Green Acres (Again)

“the chores, the stores, fresh air, Times Square”

I find myself once again bracing for another move from city to rural or rural to city. This time is a little bit different being that it’s all in Rwanda. My village Nyagatare is a little more rural than Boone and Kigali isn’t the same metropolitan city as Atlanta or DC but here I go again. The never ending transition of life is on the move once more.

I love different things about both parts of life. Rurally you get a lot closer look at the great outdoors and the communities might be closer. The pace is a little slower as it tends to be in sync with nature. The fast pace of urban life brings information and entertainment at your fingertips at all times. I thoroughly enjoy both but it never makes it easy to make the transition back and forth, especially with such little time to prepare. I finish in Nyagatare on Thursday and start work the following Monday in Kigali.

This time, I have found uprooting especially difficult. This is the smallest city I have ever lived in and when you really invest your time, it leaves its marks on you just as you wanted to leave some marks on it. I will forever be amazed at how many people I have met that knew so much about me before I even introduced myself. The generosity of people who have so little has been astounding. This community has made a little foreign village a million miles from what I’m used to be a comfortable home, regardless of how far I have had to come to adapting.

I have found this change just as hard as the others. I think I am a community man living in a time of community decline. I can work hard to build community strong wherever I go but with the ebbs and flows of life I now must go and seek another group to grow down deep and sprout the fruits of community once again. Like every good garden, the harvest will be good once again and life will be in its fullest communal swing but for now I must take the pain of transition in stride. Not ignoring or accepting it but taking the transition as a student of change, trying to learn from all parts.