How on Earth Did I Get Here?

This photo was taken at my introduction (Gusaba & Gukwa), a traditional Rwandan ceremony that comes before a religious wedding in which the bride's dowry is settled among the two families. Afterwards she is brought out (I was escorted by my brother, bridesmaids and aunt) to greet her new family, exchange gifts, and share a meal next to her new (official) betrothed.

That day, I felt like I was in a movie. In That particular moment, I was trying - and failing - to stop giggling. The second I saw my then fiance sitting in a banana-leaf chair next to a vacant one, which I would eventually occupy, atop a low, covered platform, dressed in his silky, brown traditional Rwandan garments, looking at me cooly, staff in hand, like a king, the realisation that this was actually happening to ME erupted in the form of uncontrollable laughter. No. It was not anything like the twenty-something versions of my future wedding I had conjured up during my childhood.

Now it is three months later, the two of us have been to the U.S. and back for the holidays, and I finally have to face the fact that I live here. I am going to be living here for a long time. I have to make my life...here. I don't know if I could attempt to compare my experience with the average, uni-racial marriage. For that matter, I can't even picture how things would have been if we had decided to get married in the States and live there instead. This is my experience. Everything has changed. All at once. When I, anxious and completely unsure of how our wedding and future life together was going to pan out, received a call last summer from my fiance with the news that he had been offered a promotion at his job, it was decided. I think it was my suggestion in the first place. There was no reason for him to leave Rwanda. There was no reason for me to stay in Arkansas.

Now I'm sitting outside a bagel shop in a gated compound where I can take a break from all of the bewildered stares, writing my first blog post, because it's just a little bizarre to me that I am here. I feel need to record this somehow. I have thoughts here that I would never have back home, comfortable, able to speak to almost anyone, doing everything from muscle memory. Everything is new. It's scary and exciting, frustrating and satisfying.