File It Under "Crazy But True"

The assistants have left the building.

We are no longer running your life, your company, or your city. DC will just have to go on without us, as it has so many times before, as woman after woman exits out the revolving door and finds something new and exciting to do with her time. In our case, Rwanda. Go big or go home, that's how we roll, friends.

We had a pretty epic moving weekend (see motto above) in which one assistant got pulled over in Jersey (learn from our mistakes edition #4326785: trucks are not so much welcome on the Garden State Parkway) and took out some shrubbery (it looked at her funny) while the other survived torrential downpour in a loaded moving van. No one slept and several of us drank vodka with polish sausage as a chaser. There may also have been whiskey. BIG UPS AND THANK YOUS to the DC moving crew who loaded 2 trucks with 2 beds, 1 bookshelf, a futon and several dressers as well as, oh, hundreds of boxes, probably.

This is the moment we waited for: the beginning of the beginning. And we're so excited. Thanks for the memories DC, we'll do you proud. You made us who we are and we couldn't have done without you. You will generally not be missed. That's just who you are.

On the road...

Well - it has happened, the assistants are in their rightful places in Indiana and Mass. We had some amazing friends come over this weekend to help pack boxes, bleach things down and carry very heavy (and some fragile!) into moving trucks. Fueled by coffee and sheer will, we found ourselves actually moved out of the city. I won't lie, as I was driving a moving truck into the city at the crack of dawn and the sun started to rise over DC and the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial began to sparkle (like Edward Cullen!) I got a little teary. Okay - true fact, I cried a little. In my defense - I also cried a little when I got to my home state and saw the "Welcome!" sign. There were so many emotions running through us over the day - we started out sad to leave each other (again, after so brief a time together) but excited to get home and then as we left we realized with some epic anxiety that this officially meant we were leaving and meant we were going to Rwanda in six short weeks.

Now that I'm home, I'm moving in to a new bedroom in a house that I have never lived in. My parents moved while I was a senior in college, so I've never really had use for a bedroom here. But now - not only do I get to move all my stuff from DC into their house, I get to move the first 22 years of my life from one room to another, while infusing my DC life in to it. All the while, trying to remember what I really don't need, putting it into a clear plastic bin and storing it in my new closet - which is, by the way, the largest closet I have ever seen. The fun part about all of that is going through the wreckage of my entire adolescence and college life which is strewn through photos, tickets, nametags and passes, notebooks, journals, etc. I just found a journal that I kept when I was a summer camp counselor, the summer I fell in love for the first time. That will be fun to read one cold winter night.

The other exciting discovery was a set of china tea cups. There were six of them, all white with this beautiful little blue art on the side. I was in love with them and ran downstairs asking my mom where she got them and if I could have them. She said they had been my grandmothers and that I could wrap them up and keep them. I have never met my grandmother - she died before I was born, but I instantly felt a connection to her through these teacups that I knew I would love and that would grace whatever kitchen I found myself in next. It made me excited to feel close to her, excited to dip my toe into the pool of 'thinking-about-the-future' and made me excited to find other treasures buried amongst a room full of things.

Unfortunately, I didn't find anything else (yet - I'm about halfway done) as exciting as the antique tea cups, but I did find some old cross country pants from high school, my robe, jackets from all my old sports teams and my letterman's jacket. My mom got excited during the move and found photos from our family vacation to Disneyworld. My sister and brother had some of the most amazing photos in the pile. Seeing them so young and so happy was an awesome break to their current "teen angst" selves that we currently live with.

It's an exciting time for the assistants - we're making so much progress and are so close to touching down. Tomorrow one of us gets to substitute teach for the first time in her home state -- Jr. High Science - where she hears there is a very cute, young, new principal. Good things are happenin'!

Grace

We began our journey towards Rwanda almost a year ago, and at times the road has been difficult and the dream seemingly forever just out of reach. But at the worst moments - when one of us lost our job, when one of us got robbed, when one of us didn't get the raise we'd been counting on, when one of us had to move (one of us was definitely the more massive mess this year, granted) - something has always come through, some small break from the universe or moment of clarity that made it all possible. At no point over the last year has saving every penny and working as much as possible and dealing with the red tape and bureaucracy been easy, but more importantly, at no point has it been impossible.

