As I'm approaching my sixth late night of writing up stats reports in LaTex for this take home exam that's due tomorrow afternoon I ask myself "why am I doing this, again? A stats degree doesn't make me a scientist anyhow, and those kids in Comparative Social Policy have way more free time than I do..."
So it occurred to me tonight, as I was biking home from watching a panel of a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian talk about religion in the public square, that my dad would frequently share a bit of thinly-veiled statistical wisdom with me as a boy. "Aaron, what's the probability that if you flip a coin 10 times and it comes up heads every time, that the next flip will be tails?" "Mmmmmmm, I don't know," I would say, as kids who aren't quite sure where their parents are "going with this" do. "Exactly the same!" my dad would say with a gleam in his eye and that little boy's grin that he still has today when he gets excited about something (probability theory?!). How incredible that, in spite of all that past baggage, all those failed attempts to be tails, an evenly-weighted coin had a clean slate, a 50% CHANCE, to be tails at each new trial.
"Wait a minute," I thought, "something about this seems fishy..." But of course I was still learning to do things that I still struggle with today, like basic arithmetic, multiplication by 11, and spelling, so I just let that sense of unease percolate in the back of my brain. Day, after day, after day. And only now, after stomping off on this wild goose chase of a degree, am I able to frame the issue more clearly. You see, it's a very simple question of joint versus individual trials involving an outcome that can only take one of two values. As it turns out, the probability of flipping a coin 11 times and only observing tails on the 11th flip is (almost) exactly 1/2048, even if the probability of each individual flip attaining that outcome is constant at 1/2. Remember that, guys: joint trials of independent events tend to be less probable than the aggregated individual outcomes of which they are composed. There's some real life-directing wisdom in this, so use your imagination and reach for it.
But where I was going with all this is to say that it's your fault, dad, that the muddled fascination (or perhaps confusion) with mathematical quantification of uncertainty that you planted in my brain 17-odd years ago drove me into this masochistic choice of degree here at Oxford. Which is, of course, my back-handed way of saying that I am in awe of your fascination with the world and deeply grateful for all that your sense of wonderment, especially in things as simple as a coin flip, has contributed to the odd character I am today.
Thinking of coins and campfires as I write time series models and wrestle with spatial statistics tonight,
Aaron
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
home(?) again
Man, that was quick. The time in South Africa blinked by, and I'm once again settled quietly back into life at Oxford, preparing for the upcoming term. But though this was a quick trip it was also a full one, and in some ways it feels like I've been away from Oxford for much more than two and a half weeks.
I spent most of the day after arriving back in Cape Town from Zim with Matthew before rejoining my crew at the Zebra Crossings hostel. As alluded to in the last post, the time with my cousin was very significant relationally. It was an enormous blessing to learn a bit about this person who I've always looked up to from a distance, but with whom I'd never moved much beyond casual conversation. Matthew is sincere, warm-hearted, and well-spoken, and as we talked about everything from life goals and relationships to favorite beers I felt that we connected as friends. It was also good to speak about our common side of the family: where we come from shapes who we are, and over the course of the trip I was filled once again with deep appreciation for the extraordinary trials that my father and his sisters braved to become the caring, accomplished, intellectually-alive people that they are today. Polhami are strange folk, as well, and we spent about as much time joking about our foibles as reflecting on our trials.
The rest of the time in Cape Town was filled with more good things: trips to the townships, including lunch at Mzoli's in Guguletu after church, touring Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela wrote "Long Walk to Freedom" during his long tenure or imprisonment, and visiting an election day rally during a pitstop on a road trip to Knysna. We also had the honor of meeting Desmond Tutu the day before last Wednesday's elections. This remarkable man was the first black Archbishop of Cape Town, chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-Apartheid South Africa, and is a renowned advocate of peace and justice in the world. He recently came under fire from many of his colleagues when he denounced Jacob Zuma, head of the ANC and soon-to-be president of South Africa, as unfit to lead. The ANC and its founding fathers led South Africa to freedom, yet the party has been wracked by corruption and fraud in recent years, and many argue its leadership has been inept in meeting the country's most pressing challenges. Jacob Zuma--who has claimed that cold showers prevent HIV transmission and just recently succeeded in having charges of money laundering in a multi-billion dollar arms deal dropped on procedural grounds--represents the worst of what the ANC has to offer in the eyes of many South Africans. Though Tutu expressed no desire to see the ANC voted out of power, his hope was that the minority opposition parties could rally to prevent it from obtaining the two thirds majority necessary to unilaterally amend the constitution. Dissenting voices are essential to functioning of healthy democratic institution, and Tutu's view was that the ANC had grown lazy and corrupt over the course of its unchallenged stay in power.
But this little diversion into politics distracted me from what I wanted to say about the man himself. At age 77 he shows his age a little bit, yet his quick laugh, bright smile, and self-demeaning sense of humor reveal a warm and gentle spirit that has not hardened through years of trial. It was humbling to sit in the presence of this man, who three weeks earlier I had watched break down weeping on film as he listened to one of his African brothers describe how he had been tortured under apartheid. As we sat down together in his office he said "let us begin with a prayer," and invited the Holy Spirit to come and animate our hearts, giving us joy and inspiring us to love one another as Christ first loved us. That place in his heart where God's spirit dwells is the secret of the man's charisma, and though his political perspectives were helpful it was simply seeing his joyful spirit that moved me the most.
As in Rwanda, the limited amount of time spent with community leaders and servants in South Africa affirmed my belief that what the world needs more than anything else is men and women who are alive in their gifts, and having oriented their lives around a purpose beyond their own gratification. I met a lot of people in South Africa who exemplify this, and challenge me to consider whether I am doing the same. I believe that the most fulfilling purpose around which an individual life can be oriented is Christ, yet I am convinced that God smiles all of those who strive to live fully, sincerely, and selflessly, partnering together through his Spirit to bring about a renewed creation. And lofty theological musings aside, people like Desmond Tutu, Edwin Cameron, Lindela, Kanisua, Sindatenda from BEEP are incredible because they are down-to-earth, joyful, passionately-committed people who give more to their communities than they take.
Big words. Words come easy. The nagging question in the stillness and quiet of a lazy Sunday morning, though, is whether I live this way. Here, back at Oxford, exams a month away, I continue to pray for wisdom to make the most of this time, and for a heart that desires to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God in the world.
I spent most of the day after arriving back in Cape Town from Zim with Matthew before rejoining my crew at the Zebra Crossings hostel. As alluded to in the last post, the time with my cousin was very significant relationally. It was an enormous blessing to learn a bit about this person who I've always looked up to from a distance, but with whom I'd never moved much beyond casual conversation. Matthew is sincere, warm-hearted, and well-spoken, and as we talked about everything from life goals and relationships to favorite beers I felt that we connected as friends. It was also good to speak about our common side of the family: where we come from shapes who we are, and over the course of the trip I was filled once again with deep appreciation for the extraordinary trials that my father and his sisters braved to become the caring, accomplished, intellectually-alive people that they are today. Polhami are strange folk, as well, and we spent about as much time joking about our foibles as reflecting on our trials.
The rest of the time in Cape Town was filled with more good things: trips to the townships, including lunch at Mzoli's in Guguletu after church, touring Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela wrote "Long Walk to Freedom" during his long tenure or imprisonment, and visiting an election day rally during a pitstop on a road trip to Knysna. We also had the honor of meeting Desmond Tutu the day before last Wednesday's elections. This remarkable man was the first black Archbishop of Cape Town, chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-Apartheid South Africa, and is a renowned advocate of peace and justice in the world. He recently came under fire from many of his colleagues when he denounced Jacob Zuma, head of the ANC and soon-to-be president of South Africa, as unfit to lead. The ANC and its founding fathers led South Africa to freedom, yet the party has been wracked by corruption and fraud in recent years, and many argue its leadership has been inept in meeting the country's most pressing challenges. Jacob Zuma--who has claimed that cold showers prevent HIV transmission and just recently succeeded in having charges of money laundering in a multi-billion dollar arms deal dropped on procedural grounds--represents the worst of what the ANC has to offer in the eyes of many South Africans. Though Tutu expressed no desire to see the ANC voted out of power, his hope was that the minority opposition parties could rally to prevent it from obtaining the two thirds majority necessary to unilaterally amend the constitution. Dissenting voices are essential to functioning of healthy democratic institution, and Tutu's view was that the ANC had grown lazy and corrupt over the course of its unchallenged stay in power.
But this little diversion into politics distracted me from what I wanted to say about the man himself. At age 77 he shows his age a little bit, yet his quick laugh, bright smile, and self-demeaning sense of humor reveal a warm and gentle spirit that has not hardened through years of trial. It was humbling to sit in the presence of this man, who three weeks earlier I had watched break down weeping on film as he listened to one of his African brothers describe how he had been tortured under apartheid. As we sat down together in his office he said "let us begin with a prayer," and invited the Holy Spirit to come and animate our hearts, giving us joy and inspiring us to love one another as Christ first loved us. That place in his heart where God's spirit dwells is the secret of the man's charisma, and though his political perspectives were helpful it was simply seeing his joyful spirit that moved me the most.
As in Rwanda, the limited amount of time spent with community leaders and servants in South Africa affirmed my belief that what the world needs more than anything else is men and women who are alive in their gifts, and having oriented their lives around a purpose beyond their own gratification. I met a lot of people in South Africa who exemplify this, and challenge me to consider whether I am doing the same. I believe that the most fulfilling purpose around which an individual life can be oriented is Christ, yet I am convinced that God smiles all of those who strive to live fully, sincerely, and selflessly, partnering together through his Spirit to bring about a renewed creation. And lofty theological musings aside, people like Desmond Tutu, Edwin Cameron, Lindela, Kanisua, Sindatenda from BEEP are incredible because they are down-to-earth, joyful, passionately-committed people who give more to their communities than they take.
