck them in the outlet. Try this in the states.