But this week, so close to the finish line, was the hardest week yet. We came up against a wall that, partially due to exhaustion and stress, seemed completely insurmountable. For longer than a moment, we thought we might have come all this way only to fail. And then two completely unexpected things happened: one of us received a generous donation from our employer, and one of us received an equally generous donation from an anonymous source that may or may not be the Polish mafia. Seriously: this actually happened. We both unexpectedly, unsought and unasked, received a windfall from the universe that means we will both be buying our flights next Friday, and in 6 weeks, barring acts of God and natural disaster, we will be on the ground in Africa.

When Assistant 2 found out her good news, she got on the phone with her friend Devin, barely able to explain what had happened, she was so stunned. And Devin said, "Well, that's what grace is - it's an unexpected, possibly even unearned gift just when you need it most."

We are so glad grace is with us on this journey.

A special thank you this Thanksgiving also goes out to our friend Pawel, who is amazing beyond words, and a true gift in our lives.

Giving Thanks

I have a friend who started a blog called "Naked Thanks" where she and her co-hort write one thank you note every day for a year. The entries are "naked" in the sense there are no false pretenses, no heavy adjectives to fill the spaces, just raw thanks. It's incredible and hilarious and these two women have a fantastic point of view that makes for amazing reading. But after being inspired by some of their entries I thought of a few things I was thankful for - and although I'm not a pro, I'll try to make them as naked as possible.

-Thank you best friend. You know who you are because I just call you 'best friend.' Thank you for teaching me the wonders of cooking a hot dog "New England style." Thank you for not making me feel fat when we would have nights filled with brownies and box mac and cheese. Thank you for having a rooftop pool for a few months. Thanks for cleaning when I was up at 5am everyday media monitoring and not making me feel badly about it. Thanks for introducing me to the wild world of 'sleepytime tea.'

-Thank you DC Public Transport. You have introduced me to some of the greatest stories in DC. Thank you for mixing all sorts of people all together, putting us in a cramped space and making us ride together while you wildly pump the brakes and fling us against each other. I have often enjoyed the smells of my fellow Washingtonians early in the morning after their sweaty trek to the bus. I've sometimes even been lucky enough to slip in to one of those trains that doesn't have working air conditioning in the summer - now boy, those are a fierce hot ride!

-Thank you for rain. It proves who in DC can really drive.

-Thank you for sleet. For if I hadn't seen it actually fall to the ground with my own two eyes I would have never believed it. Where I'm from sleet is what accrues on the ground after it came down as snow and a few hundred cars drove through it. It definitely did not fall from the sky and it was not considered 'winter weather,' sleet was what winter threw up and let everyone stomp all over. There is some sort of comparison there but the witty comment is escaping me...

-Thank you for the right not to be represented in Congress. They're screwing everything up so badly right now, it gives me a sense of ease to know that I didn't have any responsibility in bringing any of them in.

-Thank you for lobbyists. Only, because they throw all those parties with all those free cocktails and the awesome spanokopitas. They may get a bad rap, doing all that special interest business and blocking legislation - but they really throw some awesome parties. If you're ever thinking about coming to DC, follow those hill staffers right to all the awesome parties that include free food and booze.

-Thank you for the endless summer. It allows all the ugly men in DC the chance to get tan so from afar or whilst intoxicated look like sunkissed adonises.

The Two Big Ws

When we explain that we are going to Africa, much like the Ws of writing you learned in grade school (who what when etc) two big Ws arise, as politely as possible, in conversation: "Why" and "White". Several combinations can occur, the most obvious being, "Why are two white girls going to Africa?". Sometimes there's the approving exclamation: "Why, how wonderful that two white girls want to go to Africa!" Sometimes we get the encouraging "You won't even begin to understand yourself until you've been a white girl in Africa!" Both of these basic sentiments, to me, sum up the real problem when we explain our trip: the notion that we are going to save Africa, or Africa is going to save us. Neither of these statements is true, and each one is damaging in its own right. We are going to Africa for the opportunity not only to travel somewhere we've never been, meet people we've never met, and have experiences we've barely dreamed of in a country and on a continent completely unlike our own, with an utterly different history and development and languages, but also to really immerse ourselves in life there. We wanted to make a point of going for three months to give ourselves the opportunity to do more than sight-see, and we wanted to work with this gender-based violence prevention program in order to learn as much as we can about the women who live in Rwanda and their experiences (women, their experiences and their needs are getting their own equally long-winded blog post, trust - we are drafting as we speak). We certainly hope to touch lives and have ours touched, but in all fairness, we are people who hope for that depth and richness in EVERY experience, from our jobs to a night out. In this case, we hope to be giving ourselves opportunity, circumstance and time for an experience even more out of the ordinary, and even more complex and layered.