Big words. Words come easy. The nagging question in the stillness and quiet of a lazy Sunday morning, though, is whether I live this way. Here, back at Oxford, exams a month away, I continue to pray for wisdom to make the most of this time, and for a heart that desires to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God in the world.
Friday, April 17, 2009
zim, zam, make a plan (and go to botswana and back)
I'm back in Cape Town rushing to finish this post before this cafe closes, my jeans only just now dry from the time I spent at Victoria Falls on the Zambian side this morning--it's been a full several days...
After failing repeatedly to connect with my cousin Matthew Cooper late last week in Cape Town we finally managed to connect over gchat Monday night. My orders we to be waiting for him and Jess at the British Air counter at 6.30 am the following morning, ready to head fly to Zimbabwe until Friday.
After a bleary-eyed joyful reunion in the Cape Town airport we got right down to logistics: Jess and I had our tickets booked, but a mysterious anti-flight booking robot had deleted Matthew's registration the night before and the BA flight to Johannesburg, where we would catch our plane to Zimbabwe (here on referred to as Zim), was booked solid. A couple phone calls later Matthew found himself another flight, Jess and I only barely managed to get tickets on ours, and we reunited three hours later in Joburg. From there we had half an hour to pick up our boarding passes, change South African Rand into USD, clear customs, and in Matthew's case make a series of calls to his coworkers back in Dubai. The clearest mental image of that time was of Jess and I standing at the boarding gate pleading with the attendants to wait for Matthew--"he'll be here in 30 seconds, I swear!" "I'll give him one more minute"--and being elated to see him come hustling around the corner and run down the escalator just in time for us to make the final bus that would take us to our plane on the tarmac.
Sigh... So we'd made the flight to Zimbabwe. As I settled back into my seat to sleep off the drag of the early morning I wondered what we would find there. If you've been reading your African news these day you'd get a pretty bleak picture: 230 million percent inflation in 2008, the collapse of public services infrastructure, government-sponsored violence against white Zimbabweans, rigged elections, and the MDC's painful struggle with Mugabe's ZANU-PF have shaped the perceptions of outside Western observers, and I was no exception. I had this idea of our plane lurching to a halt on a pock-marked runway across from a rusty, tin-roofed terminal, and from there working our way through Harare in an armored jeep, weaving our way around burning tires and hordes of rioting, cholera-stricken civilians.
I was surprised, therefore, by the scene we encountered at the Zimbabwe airport, our first introduction to the country. The airport looked like it had been remodeled within the last 5 years or so. It was airy and clean, with stone paneling on the floor and even an advertisement posted by a company that may or may not have still been in business. It was also the only airport I'd ever been to where the citizens' line for entry was longer than for foreign visitors. We paid our entry fees in USD without any hassle, then proceeded to head out into the lobby where our friend, Karo, had planned to pick us up. The arrivals area was quiet, dimly-lit, and clean, with an airport employee or two shuffling around in the background and a couple stragglers from our flight milling around waiting for their rides. "It's a real country," Matthew noted. "Yeah, and a pretty quiet one, too," I thought. This overwhelming impression of stillness, lack of movement, ended up being my dominant association with our time spent in Zimbabwe.
We met Karo outside and piled into her light pickup with our luggage for the trip to the guest house no the outskirts of Harare where we would spend the night. We spent that evening with a family of white Zimbabweans, a mother and her two grown children, and simply recounting their narrative as I understood it would take up several pages. Suffice to say that they were remarkable, warm people, who's resourceful capacities had been honed to the highest degree under a set of extraordinary circumstances. After dropping off our bags we headed out with Karo and Tristan, the son of the family, for a ride around Harare. As in the airport, I was amazed at how quiet Harare was. I came to Zimbabwe expecting to find a place as ruined as Mogadishu or as chaotic as Baghdad (or at least the falsifiable images of these places that I have) but found instead a faded, well-ordered, formerly bustling city whose life blood had been drained by a combination of population flight and economic freefall. As we drove Tristin shared his perspectives on current events and Zimbabwe's people. Shona's, the dominant tribal group in the country, are a peaceful people, he said. Zimbabwean's want Mugabe and ZANU-PF to leave, but they are not willing to further decimate their county by fighting a civil war. Though we did not see the poorest areas of the city, we felt safe the entire time, and despite the small number of remaining white Zimbabweans we arouse little to no special interest on the streets or in the flea market we visited where Matthew picked up a couple of batik prints.
We returned to our house for the night and when on a quick run around the neighborhood. Though the lack of lighting on the streets made finding our footing a bit tricky at times, the darkness allowed the stars to shine brilliantly, with the milky way clearly observable overhead. After the run Jess and I headed out with Tristan and one of the house helps to buy some scud, so-named after the first Gulf War, from a nearby corner store. We'd heard this home-grown brew of fermented mealy meal had the taste of bile and consistency of vomit, and were anxious to see for ourselves if it could really be that bad. We found out later that evening, after a fantastic meal of steak and potatoes, that no, it wasn't quite that bad, but disgusting nonetheless. After chugging around a quarter of a gallon of the stuff I felt full more than anything else--the mealy meal kind of expands in your stomach, and the bile-ish tang is fairly unpleasant. Having killed the scud we settled down on the outside patio to listen to Tristan and his siter recount stories of life in Zimbabwe. We learned that the government had just discontinued the official currency the day before, which had been essentially been inflating so quickly that they could not run the presses fast enough to generate any revenue. It creates a bizarre set of incentives when the government tells the market that they are only allowed to trade in such a currency, with a small number of exceptions, and Tristin was happy to regale us with tales of his black market exploits. Until that week, just about everyone had been required to pay salaries, charge prices, and make purchases using zim dollars. If you broke the rules you could end up in prison or have your business expropriated, something that had happened to far too many people over the last several years. My favorite story was of Tristan changing of a couple truck beds of zim dollars for a suitcase of USD. We learned a bit about the timing of these exchanges as well. Apparently the government would give the presses a break over the weekends, but the hyper-inflationary cycle would begin again in earnest on Monday. If you changed your zim at the beginning of the week you might do all right, but if you held on to it till Friday you could lose a fortune. We'd also been surprised to see BMWs and Mercedes around Harare. According to Tristan many of the officials in the Finance Ministry had grown fabulously wealthy buying outrageous amounts of zim on the black market with USD, and then changing that zim back to USD at the official, criminally-overvalued rate that only the elites had access to.
We retired for the evening full of steak, potatoes, scud, and beer, and got an early start back to the airport the next morning for our trip to Victoria Falls. Our brief sojourn in Harare hadn't felt like nearly long enough, and I would have loved to have stayed for longer chatting a bit more with Zimbabweans in the city about their lives under ZANU and hope for the future. Yet with such a short amount of time at our disposal we had to do the best we could. Victoria Falls is supposedly one of the more impressive scenes that one can see in nature, certainly one of the more incredible waterfalls, and we were eager to visit for ourselves. Perhaps the most informative conversation of my time in Zim came out of our flight there, as well, when I set next to a young guy about my age named Cain who had completed his Computer Science degree in Bulowayo and now worked for an IT company in Harare. As he introduced himself I marveled internally at what a testimony it is to the resilience of Zimbabwe's people and economy that an enterprise that does tech audits for domestic firms could have possibly continued to operate over the years. It hadn't been east, he said. Throughout 2008 the company, which had been legally obligated to pay its employees in zim, had opted instead to pay with foodstuffs imported from its South African partner organization, if it paid at all, and had taken IOUs from trusted clients or accepted bartered goods as payment rather than cash. We spoke of Western perceptions of Zimbabwe, and I told him how surprised I'd been by what I'd encountered so far. I asked what he thought of the MDC and recent events, and he expressed optimism that things would get better. He hoped that the U.S. would support the lifting of economic sanctions sooner or later, which in his view only served to punish helpless Zimbabweans while entrenching ZANU and undermining the MDC's economic reform agenda (the MDC has at least nominal control of economic and social service ministries since ZANU-PF grudgingly accepted a power-sharing agreement). Cain was sharp, kind, well-spoken, apparently quite resourceful, and a generally a personification of all I'd encountered that was positive in Zimbabwe in under 24 hours. Hopefully men and women like him will have a voice in how their country is run in the years to come. From what we could see and the conversations I've had since getting back to South Africa is seems that Zim is at a crossroads right now, and nobody is really sure how things will pan out. If I took nothing else away from our short stay around Harare it was that it is easy to create caricatures in your mind of what a place is or isn't, but that human contact with people outside the political melee or media filters can totally reinvent your perspective.
The phrase "make a plan" came up repeatedly in these conversations, and embodies the enterprising spirit of the people who have scraped by in Zimbabwe under the most adverse set of circumstances. When times get tough strong people get tougher, and employ as much creative energy as they can muster to the business of getting by. No time for self-sympathy or regrets: plan, execute, live, repeat. Of course this only gets you so far, and the tragic reality of Zimbabwe's economic collapse is that thousands of people have gone hungry, died from cholera, been arbitrarily imprisoned, or fled the country. It is also true that much of the hard currency and tradeable commodities that keep the informal economy running flow in from the Zimbabwean diaspora abroad. Yet where I expected to find utter devesation I was humbled and inspired to encounter people getting along by making the most of things as they were, rather than dwelling on how they wished them to be, hopefully anticipating a brighter future.
The Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, where we would stay for the next several nights, was a surprise as well. It had clearly been built during better times, with only a sparse showing of tourists and African business men to be found on a lovely, sprawling complex that meant to accommodate a bustling crowd of safari-goers and vacationers. Set right up against a waterhole in the Zimbabwean outback, the lodge is a wonderful collision of the wild and the cultivated: warthog root around in the grass, baboons troop across open roads, and elephants frequently wander into town. Yet the Lodge--an expansive central hotel with soaring thatched ceilings and a restaurant, pool, and bar, with guest houses scattered around the rest of the premises--is clean and tastefully-decorated, the staff are friendly and courteous, and the selections at the restaurant are excellent. This is where we would make our home base for the next several days of exploring the region. Over the course of a couple days we went "walking with the lions," visited Victoria Falls on both the Zimbabwe and Zambia side, went on a jeep safari in the Chobe game reserve, Botswana, and drank as varied a selection of southern African beers are we could manage. We were all agreed that Windhoek beer, a brew from Namibia, is the best the region has to offer. In my opinion Black Label, Zimbabwe ("America's lusty *something something* beer") came in second.
I think I speak for the three of as well when I say that our time spent at the Falls was the highlight of our time spent at the lodge. The water is higher now than it's been in several decades, and it is simply awe-inspiring to stand so close to nearly 500,000 cubic feet of water per second thundering into a massive 100 meter-deep trench. Visually I suppose the Falls would have been even more impressive during a lower-flow season, since the mist from the water pouring into the gorge obscures any long view one might otherwise have, but the trade off is that the experience of standing on the cliffs opposite the river is absolutely thrilling. The Zambezi river, which creates the natural border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, flows along through the Southern African plain until it tumbles abruptly into a massive gorge. From the air the gorge looks like what you might expect if God came down and made a cut in the grassy plain that the river flows through--it is an incredibly wide, unanticipated fissure in an otherwise quite flat landscape. Matthew speculated at the time, and I have since confirmed via Wikipedia, that the gorge is the result of the Zambezi steadily eroding away softer rock in the plain, in this case sandstone. Standing at a distance of a hundred meters or so from the falls inspired me to dwell on the power and majesty of God, and made me wonder if this was the kind of thing John struggled to describe in his visions of the end of the world set out in Revelation. Columns of water spray into the air before free falling to the gorge below, and tsunami waves dance about on the verge of that massive chasm, seemingly reaching for the opposite side but halted by vast, empty space. You have to yell to hear above the incessant thunder, and spray rockets up from the floor of the gorge as "inverted rain," stretching hundreds of meters into the sky before falling to the ground where you stand in a torrential downpour. As mentioned above you cannot see the falls when you are close, unless a gust of wind temporarily moves the mist in such a way that you catch a glimpse of the incredible span of water seemingly stretching toward the horizon on either side of you. On the Zimbabwe side Matthew and I climbed out onto a rocky outcropping with no fencing, as near to the thundering torrent as we could get, and stood for several moments in silence, arms and faces stretched upwards, taking in the moment. "He is mighty indeed," Matthew said, before we turned and stepped back into the gentle heat of the day. I feel so alive when I have a moving encounter with nature: not only does my spirit rejoice in the presence of something that speaks to me about who God is, but for that short period of time everything else that I am back home, and all the distractions and clutter of daily life get crowded out as I lose myself in the sheer sensory thrill of returning to the wilderness.
After just a couple long days and short nights it was time to return to Cape Town, where I would say goodbye to Jess and Matthew before rejoining my fellow rhodies. It's time to close this post, so I'll stay brief on the narrative of our border crossing experience and try to distill that time down to lessons learned:
-When using foreign currencies in country's where you don't know the exchange rate always carry small bills.
-Never tip a group of guys by giving one guy a lot of money and saying to the other two "split that up between the three of you." Those guys who took our photo on the Zim/Zam bridge crossing are probably still fightinging with each other of Matthew's 100R.
-Stay on your toes at backwater border crossings, but don't jump too quickly to the conclusion that border guards are trying to hassle you when they ask you for money--sometimes those visa fees are legit. I didn't make any friends when I all but told the Zambia border guards that I thought they were hussling us when they charged 50 USD for a transit visa...
-In Africa you often hear the phrase "Africa time," which generally means that schedules run 45 mins to a couple hours behind. Apparently this does not apply at airports. We showed up to the departures lobby three minutes after the first bording call in the Livingstone airport and found a scowling customs agent, irritated gate attendant, and angry stewardesses waving us on board as we ran out onto the tarmac. We were basically the last people to board every flight we took over our four days of travel :-P
As we sat at a pub in the JoBurg airport, watching our flight to Cape Town board while we finished up a late lunch and a couple pints, I felt satisfied with all that we'd seen, yet knew that those were places I might like to return to for much more time in the future. There are different ways to travel: widely verses intimately, on the cheap versus luxuriously, for business, pleasure, scholarship, or some combination of the three. The important thing, I guess, is to know why you go and be clear in your own mind about what you can accomplish given your chosen medium and the time available. In that sense I was satisfied to have seen and done about as much as anyone could reasonably hope for in four days, and richly blessed by the time to connect with my cousin. Yet it was everything that I just barely touched, the beauty and stark contradictions of a country wracked by turmoil but with so much to offer, that made me hope to return in the future.
As we were getting ready to take our bill and board our flight Matthew asked our waitress if there was anyway he could pay her for the Windhoek tumblers that we'd had our pints in. She glanced around furtively, then leaned in and, with a knowing look and quiet voice said "I will make a plan for you." "I love these people," I thought, as we got up to leave, tumblers tucked in our backpacks. Hopefully it won't be too long before I visit again.
After failing repeatedly to connect with my cousin Matthew Cooper late last week in Cape Town we finally managed to connect over gchat Monday night. My orders we to be waiting for him and Jess at the British Air counter at 6.30 am the following morning, ready to head fly to Zimbabwe until Friday.
After a bleary-eyed joyful reunion in the Cape Town airport we got right down to logistics: Jess and I had our tickets booked, but a mysterious anti-flight booking robot had deleted Matthew's registration the night before and the BA flight to Johannesburg, where we would catch our plane to Zimbabwe (here on referred to as Zim), was booked solid. A couple phone calls later Matthew found himself another flight, Jess and I only barely managed to get tickets on ours, and we reunited three hours later in Joburg. From there we had half an hour to pick up our boarding passes, change South African Rand into USD, clear customs, and in Matthew's case make a series of calls to his coworkers back in Dubai. The clearest mental image of that time was of Jess and I standing at the boarding gate pleading with the attendants to wait for Matthew--"he'll be here in 30 seconds, I swear!" "I'll give him one more minute"--and being elated to see him come hustling around the corner and run down the escalator just in time for us to make the final bus that would take us to our plane on the tarmac.
Sigh... So we'd made the flight to Zimbabwe. As I settled back into my seat to sleep off the drag of the early morning I wondered what we would find there. If you've been reading your African news these day you'd get a pretty bleak picture: 230 million percent inflation in 2008, the collapse of public services infrastructure, government-sponsored violence against white Zimbabweans, rigged elections, and the MDC's painful struggle with Mugabe's ZANU-PF have shaped the perceptions of outside Western observers, and I was no exception. I had this idea of our plane lurching to a halt on a pock-marked runway across from a rusty, tin-roofed terminal, and from there working our way through Harare in an armored jeep, weaving our way around burning tires and hordes of rioting, cholera-stricken civilians.
I was surprised, therefore, by the scene we encountered at the Zimbabwe airport, our first introduction to the country. The airport looked like it had been remodeled within the last 5 years or so. It was airy and clean, with stone paneling on the floor and even an advertisement posted by a company that may or may not have still been in business. It was also the only airport I'd ever been to where the citizens' line for entry was longer than for foreign visitors. We paid our entry fees in USD without any hassle, then proceeded to head out into the lobby where our friend, Karo, had planned to pick us up. The arrivals area was quiet, dimly-lit, and clean, with an airport employee or two shuffling around in the background and a couple stragglers from our flight milling around waiting for their rides. "It's a real country," Matthew noted. "Yeah, and a pretty quiet one, too," I thought. This overwhelming impression of stillness, lack of movement, ended up being my dominant association with our time spent in Zimbabwe.
We met Karo outside and piled into her light pickup with our luggage for the trip to the guest house no the outskirts of Harare where we would spend the night. We spent that evening with a family of white Zimbabweans, a mother and her two grown children, and simply recounting their narrative as I understood it would take up several pages. Suffice to say that they were remarkable, warm people, who's resourceful capacities had been honed to the highest degree under a set of extraordinary circumstances. After dropping off our bags we headed out with Karo and Tristan, the son of the family, for a ride around Harare. As in the airport, I was amazed at how quiet Harare was. I came to Zimbabwe expecting to find a place as ruined as Mogadishu or as chaotic as Baghdad (or at least the falsifiable images of these places that I have) but found instead a faded, well-ordered, formerly bustling city whose life blood had been drained by a combination of population flight and economic freefall. As we drove Tristin shared his perspectives on current events and Zimbabwe's people. Shona's, the dominant tribal group in the country, are a peaceful people, he said. Zimbabwean's want Mugabe and ZANU-PF to leave, but they are not willing to further decimate their county by fighting a civil war. Though we did not see the poorest areas of the city, we felt safe the entire time, and despite the small number of remaining white Zimbabweans we arouse little to no special interest on the streets or in the flea market we visited where Matthew picked up a couple of batik prints.
