Telling stories since 2005
A List of Things I Do and Don’t Miss about village life long commutes (my Rwanda house is less than a five minute walk to the health center; my SC house is a 40 minute drive to the hospital) sitting in front of a computer at a desk all day for work housing prices (so…
Small town life I have lived most of my life in South Carolina [other states include North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee] — a state with roughly 5 million people in it, and just prior to departure, I moved back to the area I grew up in. The town I currently reside in has approximately 800 people…
Despite the title, I want to reassure everyone that as of today, December 22nf I am still IN the Peace Corps, and have no immediate plans to leave. Although this could change at the whim of the US Government, I could be heading home via airplane at any given moment. Just know that as of…
1: # of x-rays taken 2: # of MRI’s taken [one of my head and one of my leg]; also number of instances I’ve been on med hold. 3: # of weeks I was on ibuprofen for the pain; 189 number of tablets actually taken during those three week. 0 number of times it helped….
I have officially been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mbazi, Rwanda for an entire year! Honestly, the year has passed by faster than I could have ever imagined. But it hasn’t been without bumps along the way. I’ve suffered through extremely low self-confidence, I have dealt with unforeseen circumstances, I have survived parasites and a variety…
On the surface Mr Wendel actually has nothing to do with this post. However that is one of the first songs I remember hearing played on the radio, It’s all about poverty. In the US. Not some rural village in Rwanda. Wealthy When I worked my last shift at the hospital on June 2, 2018,…
Did I really just go to good ole ‘Murica? Only a few days back in Rwanda, and the entire trip back to South Carolina feels like a dream. I left Rwanda on a Saturday night and was in my own bed by Monday. Lucy and Molly inspected me with above normal curiosity… Maybe they know…
What is Umuganda? In Kinyarwanda, Umuganda roughly translates as ‘coming together to achieve a common goal’. It was originally started after Rwanda achieved independence in 1962. In the beginning, Umuganda was often called ‘umubyizi’ –and was a day set aside by friends and family to help each other. It officially became a government program in…
At home, I have a pile of foreign currency that I used to decorate my house. Some of the more colorful bills are framed; others are just in a jar, or more accurately, a glass block with the term ‘travel fund’ applied to it. It reminds me of places I’ve been, and I’m still just…
Another year has come and gone. I KNOW! How is that even possible? It seems like only yesterday I was packing my bags for Madagascar, and yet here we are. But Life, as life tends to do, happened, and my long awaited trip to Madagascar turned into a should I or shouldn’t I go to Rwanda. [Spoiler…