I have been thinking about this particularly since returning to a small, extremely liberal, almost paralyzingly well-educated state. Remember how so many kids you went to college settled down in that small university town because they loved it so much? Well here, all those kids went to Harvard.

I had a conversation a few nights ago with a friend who is, in fact, a Harvard graduate, and another friend of ours who went to a small arts college. Both work at a high school in a wealthy neighborhood, but both started teaching in the Metco program. Essentially the grandchild of school busing programs, Metco brings economically disadvantaged students to this school system with all its money and resources. In the interest of giving the kids a sense of community, they have their own room to use as a study and designated as well as free time to spend there. Their awareness of their race and the place it gives them in their school makes them unique students, and has, in my opinion, rendered these two women unique teachers. In addition, one of them is half white and half Japanese. During the conversation they brought up a program they despised, designed by the school to help teachers with their racial and cultural sensitivity. The class involved "unpacking their knapsack of privilege." This was how I discovered neither of these extremely well-educated liberal women had ever read Peggy McIntosh's arguably definitive undergraduate manifesto on race and privilege in America, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."

As we discussed it, I re-read it for the first time in almost 7 years, and found that, older and more aware of the intersections in my identity, I found flaws in the rules McIntosh lays out for identifying white privilege; namely, that the rules completely ignore gender. For example: "4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed." This is not true, because I am a woman. I am extremely careful about when I shop and where I shop, concerned not simply about being harassed, but about being physically harmed. Or this, "15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group." While this is true of my race, it is NOT true of my sexual orientation; I have often been asked to speak as though my experiences were universally representative of the LGBTQ community. There were also numerous examples where something ceased to be true if everyone in the room knew I was Jewish. While I still feel the basic concepts presented in McIntosh's work are valuable and absolutely should not be disregarded, she writes from multiple points of unacknowledged privilege - she is an upper-middle-class, employed, well-educated woman - while focusing solely on the privilege of her racial status. I found upon re-reading that McIntosh's work seemed steeped in the kind of white liberal guilt that leads people to believe I am going to Rwanda to save Africa - or going to Rwanda so that Africa can save me.

How do we talk about race in an age that we want to be post-racial, in which post-racial dialogue is being hailed by the President himself as the way forward to unity in our nation? How does an experience we would have gladly had in Mexico, or Eastern Europe (and in fact, I hope we will someday have the opportunity to live, work and volunteer in these places and many more besides) change for us and the people we encounter when we take our race and a wretched history of colonization into account upon the evaluation? Should it or does it change our motives or our behavior?

We both went to public universities with much higher than average minority representation and followed that up by living in a city with a large African-American population and a rich and at times fraught racial history, and then took it upon ourselves to move into a neighborhood in which the white people are way outnumbered. One of us worked for a small company owned by a powerful African-American woman and staffed by an extremely diverse group of mostly women (to be touched on later!). As such, I think we can safely say that we have more experience with the very unusual phenomenon (in America) of UNDERrepresentations of whiteness. We have been clearly informed that this in no way prepares us for Africa, where our skin color will very much matter, particularly since we will be spending a lot of time outside Kigali, and may at times be among the only white people some Rwandans have ever seen.

Of course, our whiteness doesn't exist in a vacuum, and I'm looking forward to thinking about, writing about, and experiencing how our gender intersects with our race to shape our experience as we travel; Women, after all, are Why we are going.

Shippin' off....