We returned to our house for the night and when on a quick run around the neighborhood. Though the lack of lighting on the streets made finding our footing a bit tricky at times, the darkness allowed the stars to shine brilliantly, with the milky way clearly observable overhead. After the run Jess and I headed out with Tristan and one of the house helps to buy some scud, so-named after the first Gulf War, from a nearby corner store. We'd heard this home-grown brew of fermented mealy meal had the taste of bile and consistency of vomit, and were anxious to see for ourselves if it could really be that bad. We found out later that evening, after a fantastic meal of steak and potatoes, that no, it wasn't quite that bad, but disgusting nonetheless. After chugging around a quarter of a gallon of the stuff I felt full more than anything else--the mealy meal kind of expands in your stomach, and the bile-ish tang is fairly unpleasant. Having killed the scud we settled down on the outside patio to listen to Tristan and his siter recount stories of life in Zimbabwe. We learned that the government had just discontinued the official currency the day before, which had been essentially been inflating so quickly that they could not run the presses fast enough to generate any revenue. It creates a bizarre set of incentives when the government tells the market that they are only allowed to trade in such a currency, with a small number of exceptions, and Tristin was happy to regale us with tales of his black market exploits. Until that week, just about everyone had been required to pay salaries, charge prices, and make purchases using zim dollars. If you broke the rules you could end up in prison or have your business expropriated, something that had happened to far too many people over the last several years. My favorite story was of Tristan changing of a couple truck beds of zim dollars for a suitcase of USD. We learned a bit about the timing of these exchanges as well. Apparently the government would give the presses a break over the weekends, but the hyper-inflationary cycle would begin again in earnest on Monday. If you changed your zim at the beginning of the week you might do all right, but if you held on to it till Friday you could lose a fortune. We'd also been surprised to see BMWs and Mercedes around Harare. According to Tristan many of the officials in the Finance Ministry had grown fabulously wealthy buying outrageous amounts of zim on the black market with USD, and then changing that zim back to USD at the official, criminally-overvalued rate that only the elites had access to.
We retired for the evening full of steak, potatoes, scud, and beer, and got an early start back to the airport the next morning for our trip to Victoria Falls. Our brief sojourn in Harare hadn't felt like nearly long enough, and I would have loved to have stayed for longer chatting a bit more with Zimbabweans in the city about their lives under ZANU and hope for the future. Yet with such a short amount of time at our disposal we had to do the best we could. Victoria Falls is supposedly one of the more impressive scenes that one can see in nature, certainly one of the more incredible waterfalls, and we were eager to visit for ourselves. Perhaps the most informative conversation of my time in Zim came out of our flight there, as well, when I set next to a young guy about my age named Cain who had completed his Computer Science degree in Bulowayo and now worked for an IT company in Harare. As he introduced himself I marveled internally at what a testimony it is to the resilience of Zimbabwe's people and economy that an enterprise that does tech audits for domestic firms could have possibly continued to operate over the years. It hadn't been east, he said. Throughout 2008 the company, which had been legally obligated to pay its employees in zim, had opted instead to pay with foodstuffs imported from its South African partner organization, if it paid at all, and had taken IOUs from trusted clients or accepted bartered goods as payment rather than cash. We spoke of Western perceptions of Zimbabwe, and I told him how surprised I'd been by what I'd encountered so far. I asked what he thought of the MDC and recent events, and he expressed optimism that things would get better. He hoped that the U.S. would support the lifting of economic sanctions sooner or later, which in his view only served to punish helpless Zimbabweans while entrenching ZANU and undermining the MDC's economic reform agenda (the MDC has at least nominal control of economic and social service ministries since ZANU-PF grudgingly accepted a power-sharing agreement). Cain was sharp, kind, well-spoken, apparently quite resourceful, and a generally a personification of all I'd encountered that was positive in Zimbabwe in under 24 hours. Hopefully men and women like him will have a voice in how their country is run in the years to come. From what we could see and the conversations I've had since getting back to South Africa is seems that Zim is at a crossroads right now, and nobody is really sure how things will pan out. If I took nothing else away from our short stay around Harare it was that it is easy to create caricatures in your mind of what a place is or isn't, but that human contact with people outside the political melee or media filters can totally reinvent your perspective.
The phrase "make a plan" came up repeatedly in these conversations, and embodies the enterprising spirit of the people who have scraped by in Zimbabwe under the most adverse set of circumstances. When times get tough strong people get tougher, and employ as much creative energy as they can muster to the business of getting by. No time for self-sympathy or regrets: plan, execute, live, repeat. Of course this only gets you so far, and the tragic reality of Zimbabwe's economic collapse is that thousands of people have gone hungry, died from cholera, been arbitrarily imprisoned, or fled the country. It is also true that much of the hard currency and tradeable commodities that keep the informal economy running flow in from the Zimbabwean diaspora abroad. Yet where I expected to find utter devesation I was humbled and inspired to encounter people getting along by making the most of things as they were, rather than dwelling on how they wished them to be, hopefully anticipating a brighter future.
The Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, where we would stay for the next several nights, was a surprise as well. It had clearly been built during better times, with only a sparse showing of tourists and African business men to be found on a lovely, sprawling complex that meant to accommodate a bustling crowd of safari-goers and vacationers. Set right up against a waterhole in the Zimbabwean outback, the lodge is a wonderful collision of the wild and the cultivated: warthog root around in the grass, baboons troop across open roads, and elephants frequently wander into town. Yet the Lodge--an expansive central hotel with soaring thatched ceilings and a restaurant, pool, and bar, with guest houses scattered around the rest of the premises--is clean and tastefully-decorated, the staff are friendly and courteous, and the selections at the restaurant are excellent. This is where we would make our home base for the next several days of exploring the region. Over the course of a couple days we went "walking with the lions," visited Victoria Falls on both the Zimbabwe and Zambia side, went on a jeep safari in the Chobe game reserve, Botswana, and drank as varied a selection of southern African beers are we could manage. We were all agreed that Windhoek beer, a brew from Namibia, is the best the region has to offer. In my opinion Black Label, Zimbabwe ("America's lusty *something something* beer") came in second.
I think I speak for the three of as well when I say that our time spent at the Falls was the highlight of our time spent at the lodge. The water is higher now than it's been in several decades, and it is simply awe-inspiring to stand so close to nearly 500,000 cubic feet of water per second thundering into a massive 100 meter-deep trench. Visually I suppose the Falls would have been even more impressive during a lower-flow season, since the mist from the water pouring into the gorge obscures any long view one might otherwise have, but the trade off is that the experience of standing on the cliffs opposite the river is absolutely thrilling. The Zambezi river, which creates the natural border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, flows along through the Southern African plain until it tumbles abruptly into a massive gorge. From the air the gorge looks like what you might expect if God came down and made a cut in the grassy plain that the river flows through--it is an incredibly wide, unanticipated fissure in an otherwise quite flat landscape. Matthew speculated at the time, and I have since confirmed via Wikipedia, that the gorge is the result of the Zambezi steadily eroding away softer rock in the plain, in this case sandstone. Standing at a distance of a hundred meters or so from the falls inspired me to dwell on the power and majesty of God, and made me wonder if this was the kind of thing John struggled to describe in his visions of the end of the world set out in Revelation. Columns of water spray into the air before free falling to the gorge below, and tsunami waves dance about on the verge of that massive chasm, seemingly reaching for the opposite side but halted by vast, empty space. You have to yell to hear above the incessant thunder, and spray rockets up from the floor of the gorge as "inverted rain," stretching hundreds of meters into the sky before falling to the ground where you stand in a torrential downpour. As mentioned above you cannot see the falls when you are close, unless a gust of wind temporarily moves the mist in such a way that you catch a glimpse of the incredible span of water seemingly stretching toward the horizon on either side of you. On the Zimbabwe side Matthew and I climbed out onto a rocky outcropping with no fencing, as near to the thundering torrent as we could get, and stood for several moments in silence, arms and faces stretched upwards, taking in the moment. "He is mighty indeed," Matthew said, before we turned and stepped back into the gentle heat of the day. I feel so alive when I have a moving encounter with nature: not only does my spirit rejoice in the presence of something that speaks to me about who God is, but for that short period of time everything else that I am back home, and all the distractions and clutter of daily life get crowded out as I lose myself in the sheer sensory thrill of returning to the wilderness.
After just a couple long days and short nights it was time to return to Cape Town, where I would say goodbye to Jess and Matthew before rejoining my fellow rhodies. It's time to close this post, so I'll stay brief on the narrative of our border crossing experience and try to distill that time down to lessons learned:
-When using foreign currencies in country's where you don't know the exchange rate always carry small bills.
-Never tip a group of guys by giving one guy a lot of money and saying to the other two "split that up between the three of you." Those guys who took our photo on the Zim/Zam bridge crossing are probably still fightinging with each other of Matthew's 100R.
-Stay on your toes at backwater border crossings, but don't jump too quickly to the conclusion that border guards are trying to hassle you when they ask you for money--sometimes those visa fees are legit. I didn't make any friends when I all but told the Zambia border guards that I thought they were hussling us when they charged 50 USD for a transit visa...
-In Africa you often hear the phrase "Africa time," which generally means that schedules run 45 mins to a couple hours behind. Apparently this does not apply at airports. We showed up to the departures lobby three minutes after the first bording call in the Livingstone airport and found a scowling customs agent, irritated gate attendant, and angry stewardesses waving us on board as we ran out onto the tarmac. We were basically the last people to board every flight we took over our four days of travel :-P
As we sat at a pub in the JoBurg airport, watching our flight to Cape Town board while we finished up a late lunch and a couple pints, I felt satisfied with all that we'd seen, yet knew that those were places I might like to return to for much more time in the future. There are different ways to travel: widely verses intimately, on the cheap versus luxuriously, for business, pleasure, scholarship, or some combination of the three. The important thing, I guess, is to know why you go and be clear in your own mind about what you can accomplish given your chosen medium and the time available. In that sense I was satisfied to have seen and done about as much as anyone could reasonably hope for in four days, and richly blessed by the time to connect with my cousin. Yet it was everything that I just barely touched, the beauty and stark contradictions of a country wracked by turmoil but with so much to offer, that made me hope to return in the future.
As we were getting ready to take our bill and board our flight Matthew asked our waitress if there was anyway he could pay her for the Windhoek tumblers that we'd had our pints in. She glanced around furtively, then leaned in and, with a knowing look and quiet voice said "I will make a plan for you." "I love these people," I thought, as we got up to leave, tumblers tucked in our backpacks. Hopefully it won't be too long before I visit again.
