pulling a madonna

i’m getting a little sick of the catching up, so i’m going to give into my penchant for whining for just a bit.

i’ve had a crappy few days. i’ve been counting down the days to morocco for a while, but the last few days have really put a damper on things. on sunday, i lost my camera. the details don’t matter – i was a dumbass. i had it in my hand, in a taxi, and when i got out, i didn’t. now, I have no camera for morocco. contemplating buying another one in london is painful – my bank account is already empty and my parents have been ridiculously generous by helping to finance most of my travels this summer. add at least another $100 to whatever i'll spend on a camera in the uk in getting to the city from the airport and back – man. suckage. major suckage. and for the last two days i’ve had ‘the flu’. it’s not really the flu, because i’m not completely out of action, but i spent two days in bed, and lost almost 5 pounds. I haven’t had a good run in a week, and I feel like a lot of things are out of my control.

on the other hand, i don’t think i’ve expressed my thoughts on my time in rwanda; they’re overwhelmingly positive. i’m surprised by how easy it was to adjust to my environment (no, i don’t consider my bouts with stomach bugs and other illnesses as signs of non-adjustment). there are pinapples galore (at least for the past month), passionfruit, avocados, and loads of baguettes and other yummy breads. every woman i’ve encountered is born able to strap one baby to their back, hold another by their hand and balance something on their heads. people are friendly, if close-mouthed about most everything. kigali is clean (as i’ve said before), and the poverty that dhs numbers trumpet is seen by mzungus like me only on rare occasions (like when the street kids in butare beg for anything you give them). i think my comfort here has a lot to do with the accommodations, but also because i've felt as if i was in india – except with you know, african people. in fact, i think the poverty is even more apparent in india, due to the outward signs – begging, hungry children and women, slums, and the marked contrast between the have’s and have-not’s apparent in every part of any major city. in kigali, the gap isn’t as glaringly wide. this is not to say it does not exist. something like 50% of children are malnourished, 80% of the population lives on less than 2 usd a day. there are few resources for women here – no ngo’s which serve abused women and none (to my knowledge) which train women as vocational workers or artisans (rwandan basketweaving is apparently not as high quality as it once was, but then, nobody is holding classes on it). women are left to do much of the work of sustaining a household, because very few men actually do much to help make ends meet (that’s from a rwandan woman’s mouth, not mine!), though they are good at heading to the bars at 6 pm, sharp, and peopling the streets at night.

all this ‘putting your best face forward’ business doesn’t do much to deter me from randomly pulling a madonna, and absconding to the us (or maybe the uk, i do love those british accents) with a rwandan baby (who are the cutest babies i have ever seen).