I must say... the last few days have been pretty surreal. The assistants will be reunited in less than 7 days. Boxes have arrived at the 105 for packing and rolls of packing tape are piling up. The final days in DC are shaping up to be pretty amazing. We've scored 4 floor-side tickets to next Tuesday's Wizards game; an 80 minute Swedish massage on the Friday after Thanksgiving; A Florida Gators Snuggie; A pizza & wine night; too many lunches and dinners to count and nights full of reliving the "DC Glory Days." Our separation is becoming even more bittersweet as it draws closer and we come to terms with saying goodbye to some amazing friends, some sites of amazing memories and some of the most defining years of our lives.

We'll be doing a grand "Ode to DC" the day we officially pack up and leave the 105, but as we say goodbye there are some memories that stand out so crystal clear to me as truly amazing.

-The first time the Assistants realized they were destined to be besties. It was a night of DVD watching and wine at one of our apartments and we were almost done with the DVD before we realized that we had been talking the entire way through the movie. It was the first of many, many deep discussions to be held over quesadillas and liquor.

-Summer '08: The summer of wisdom teeth removal, The DNC, and a rooftop pool. We were crispy fried tanned from all-day pool side days on Saturdays, giddy with every Saturday night involving a bottle of tequila, margarita mix, and quesadillas. Every Sunday was spent with coffee and laptops poolside. It was also the scene of our first roadtrip together from DC - New Hampshire which involved me learning how to drive out of Manhattan and not end up in the Bronx (there was a lot of shouting and one of us may have shown a boob just to get over to the right lane). We both spent most of those months incessantly planning for The DNC, booking flights and hotels, and planning parties for people who had much more money than us and that we weren't going to be going to. We itinerized, we planned, we executed and we did most of it from a laptop on a roof by a pool.

-Election Season: We door knocked. We went out in the cold to GOTV. We collected pins to wear on puffer vests. and then - we celebrated. We danced in our offices, we talked on two phones at the same time, we popped bottles of champagne that were paid for by our employers and we danced in the streets with thousands of new best friends. Then, we did it all over again during the Inauguration - except that time, we brought one of our mothers along for the ride.

-Roadtrip | Summer '09: We centered our internal Thelma and Louise. We drove around, through and into most of the entire east side of the country. One of us got laid off in the middle of the trip. One of us was labeled "dangerous single girl" at a wedding reception. One of us drove for 14 hours straight (Indiana to New Jersey) and turned in to some sort of giddy/laughy/delusion version of herself - she was given a free mudslide in return. One of us was surprised by a visit from a boyfriend while the other was grilled about the tattoos on her back. We both enjoyed every blackberry-free minute of sun-filled vacation bliss.

"And So It Begins"

To be honest, there is no excuse for how long it has been since I've posted. Asst 1, bless her heart, has really stepped up to the plate. What happened, you see, is that I got tired, and overwhelmed. I moved home a few months earlier than planned, which has been amazing. It's been two years since I got to spend a really significant amount of time with my family, and my grandfather is living with us right now, which has been wonderful. Fall in New England is my favorite thing. Not my favorite time or season or place: it is my favorite thing. I love it so. I spent Halloween in Salem (yes, THE Salem), picked my own apples and pumpkins, and ate more things doused in cinnamon (including donuts) than I would ever admit to a nutritionist. I have been very happy.

At the same time, being away from the constant support of this dream that was offered by Asst 1 is hard. We gchat, but it's not the same as collapsing on the futon every night to bitch about our days. But every time I start to think I dreamed a little too big on this one, taking the trip of a lifetime while the economy is tanking and I'm trying to apply for grad schools, something has saved me. At the hardest points in working for this, when I've been staring at the numbers thinking, "No, it's just not going to happen, it's not going to work," something has, miraculously, in the words of the great Tim Gunn, MADE IT WORK. I have been cramming in hours at my temp job at a delightful local company that takes school pictures for about 400 schools in the area, you see, and my life has narrowed down to numbers. Everything, always, is about numbers. I can't say its about money, because I am extremely blessed in that I rarely consider money anymore. I'm not paying rent, nor do I buy my own groceries (and oh God, yes, I feel like I'm 13 again on many, many occasions). No, what I think about is numbers. Next week, I will have, say, 800. 400 needs to go towards my visit to Seattle. That leaves 400 for tickets... and so on. It's already gone before I've even earned it, so it's all just numbers!