Monday, April 13, 2009
a night on table mountain
It's easy to see why people who come to Cape Town are almost always enamored with it. The city's palm-lined boulevards, vibey shops situated amongst beautiful colonial architecture, and colorful blend of people from all over the world lie right up against the slopes of Table Mountain, which stands like a majestic rocky guardian looking over its inhabitants. Of course you can over-romanticize a place--in addition to being beautiful Cape Town is a place of intense contrasts, and was one of the focal points for the decades-long struggle of black South Africans against the apartheid regime.
This weekend we had an opportunity to experience Cape Town from multiple angles at the same time, when we spent the night on top of Table Mountain with Beyond Expectations Environmental Project (BEEP). BEEP is an ogranization that an amazing man named Lindela started with several friends as an outreach to children in the shanty towns around Cape Town. Long story short, during Apartheid the shanties were places where dislocated and oppressed blacks were placed so that they could be controlled and kept out of sight by/from the Cape Town elite. Unsurprisngly, these places have continued to exist as zones of concentrated poverty and social disfunction, brought about by the crushing burdens of dislocation, discrimation, and poverty. Lindela caught a vision while working as a tour guide to take young people from these towns up on to the mountain, a sacred place for centuries to the Cape's native inhabitants, to confront the buried pain and high-stakes decisions of life in the shanties. Over the course of several excursions the children become leaders who guide their peers on new trips in the future. Lindela and his co-leaders are very much in a counselling/leading role throughout, their goal is to help the kids flourish in their gifts as they interact with each other.
This weekend we had an opportunity to experience Cape Town from multiple angles at the same time, when we spent the night on top of Table Mountain with Beyond Expectations Environmental Project (BEEP). BEEP is an ogranization that an amazing man named Lindela started with several friends as an outreach to children in the shanty towns around Cape Town. Long story short, during Apartheid the shanties were places where dislocated and oppressed blacks were placed so that they could be controlled and kept out of sight by/from the Cape Town elite. Unsurprisngly, these places have continued to exist as zones of concentrated poverty and social disfunction, brought about by the crushing burdens of dislocation, discrimation, and poverty. Lindela caught a vision while working as a tour guide to take young people from these towns up on to the mountain, a sacred place for centuries to the Cape's native inhabitants, to confront the buried pain and high-stakes decisions of life in the shanties. Over the course of several excursions the children become leaders who guide their peers on new trips in the future. Lindela and his co-leaders are very much in a counselling/leading role throughout, their goal is to help the kids flourish in their gifts as they interact with each other.
This weekend, however, we were the childrens' posy, and they were our guides up the mountain. There is inevitably some awkward friction when the predominately-white and absolutely privileged meet the black and disempowered, but with each step up the trail we warmed to each other, and by the time we reached the cabins up top it felt entirely natural to drop our packs and get right into a game of soccer. Like in Rwanda, I felt that there are some bridges that can be crossed in a moment, other that can be crossed in a couple of hours, others that take years, and some that simply don't exist. Yet when you back away from the goal of changing a young person's life in two days and simply focus on enjoying the moment for what it is you find that there's meaning enough in a game of soccer or cricket, shared tuna sandwiches, a walk along the bluffs, or scrubbing up dinner dishes together after a long day on the trial.
It was the first Easter that I've spent away from church, but the joy of being out with the kids in nature's cathedral was more than I could have asked for. Christ says that he came that we would have life and life to the fullest, not just in the life to come but welling up from within us today. I pray that BEEP will help foster rich fruit in these kids' minds and hearts for generations to come.
South Africa has been a joy so far, and I am looking forward to experiencing more of this place when I return from Zimbabwe next Saturday. Tomorrow morning I'm off to Harare and Victoria Falls with my cousin Matthew, who has generously offered to finance my share of the trip. So excited! Pray for safety, sound decision making, and meaningful interactions with Zimbabweans even as we seek to stay safe in the midst of a fairly volatile situation.
I would have liked more time to journal, but my friend Akosua needs her mac back--thanks for the mac, Kos!
Abrazos,
Aaron
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
an update for the panel
This morning, as I am just hours away from leaving for Cape Town, I finished this email that I wrote for the members of my selection committee. Some reflections on my academic journey, as well as a brief synopsis of what I'll be up to this summer. Life moves FAST FAST FAST! Unbelievable, man. To those of you reading still, I'll try and post something in the way of an update or two from Africa, and may send out an email as well (or I might just do one of those and copy it to the other!).
Much love,
Aaron
----
Dear Pat and Annette,
Greetings from Oxford! It's been a long time since you've heard anything from me so I thought I'd drop you a note to let you know what I'm doing now and what I've been up to since you last saw me. I don't know if either of you is still in contact with the other members of the selection panel, but if you have those emails and wouldn't mind either forwarding this message on or passing them to me I'd really appreciate it.
It's amazing to think that Hillary term has already come and gone, and that I'm only a little more than a month away from taking exams for my MSc of Applied Statistics. I've been on an interesting road academically since you we last saw each other in November 2007. Here's a summary:
It was my initial exposure to economics and political science that got me emotionally and intellectually engaged at university, as I realized that there was this thing called social science that could be used to tackle questions of poverty and injustice. This interest motivated my public policy and development studies at Stanford and led me to Peru to study rural microfinance. As I was in Peru drafting my Rhodes scholarship essay the most natural course choice was Development Studies, and when I needed to choose my internship in D.C. I lobbied for a position at Treasury, hoping for a first-hand view of how the U.S. leverages foreign economic policy in pursuit of development objectives. After a six month period of time in which I flew into Lima in June and out in September, completed my field work, won the scholarship, finished my internship at Treasury, and returned home in December, I was less convinced than I'd been before about continuing to pursue Development as an academic discipline. My motivations for seeking a Rhodes--to somehow play a part in promoting social and economic justice in the world--were unchanged, but I was now uncertain about the best means as I sifted through my application packet and considered what course I would apply for. It seemed to me after several months on the ground in Peru and on the 5th floor of Treasury that (a) economic development is an organic process that occurs largely independently of any concerted policy effort and (b) that to the extent policies matter, the domestic arena is far more important than the international. Though I still believe in much of the work that the Treasury does through technical economic/financial assistance, underwriting small-business lending in Latin America, and helping determine the American position at the World Bank and IMF, I was no longer convinced that a career in aid of foreign economic policy was the most direct means of pursuing the passions that got me interested in economic development in the first place.
I wasn't quite sure what I would do instead, though. I waffled for a while, and settled on the MSc of Global Governance and Diplomacy for a time. That lasted until I met up with Annette for coffee back at Stanford over the winter and she asked "Global Governance? What, uh, does that do?" Realizing that I had even less of an answer for that question than I had for Development Studies was a wake-up call, and I started second-guessing myself again. That's about the time I began considering Statistics. I've always been pretty decent at math, and the courses that I'd enjoyed the most at Stanford and had been the most math-intensive. Though stats has no "direct" application to the topics I'd dedicated myself to studying in undergrad I knew that it would be a rigorous course that would challenge me intellectually and be widely applicable to just about any field I would one day choose to enter. I didn't, and still don't, have much clarity about what the future holds, but I do believe that the world requires individuals who are developed in their talents, capable in their field, and desire deeply to do good.
So in late February, after I'd been accepted to Global Governance I filed a new application for a spot in the one-year MSc of Applied Statistics, and I've been very pleased with the choice. It's been challenging and I've had to learn a lot as I've gone along, but I feel that the course is helping me to become a more rigorous thinker in addition to equipping me with basic skills in data analysis. I'm trying to sort out a dissertation topic at the moment. Initially I thought that I would help a researcher here at the Centre for the Environment develop mortality models for rainforest trees, but it turns out that the innovative methodology that he was considering is not well-suited to the problem we're trying to solve, and several papers have already implemented the best alternative, logistic regression modeling. I'm also investigating a project with Opportunity International, a microfinance lender that is in the middle of a pioneering impact assessment study. The catch with this project, however, is that Opportunity will likely prefer any results at this stage to be in-house only! So we'll see: at the moment I'm very much on the market for a project with an interesting question and good data.
There's the brief on what I've been up to academically. Next year I'll read for the MSc of Environmental Change and Management, where I'll be most interested in questions of managing population pressure on the environment.
As far as my Oxford experience has gone so far, by and large it's been great. I ended up in Worcester College, which has lovely grounds, good food, very affordable housing, a lively MCR, and the most ostentatious chapel that I've seen so far. In addition to academics I rowed in Christ Church Regatta for Michaelmas Term and boxed during Hillary, which I will continue with in Trinity. I've enjoyed the company of good friends since arriving, especially that of my fellow Rhodies, and am living with Joe O'Shea (1st year from Florida) and Sherif Girgis (1st year from Delaware) in a flat we're renting in Jericho next year. Though I haven't traveled quite as much as several of my colleagues I've been taking advantage of my relative proximity to Africa: this winter I spent 5 weeks in Rwanda (email attached if you'd like to read a bit about that time) and am leaving this afternoon for a trip to Cape Town, South Africa, with the Rhodes Scholars South Africa Forum. I attend St Aldates Church, where I co-lead a men's small group and enjoy their tradition of intellectual and spiritual engagement with faith. This summer I will come back to the West Coast for two visits in June, one to see my little sister graduate and the other to attend a friend's wedding at Stanford, before coming back to Oxford to work on my dissertation and teach Politics and Economics through OxBridge in July. In August I will travel southern Europe with my little sister before returning to Oxford to finish and submit my statistics dissertation, and will visit Thailand with a good friend from high school in September before starting the new term.
Though weather occasionally gets me down and I struggle at times with my over-arching purpose for being here I'm enjoying this time of life immensely. Before I won the scholarship it seemed like such a lofty, all-surpassing achievement. Yet since I've arrived here I've been reminded that life continues on as usual, and that it is incumbent on me to make the most of the time at hand. In this more than anything I hope honor the faith you placed in me over a year ago: though I'm still seeking out my way through the future you can be confident that I am doing my best to live well and do right.
