Magnificently Insignificant Waves

The Sunday before last I embarked on what turned out to be the most difficult hike I have done so far in my lifetime (our Austrian friend who was with us and beat us by an hour both ways would probably laugh at me for saying that). I along with my husband, a few of our friends, and a few other hikers that joined in our group climbed  Mount Bisoke , an active volcano in the northern part of Rwanda on the Rwanda/Congo border. But even though it was many long minutes of pain and frustration and only a few short ones of pleasure, it was and worth every bit of it. What a funny concept! That we will put ourselves through a whole lot of pain for a tiny glimpse of beauty or a sense of accomplishment. I'll come back to that later... I really love to hike. I love being outdoors, and I love getting to the top of mountain and seeing the world below. But unfortunately I don't actually have that much hiking experience. I don't really count the tiny "mountain" near my ho...

I think we can all agree that we can't always agree. No matter how much we love someone or something, there will be something about it that just doesn't agree with you. I absolutely love Rwanda, and I think that moving here was one of the best decisions I made. But not everything about living in Rwanda agrees with me. One of the most difficult things for me has been dealing with the amount of attention attention I get from strangers simply because I am a Muzungu (specifically meaning a white person but used to refer to any westerner or foreigner from a generally wealthier country). Just to clarify before I go on, there's a lot of history that goes behind the mindset that leads people to treat westerners this way. In fact, it's a lot of history that involves a bunch of westerners trying to convince all the locals in Africa that their way is better and that these societies can't survive without outside help. So I can't really be mad at the individuals I encoun...