But as I mentioned, by sheer grace of goodwill, those numbers are really starting to work. All of my immunizations are done except for yellowfever*. The program itself is completely paid for. I'm down to just flights and spending money, and damn it feels good. Next weekend I'm driving down to DC for The Epic Move, where Asst 1 and I, who can make a production out of anything, have a 3 day 6-ring circus planned. It involves the new Twilight movie. Don't judge. You know you love it too. After that I'm going to visit my best friend in Seattle, another city I've never been to and am extremely excited to see for the first time. Then the holidays, and my cousin is getting married on New Year's Eve. And then. um. we leave.

So I feel like it's going quick - GOOD THINGS ARE HAPPENING!!!

*side note: Asst 1 and I both decided to take PILLS to immunize ourselves against Typhoid. I had no idea this was an option, but instead of a shot that immunizes you against Typhoid for a year, you can take 4 pills, one every other day for 8 days, that will leave you immune to it for FIVE years. Isn't that wild? And yet, I was disappointed. I mean, these pills are LIVE TYPHOID CULTURES, for the love of God (apologies, living with my extremely Catholic, church-on-cable-watching Grampy has had a severe impact on my vocabulary, obviously), and they were... disappointing. Just little pink pills. I don't know - I guess I expected them to squirm or something. Since I am a giant procrastinator and painfully forgetful, I am only just now getting around to taking these this week, because my mother reminded me that we live in New England and could lose power at any moment, and if I got Typhoid all over her fridge she was gonna be pissed.

25 Years : A Reflection

So, over the last 14 days, both myself and Assistant 2 have celebrated entering our 25th year of life. Not only did we make sure it was a grand celebration, we both realized that we were living epically different lives, yet still maintaining the same path. I knew turning 25 would be a great chapter opening in my life, but I've started to realize a few things that will now continue happening on a more frequent basis. I suppose that now that I can rent a car w/o the epic extra fees, there are some things that are expected by society. So - I tried to make them into a simplified list, so that every one else turning 25 will have a bit of a 'chapter of contents' to expect in this new page - turner of an age!

The Proverbial Question:
I've never been shy about where I come from and that it is country through and through. I love being from the country - we keep things simple and we love to breathe easy. However, along with that are the lowpoints. These lowpoints have become much more realized now that I'm 25. For example, the proverbial question comes up much more often. The proverbial question for those of us from the country is: Are you married? Do you have kids yet?

YET?? YET?!?!?! I'm still grappling with the fact I'm not in college any more, let alone thinking about procreating! And then there's that whole finding someone to put up with for a significant period of time to take on the procreating.

Life (and Photos, Books, Clothes, etc) Piling Up:
I'm not a fan of clutter as many of my former roommates are very aware. I'd much prefer to have a drawer for the clutter than have clutter sitting out - that's just how I roll. But I'm coming to learn that I'm accumulating much more STUFF. More clothes that are not tshirts and jeans/sweatpants acculumating in my closet. More photo frames gathering on my walls, dressers and bedside table. More jewelery on my necklace holder.

Then there are the things that don't physically accumulate. Baggage from relationships, jobs and experience piles on on. Responsibilities from work, family and friends becomes deeper and sometimes (hopefully) more rewarding. Pressure piles on: Pressure to get on the right career track, pressure to commit to something (career, city, relationship, etc), and pressure to start achieving all those things you dreamed about when you said "When I grow up....." I just hope that after all this pressure, we get diamonds on our toenails or something!

Mac & Cheese and Wine:
So, as significant an age as 25 is - there are certain things that we DON'T have to do. There are things, pieces of our past, that we can continue to hold on. Things that we can still keep, but that won't impede our growth. Things that will keep us wondering, keep us young and keep us amazed by this life we have. We don't have to give up meals that consist of wine and a boxed meal. We don't have to waver in our beliefs anymore because if we've been believing them this long, we might as well keep on with them. We don't have to settle. We don't have to let go of our youthful vices like Sour Patch Kids, Teen Romance Novels, and cheesey reality tv (I think there's a clause in our birth certificates that say these things need to relinguished at age 40. There may be some sort of Congressional Investigation Committee to look in to this and change it to 45 - we are living longer you know.)