That Saturday in November was a beautiful day: there was something about returning to the city where I was born and to the area where I had grown up that was quite moving. I came back to a place that for me often symbolized limited possibilities, to walk through a door that opened to an even broader horizon. It was redemptive, in a way, and I'm thankful to you for being a part of that with me.
If you are inclined I would love to know a little bit about life on your end!
All the best,
Aaron Polhamus
Much love,
Aaron
----
Dear Pat and Annette,
Greetings from Oxford! It's been a long time since you've heard anything from me so I thought I'd drop you a note to let you know what I'm doing now and what I've been up to since you last saw me. I don't know if either of you is still in contact with the other members of the selection panel, but if you have those emails and wouldn't mind either forwarding this message on or passing them to me I'd really appreciate it.
It's amazing to think that Hillary term has already come and gone, and that I'm only a little more than a month away from taking exams for my MSc of Applied Statistics. I've been on an interesting road academically since you we last saw each other in November 2007. Here's a summary:
It was my initial exposure to economics and political science that got me emotionally and intellectually engaged at university, as I realized that there was this thing called social science that could be used to tackle questions of poverty and injustice. This interest motivated my public policy and development studies at Stanford and led me to Peru to study rural microfinance. As I was in Peru drafting my Rhodes scholarship essay the most natural course choice was Development Studies, and when I needed to choose my internship in D.C. I lobbied for a position at Treasury, hoping for a first-hand view of how the U.S. leverages foreign economic policy in pursuit of development objectives. After a six month period of time in which I flew into Lima in June and out in September, completed my field work, won the scholarship, finished my internship at Treasury, and returned home in December, I was less convinced than I'd been before about continuing to pursue Development as an academic discipline. My motivations for seeking a Rhodes--to somehow play a part in promoting social and economic justice in the world--were unchanged, but I was now uncertain about the best means as I sifted through my application packet and considered what course I would apply for. It seemed to me after several months on the ground in Peru and on the 5th floor of Treasury that (a) economic development is an organic process that occurs largely independently of any concerted policy effort and (b) that to the extent policies matter, the domestic arena is far more important than the international. Though I still believe in much of the work that the Treasury does through technical economic/financial assistance, underwriting small-business lending in Latin America, and helping determine the American position at the World Bank and IMF, I was no longer convinced that a career in aid of foreign economic policy was the most direct means of pursuing the passions that got me interested in economic development in the first place.
I wasn't quite sure what I would do instead, though. I waffled for a while, and settled on the MSc of Global Governance and Diplomacy for a time. That lasted until I met up with Annette for coffee back at Stanford over the winter and she asked "Global Governance? What, uh, does that do?" Realizing that I had even less of an answer for that question than I had for Development Studies was a wake-up call, and I started second-guessing myself again. That's about the time I began considering Statistics. I've always been pretty decent at math, and the courses that I'd enjoyed the most at Stanford and had been the most math-intensive. Though stats has no "direct" application to the topics I'd dedicated myself to studying in undergrad I knew that it would be a rigorous course that would challenge me intellectually and be widely applicable to just about any field I would one day choose to enter. I didn't, and still don't, have much clarity about what the future holds, but I do believe that the world requires individuals who are developed in their talents, capable in their field, and desire deeply to do good.
So in late February, after I'd been accepted to Global Governance I filed a new application for a spot in the one-year MSc of Applied Statistics, and I've been very pleased with the choice. It's been challenging and I've had to learn a lot as I've gone along, but I feel that the course is helping me to become a more rigorous thinker in addition to equipping me with basic skills in data analysis. I'm trying to sort out a dissertation topic at the moment. Initially I thought that I would help a researcher here at the Centre for the Environment develop mortality models for rainforest trees, but it turns out that the innovative methodology that he was considering is not well-suited to the problem we're trying to solve, and several papers have already implemented the best alternative, logistic regression modeling. I'm also investigating a project with Opportunity International, a microfinance lender that is in the middle of a pioneering impact assessment study. The catch with this project, however, is that Opportunity will likely prefer any results at this stage to be in-house only! So we'll see: at the moment I'm very much on the market for a project with an interesting question and good data.
There's the brief on what I've been up to academically. Next year I'll read for the MSc of Environmental Change and Management, where I'll be most interested in questions of managing population pressure on the environment.
As far as my Oxford experience has gone so far, by and large it's been great. I ended up in Worcester College, which has lovely grounds, good food, very affordable housing, a lively MCR, and the most ostentatious chapel that I've seen so far. In addition to academics I rowed in Christ Church Regatta for Michaelmas Term and boxed during Hillary, which I will continue with in Trinity. I've enjoyed the company of good friends since arriving, especially that of my fellow Rhodies, and am living with Joe O'Shea (1st year from Florida) and Sherif Girgis (1st year from Delaware) in a flat we're renting in Jericho next year. Though I haven't traveled quite as much as several of my colleagues I've been taking advantage of my relative proximity to Africa: this winter I spent 5 weeks in Rwanda (email attached if you'd like to read a bit about that time) and am leaving this afternoon for a trip to Cape Town, South Africa, with the Rhodes Scholars South Africa Forum. I attend St Aldates Church, where I co-lead a men's small group and enjoy their tradition of intellectual and spiritual engagement with faith. This summer I will come back to the West Coast for two visits in June, one to see my little sister graduate and the other to attend a friend's wedding at Stanford, before coming back to Oxford to work on my dissertation and teach Politics and Economics through OxBridge in July. In August I will travel southern Europe with my little sister before returning to Oxford to finish and submit my statistics dissertation, and will visit Thailand with a good friend from high school in September before starting the new term.
Though weather occasionally gets me down and I struggle at times with my over-arching purpose for being here I'm enjoying this time of life immensely. Before I won the scholarship it seemed like such a lofty, all-surpassing achievement. Yet since I've arrived here I've been reminded that life continues on as usual, and that it is incumbent on me to make the most of the time at hand. In this more than anything I hope honor the faith you placed in me over a year ago: though I'm still seeking out my way through the future you can be confident that I am doing my best to live well and do right.
That Saturday in November was a beautiful day: there was something about returning to the city where I was born and to the area where I had grown up that was quite moving. I came back to a place that for me often symbolized limited possibilities, to walk through a door that opened to an even broader horizon. It was redemptive, in a way, and I'm thankful to you for being a part of that with me.
If you are inclined I would love to know a little bit about life on your end!
All the best,
Aaron Polhamus
Monday, February 16, 2009
on whining
Statistics is tough, and I've been moaning and groaning lately. Today in lab, as I was lamenting my misery, my friend Paulina said "Aaron, te quejas demasiado"--you whine too much.
Thanks for that, Paulina. I am continually amazed by my apparently limitless capacity for self sympathy and ingratitude. My gut reaction is to justify my bad behavior, but I think it's actually more constructive to pause and evaluate. No one forced me into this deal, after all....
The result of 5 seconds reflection? Whine less and work harder. A winning principle for life in general.
One month after Rwanda and I am fully acclimated in all the worst ways to this world of privilege. God can't pour into people who are prideful, unthankful, or whiny--they don't have the eyes to see what's going on or a pure desire to participate in what He's doing.
Thanks for that, Paulina. I am continually amazed by my apparently limitless capacity for self sympathy and ingratitude. My gut reaction is to justify my bad behavior, but I think it's actually more constructive to pause and evaluate. No one forced me into this deal, after all....
The result of 5 seconds reflection? Whine less and work harder. A winning principle for life in general.
One month after Rwanda and I am fully acclimated in all the worst ways to this world of privilege. God can't pour into people who are prideful, unthankful, or whiny--they don't have the eyes to see what's going on or a pure desire to participate in what He's doing.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
original sin
It's past 2am here, and I just finished walking through a field in the snow. I had some things I needed to ask God about, and snow has a way of making calming me.
I've realized something tonight, or perhaps begun to understand something that important but that I can't quite articulate. Something like this has been going through me head:
Before my parents first hurt me,
Before my classmates cut me with their taunts,
Before my teachers yelled at me, killing wonder,
Before I first felt inadequacy over my first crush,
Before I learned what death was,
Before I silenced my dreams,
Before a captain's yell first stunned me,
And a hungry child's eyes first gutted me,
Before all this and more there was a love of self, a craving to be seen, admired, and even worshiped. This has been the source of more pain then any circumstance that has ever given me occasion for self-pity. As far as I can tell, to be born in sin means to be born placing ourselves before all others, elevating our importance and seeking affirmation of our significance. No one taught me to do this, it is simply the original state of my heart. Until I give God the place that I have up till now occupied it will be impossible for His new life to grow.
I think about the many tears that I have caused, and see now more clearly than ever that before all other reasons it is the sickness of my own heart that is to blame. Benjamin, Bethany, Mother, Father, I cannot give you enough. I don't what the way forward it from here, but I believe that it is through Jesus.
I've realized something tonight, or perhaps begun to understand something that important but that I can't quite articulate. Something like this has been going through me head:
Before my parents first hurt me,
Before my classmates cut me with their taunts,
Before my teachers yelled at me, killing wonder,
Before I first felt inadequacy over my first crush,
Before I learned what death was,
Before I silenced my dreams,
Before a captain's yell first stunned me,
And a hungry child's eyes first gutted me,
Before all this and more there was a love of self, a craving to be seen, admired, and even worshiped. This has been the source of more pain then any circumstance that has ever given me occasion for self-pity. As far as I can tell, to be born in sin means to be born placing ourselves before all others, elevating our importance and seeking affirmation of our significance. No one taught me to do this, it is simply the original state of my heart. Until I give God the place that I have up till now occupied it will be impossible for His new life to grow.
I think about the many tears that I have caused, and see now more clearly than ever that before all other reasons it is the sickness of my own heart that is to blame. Benjamin, Bethany, Mother, Father, I cannot give you enough. I don't what the way forward it from here, but I believe that it is through Jesus.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Post-Rwanda Novel
In case you missed it:
Disclaimer: This email is long. Probably much longer than most of you have enough time to read (it's also probably full or typos, for which I also apologize). So for a quick summary, check out the first and last couple paragraphs, and visit these facebook album links, which should be open to everyone, whether they have an account or not. They're incomplete, because I think I'm over my space limit, but they'll give you an idea. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2169792&l=98d72&id=223913 , http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2169844&l=9809e&id=223913
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Disclaimer: This email is long. Probably much longer than most of you have enough time to read (it's also probably full or typos, for which I also apologize). So for a quick summary, check out the first and last couple paragraphs, and visit these facebook album links, which should be open to everyone, whether they have an account or not. They're incomplete, because I think I'm over my space limit, but they'll give you an idea. http://www.facebook.com/album.
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Dear friends and family,
It's been a couple days since I arrived back on campus, and I've been putting off writing this update for long enough! Hopefully this email finds you well and happy, and apologies is this comes as more inbox clutter ;) I think this is the longest email I've ever sent…
Though I'd planned how I was going to make my connections from Oxford-London, London-Brussels, and Brussels-Kigali, I hadn't sorted out how I was going to move between destinations in London or Brussels. As a result, I spent the wee-hours of Thursday morning hoofing it from Victoria Station to King's Cross--not a short walk--and wandering around downtown Belgian on a cold afternoon wishing I read Dutch or French until I found a nice couple that walked me to the terminal where I purchased a train ticket to the airport. Will seriously consider paying 20 extra pounds to fly from Heathrow next time...
I arrived at Kigali International a day and a half after setting out from Oxford, bleary-eyed but well-nourished by a steady diet of in-flight meals, Belgian beer and chocolate, and peanut butter and nutella sandwiches. The first interaction I had with Rwanda, not including the customs officer who turned me around after I forgot to fill out my immigration form, was with the soldier who stopped me at the arrivals portal and asked me to chuck the plastic bags that I'd been carrying some snacks and books in. Though an inconvenience at the time, I would come to appreciate Rwanda's clean streets and highways largely undefiled by heaps of plastic waste. After tossing the bags I stepped out into the arrivals lounge to a sea of faces searching out their loved ones, business contacts, and hotel clients. I had just enough time to wonder what JP looked like before a shortish Rwandan man with a wide, kind smile and a gentle voice shouldered his way forward and took me by both hands. "You are Aaron?" JP introduced me to his girlfriend, Generous, who had also come along, and our driver, Jean-Batiste. After making our way out of the airport we turned off the paved highway on our way into Kigali, Rwanda's capital and by far its largest city, and drove up a red earth hill to the a church where JP planned to meet some members of his family. Soon they came walking down from the shanty town to greet us, JP's mother, his sisters Hadija and Mukechu (her nickname), and some younger men who could have been either his cousins or nephews. In Rwanda greetings between people, including family, tend to be a bit less effusive than in the States—close, firm embraces or kisses are generally rare—yet they are no less tender. As I watched them hold each others' arms at the elbows and gently touch their foreheads against one another's I was struck by the ceremony of the encounter. It was as if, for a brief moment, I was witness to a solemn ritual the recognized the bonds of family, celebrated their shared affection, and memorialized their common experience. Such a romantic image may very well be the product of nostalgic reflections mixed with the presently dreary British winter, causing me to exaggerate what I felt and thought at the time. All I have to remember the past is a couple hundred photos, a journal, and my constantly reinvented memories. But I don't think it's just that. As I watched JP's mother interact with her children I was amazed she could even support her own weight. She was thin and bent, with a deeply-creased face, perhaps a combination of age, care, and (for me) the unfathomable achievement of having birthed 11 children and raised 10. She swayed slightly as she walked, and barely spoke above a whisper. Yet when she turned to me and took me by the arms I looked into her eyes and saw a warm, clear recognition that said "welcome." Time can break one's body, but this woman's spirit still radiated strength and grace. Shortly thereafter we said goodbye, and Hadija and Mukechu joined us in the car for the trip back to Umuryango. After dropping Generous off on the other side of town the city rapidly faded away and we were soon winding our way through a valley of rice fields and grazing land, heavily interspersed with homes and petrol stations, and one large brick mill. Several minutes later we began climbing the green hills that rise up around the Kigali valley, passing plots of banana trees, coffee, tea, cassava, potatoes, and beans. I leaned back in my seat and watched the countryside pass by, acutely aware of the foreignness of this new place, yet excited by the prospect of discovery and happy to have arrived. After an hour of riding along mostly in silence, mostly broken by me asking "how do you say that in Kinyarwanda," we stopped for lunch at Tranquilité. This was the first place I ate at in Rwanda, and it turned out to be the best: about once every three or four days I would make the trip in Gitarama for a heaping plate of chips, rice, beans, meat, fanta, and an omelet. On that day, however, I had a tough time eating (like I said, exhausted yet well-nourished by my airport diet) and reassured JP that everything was delicious. We got back on the highway and after 15 more minutes turned onto a rutted dirt road. After driving through a small village of two convenience stores and a cluster of homes we arrived at the Umuryango site, situated on a hillside with a lovely overlook of the valley below and with a grove of banana trees rustling in the warm breeze next to the main building. The boys crowded round the car. I got out, and they silently crowded around me. "Amakuru?" "bite?," (bee-tay) alternately "how are you?" and "what's up?" were the only words I had for these boys at the time, but they did their part to bridge a little bit of the void of unfamiliarity. Hadija showed me to my room and gave me the key. I sat down on the neatly-made bed and took a deep breath, shedding the tension accumulated over 36 hours of travelling. It felt like I'd just woken up from a dream—or perhaps fallen asleep and walked into one. A couple thousand miles and a few hours make a world of difference. My month at Umuryango had begun.
Until now I've been painfully descriptive: don't worry my goal here isn't to recount the whole experience this way. It's just that first impressions of countries, as with people, tend to be the most vivid, and when I reflect on my time in Rwanda the memory of those first several hours is one of the clearest and most beautiful. From here on I'll share a bit more about what, specifically, Umuryango does and how it operates, share some of my reflections from my time with JP and the boys, talk a bit about other travel I did, briefly discuss some of the things that were challenging, and try and wrap it all up in some kind of conclusion.
Umuryango is the vision that God put on the hearts of Jean Paul and Yohani, two Rwanda brothers from the aforementioned family of 10 children who have been blessed by a relative degree of prosperity and opportunity in their home country. Jean Paul graduated in the late 1990's (I believe…) with a degree in physical therapy, while Yohani is currently pursuing a PhD in Chemistry at George Washington University. These men love Jesus, and have taken up his call to be fathers of the fatherless and friends of the poor. Though it is an island of stability in a region ravaged by chaos today, the genocide of 1994 and conflict that continued through 1997 took an enormous human toll. Though the majority of the boys at Umuryango were not alive in 1994, the world they came into as young people was one deeply-impacted by a history of violence, displacement, and extreme poverty. At least one of the oldest boys was a genocide orphan. Almost all came from single parent families, sometimes with other parent dead, sometimes with them simply being abusive, neglectful, absent, or insane. Several lived with siblings who were little-invested in, or unable to care for them. Regardless of their stories, thousands of children in Rwanda decide each year that life on the street is better than life in their homes. A very few children make this decision rebelliously, but the vast majority are forced into their way of life by the factors mentioned above. With no external source of stability or hope they turn to themselves, and seek to make it on their own in Rwanda's streets. The get high. They fight with each other. The steal. They hustle for change. They are kicked and mocked in the public markets where they beg. They never think of school, or about what they will do next year. They are street trash, "mayibobo," and they are the young men who JP and Yohani set out to reach. JP lives in Rwanda, and has no desire to ever leave: his call is to work with the boys. He meets them in the markets and on the streets, learning their names and stories, and watching their personalities. He prays about the children, considers the resources available to him, and if the time is right invites a small number of children to the home. Over in DC Yohani has been remarkably effective at raising awareness about Umuryango, and I gather has generated some of their key financing contacts. It was through my friend Joe, who met Yohani at a conference for social entrepreneurship, that I got connected with Umuryango. (an aside: Umuryango is a registered charity with the Rwandan government, and JP and Yohani are accountable to a board of directors.)
Umuryango is a home for these boys near the small town of Byimana, 15 minutes by microbus from Gitarama. It is a complex of three houses that supply dormitories, guest rooms, cooking facilities, and a dining hall. It has a small amount of land that JP hopes to farm, and a stable with four cows that he hopes to expand to supply milk for the boys and a modest independent income stream for the program. It is staffed at any given time around eight people: a cook, a groundskeeper, a cattle boy, and four or so staff whose primary commitment is to work with the children and keep the home feeling like home. The first three positions pay a couple dollars a day, while the staff that works with the children receives slightly greater monthly support by Umuryango sponsoring organizations, which include a large church and a couple non-profits in the U.S. The boys were on vacation during most of my time with them, but as far as I could tell the program had three key components: education, spiritual training, and personal development. Most of the boys attend the local primary school in Byimana, but the ones who have advanced to secondary school leave the home when vacation ends. This is because Rwanda secondary education is a set up as a boarding school system, where graduating primary school students take an exam that determines their secondary school placement. In either case, Umuryango provides the boys with uniforms, materials, and in the case of the secondary school boys a modest amount of cash for their journey, and holds them accountable to solid academic performance. As Umuryango's purpose is rooted in a Christ-centered view of the boys' identities and value, the program actively seeks to cultivate this awareness in the children themselves. Twice a week a man from the village comes over near dinner time, and leads us in a devotional of prayer, confession, worship, and teaching. Some nights we would just keep singing—just as one song began to end, a boy would pipe up with a new tune, and the energy of the group would swell again. What a joy it was to dance my clumsy steps to the rhythm of their clapping, to share their smiles, and to laugh together as we celebrated God's love. The teaching time, of which I couldn't understand more than a word or two, did get tedious, but when we sang their music set my heart free. The boys also attend the local Pentecostal church together, and as big as Rwandan families tend to be, I'm pretty sure that none of them ever topped the 27 kids that JP brought with him each Sunday! Finally the boys are asked to keep their living spaces clean, to do daily chores, to help prepare and serve meals, and to respect their elders and each other. The hope is that their academic accomplishments, rootedness in Jesus, and accountability to living responsibility will create virtuous cycle that teaches them discipline, self respect, and cultivates hope and vision for their lives.
It works, too. I could go on for so long about each boy, but the two examples that moved me the most are those of Ndahimana, and Hassani and Passifique. Ndahimana is one of the older boys at Umuryango, just entering his second year of secondary school. His is a deeply emotional young man, who seems to understand in a profound way what has been done for him. He harbors a deep gratitude towards God and JP, and is absolutely committed to seizing the opportunity he has been given to improve his life. I have no doubt that he will do this: he tested into one of the top secondary school programs in the country, to the south of Gitarama in Butare, and completed his studies last year with distinction. The age difference between us was only three years, and as he spoke a little English we became somewhat close. On one of his last evenings with us he caught me staring into the night sky and the thunder clouds flashing over the hills on the horizon and decided to join me. "I want to change my life," he said, "life for me was not good at home. We were poor, and no father would be better than the one we have. One day I will have resources, and I want to be like JP. I am so grateful to God for what he has given me, and hope that he gives me success." This inadequate summary of that conversation reveals the incredible depth of character that this young man has. It was difficult for me to believe JP when he said that when he met Ndahimana he was living the life of any other street boy in Kigali.
The second example is of Hassani and Passifique. Both these boys are sensitive and kind, though also quite different: Passifique is an energetic, boisterous showman who loves the camera, while Hassani is much shyer and the more sensitive of the two, but also seems more inclined to go out on a limb. A large, shiny scar runs from Hassani forehead, over his right eye and onto his cheek. During my first several weeks there I wondered what story it told, and whether that scar partially explained Hassani's quiet demeanor. It was hard to take in when JP told me that Passifique gave Hassani that scar with a razor blade in Gitarama before they came to the Umuryango. They play together now, and I've even seen them with their arms over each other's shoulders. They are children again, by the restorative power of God, transmitted through the commitment and care of a small group of individuals who love kids.
JP's ultimate goal is for Umuryango to be self-supporting. For several reasons I'm not sure that this will ever happen, and wonder if the program's somewhat unique model inhibits its scalability. As a guy with an interest in policy who wrote a thesis on sustainable microfinance I've always prioritized questions of sustainability and scalability when it comes to interventions that improve the quality of human life. Yet during my time at Umuryango I saw that it is not up to us to change the whole world at once. If all this program ever accomplished was to radically transform the lives of 30-odd young men, then that alone will have been well worth it. Yet I suspect that it will accomplish far more.
My time with JP and the boys affected me in other was as well. I remember having a conversation with JP about faith, why it is we believe what we believe. I explained why it is important for me that faith not be blind, that I be able to offer some kind of evidence-based justification for my acceptance of the claims of Christianity. JP's never really thought about it that way though. "For me, I just believe," he would say, "I don't need a reason." I asked him how he deals with fact that there are believers of other faiths who have the exact same perspective. Not the he was a stranger to this simple fact—his sister, Hadija, converted to Islam long ago. "I rely on God to change their hearts," he said. I still believe that evidence and reason ought to play an important role in the modern practice of faith, but this conversation was profound for me. If there is a God, and he is good and just and seeks to reveal himself to us, and if His nature and relationship to people is most accurately expressed by a single religious system, then JP's worldview is perfectly viable. It places the emphasis on the wisdom and call of God, over the persuasive power of man. Indeed, "no one can come unless the Father calls."
My steady diet of corn porridge, corn paste, beans, rice, and potatoes also taught me that what I need and what I have trained myself to believe I need are two different things. At the same time it affirmed my conviction that vegetarianism just isn't a viable option for me for at least a couple more years: with all the exercise we were doing each day my metabolism just about ate me alive. Yet the older boys are all so solidly built! Whether this is the result of genetics, environmental adaptation, or a combination of both, I'm sticking with beef for now.
As wonderful as my time with the boys was, the hours spent with them each day were exhausting as well. In the end my role was much less structured than I'd initially envisioned: I did teach some English, especially to a couple of the oldest boys, but very informally. The funds for building the basketball court didn't materialize, either. As for teaching guitar, think of 27 restless children and one instrument that they all want to play at the same time… With very little order in my daily program I tended to feel like I just rode the rhythm of many days, yielding the tug and pull of various demands the boys made on my attention. Soccer games, swims in the lake, bang on guitar sessions, work outs ("siporo"), wood gathering, singing and dancing, and walks to Byimana were all wonderful, but by January I was ready to move around a bit. I traveled to Kibuye, on the shores of Lake Kivu, which divides Rwanda and the DRC. It was a great miniature vacation. The lake front was reminiscent of the Mediterranean coast, with steep hills rushing to meet water dotted with islands, and hemming in lovely blue coves around which the town's modest population clustered. While there I met some Australians who had been volunteering at an Anglican mission in Tanzania. We had a great time together and they invited me to return to Kigali with them for a couple nights. But after two days I missed the boys, and returned to Byimana.
My next trip was to Musanze, in the north, and a base for tourists on their way to see the gorillas in the Virungas mountain range. For a foreigner this costs around 600 dollars, so I had ruled it out or my itinerary well in advance. I did hope, however, to go for a day hike. No dice. Hiking permits cost 75 dollars, transportation for a day 40 dollars at the cheapest, and it's always polite to tip guide. My interaction with people in Musanze was trying as well: for whatever reason people there were quick to take advantage. In Kinyarwanda a white person is called a "muzungu," which means "he who has all." I'd gotten used to hearing this hollered at me by children, and whispered by teenagers and adults. I'd also become accustomed to requests for money or food. Yet in Musanze I felt as if everywhere I went I had to resist a constant crush of unwanted attention, and harden myself towards the many people who reflexively asked me for handouts. In contrast to my previous travels in Latin America, during my visit to Rwanda I decided that I would be a more generous giver to those on the streets. Not only do I believe that I have a moral obligation to give out of my wealth to the those in need, but it is simply too hard on my heart to constantly resist the urge to give: I don't like the person I become when I train myself to coldly ignore the grey old woman or man with a missing leg tapping the window of the bus I'm in. Yet there are two types of people who ask you for money in these places: those who have legitimate deep need, and those who, though poor, just want something from you because they see you as an object of wealth. In Musanze I had many encounters with the latter, and felt deep frustration, loneliness, and confusion during my short stay there. I returned to Umuryango somewhat discouraged and worn out, but happy to be back with the boys again. I think this was the point of the trip—with a little more than a week left—that I lost my momentum. From then on my awareness of the differences between me and those around me only was much more acute, and shouts of "muzungu, ndashaka amafaranga" (I want money), didn't role off quite as easily.
In my final days in Rwanda I visited Butare for a day, the location of the National University of Rwanda, and the National Museum. I met some friendly students, spent an afternoon admiring Rwanda's spectacular tradition of craftsmanship and dance in the museum, picked up some souvenirs at an artisan's cooperative, and ate a nice dinner of fried fish. The next morning I returned to the home to spend my final full day with the boys. The morning I left Umuryango the boys who had not already left for school that morning were playing soccer in the dirt courtyard out front of the main home. I hugged them goodbye, and as I turned to leave they resumed their game. It's a good leaving memory, hearing their playful shouts fade away as I walked the dirt road to the bus stop with JP and his family. Kazungu Olivier, one of the older boys who had never been in a class room until JP found him at the age of 13, carried my pack with me, and as I picked up my things to get in the bus he said in quiet, halting English "I will never forget you." Kazu speaks so little English that I am sure he must have asked another one of the older boys to teach this to him, which made it all the more special of a parting gift. JP accompanied me to Kigali, and after he purchased me a small woven basket as a gift we parted ways outside an internet café. I flagged down a mototaxi, said goodbye to JP, and hopped on. After 15 minutes or so of winding our way through stop and go traffic I arrived at the airport, checked in, and made my way to the departure lobby, where coverage of Israel's invasion of Gaza was playing on BBC. As if I had never gone away the rest of the world came flooding through the television screen, my time in Byimana already beginning to seem like a distant memory.
All this narrative and reflection could certainly have been better organized, and I'm grateful if you made it this far. My time in Rwanda was a time of much reflection, many challenging conversations and experiences, and wonderful daily joys. Even this mammoth email only scratches the surface of what I felt and thought during these times, but that's really how all of life is—when telling our stories to others we're usually confined to recounting the highlights. Here are some of things I hope I internalized to varying degrees: when you give it initially feels like you are losing something, but what you are actually doing is buying freedom for your heart. You never regret good planning. When Christ says that we are his body He is not referring to government-sponsored, scalable solutions: the trick is to find the work that resonates deeply with our spirit and to do that well. What if all people of faith, or even just people of good faith, lived this way? We need so little to be happy. Make time in your life to switch of your mind and simply live. This one is the hardest for me to embrace.
It's going to be a good term, if not a busy one. Stats continue to be challenging though rewarding, and I'm excited to be training with the Oxford University Amateur Boxing Club. Also, as of today I went in on a one-year lease in Jericho for a nice, affordable flat in North Oxford (Jericho, if you know the area) with two other guys. They're great fellas, and I think we'll have a blast together. Can't wait for spring. I've been inviting friends over to Worcester for meals and taking them around the grounds afterwards, and we always agree that it will be even more beautiful than it already is when the flowers are in bloom and the willows hanging over the lake have their leaves back.
I'd be blessed to hear how you are these days, don't be a stranger :)
Much love,
Aaron
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