Slowing Down, Speeding Up & Holding Steady:
Slower: Time it takes to run a mile; metabolism; time to enjoy a good glass of wine (You can't chug after age 25, its just not classy); spending time with family; enjoying a good meal with good friends.

Speeding Up: Stress from job, relationships, spawn; a want for travel and adventure; frequent flier point accumulation; the search for perfection.

Holding Steady: Sense of humor; enjoyment of caffeinated beverages; realization that you'll never be 20 again, nor will you ever be 15 again.

Exercise Ball Chairs:
The older we get, the more time we spend in a chair. No more midafternoon PE classes and no more elective courses in the physical education department. Lots of the time from waking to getting home for dinner is spent sitting. So, I've decided that from now on, I'm substituting my office chair for an exercise chair. I'm hoping that a) this will keep away those bothersome lower back problems and b) will work on those pesky ab problems associated with sitting so much.

The First of Many:
.... drive rental cars/trucks without extra fees.
.... start eliminating toxic friends without feeling bad about it.
.... travel internationally alone and afford it and feel ok splurging.
.... feel free to spend money on a nice bottle of wine and apps instead of gorging at dinner.
.... finding peace in being single, or alone on a Saturday night, or eating out in a party of one.

Favorite Things

It's time once again for "Thing We're Looking Forward To!" We were lucky enough to have one of the past volunteers of our program send us some great photos that got us really excited!! check them out!

This photo is from the house and is looking into our village, the Remera District in Kigali. Towns everywhere look so much different than America - this is such a great view of what we'll be seeing everyday in Kigali!

Some past volunteers of the program in this photo. It's a cool look at the front of our guest house as well. It has such a cozy, collegiate feel to it right?! And their smiles are so exciting and so awesome... I can't wait to be in their shoes!

This is actually one of the bedrooms in the house we'll be staying in! Mosquito nets are definitely part of the awesome decor - how much does this remind you of your first bed at college?!?!

This is one of the past volunteers who did the teaching program and these are some of her adorable students. The smiles on their faces makes me glow deep down inside. I'm so excited to meet some of these amazing young people!

Interesting Article

In the Wall Street Journal today about young adults volunteering time in other countries. It was so amazing to read this girl's story because 1) she went to Kigali, Rwanda and 2) she was broke and making it work too! Some of my favorite highlights then the link for the story.

"she was working overtime until midnight most nights to pay for a volunteer trip to a Rwandan orphanage."

"'Working seven days a week is hard, but their smiles make up for my loss of sleep or brunches with friends.'"

A Helping Hand in Rwanda, Wall Street Journal 11.09.09

Reaching Out & Looking Up

It's been an awesome week for the assistants. I'll let my partner in crime expound on her exciting last seven days.

For the both of us however, we've had some excitement. My friend, actor, Isaiah Washington, put us in touch with an amazing woman named Floriane who has a organization in Rwanda. She's offered to meet up with before we leave, give us tips on the country, tell us more about it and even meet up with us when we've landed in Kigali! Her organization is doing some amazing things, building a village for displaced families and we're so excited to have such an amazing woman in our corner.

Second, we got in touch (Finally!!) with a past volunteer of our program. She did the teaching track in our program, but nonetheless, she had some great info about what our life will be like in Rwanda. She told us about our house, our village and some of the cool things we must do while we're there. She also put us in touch with someone who has done our exact track, Gender-Based Violence Prevention, and we just reached out to her a couple days ago.

Finally, a good friend of mine is living in South Africa until the end of next year and he and I are trying to get a little Kigali-Jo'burg visit straightened out. I've been dying to see Jo'burg since we started planning this trip and now, I have a friend there that I can meet up with for the obligatory siteseeing!!

Generally, things are coming together - exciting things at that. There's literally, only one more step. Okay - one more GIANT step - and a few (lots) little things and this is on our doorstep. We've got some flights to book and some moving to do, but, aside from that, we're on the downhill side of this trip and it is exciting. Just a few more weeks of shoestring budgets and discount shopping before booking the big flight. Then, we're basically good to go.

It's an amazing time right now and we're literally looking in to the bright light at the end of this tunnel, which will open into another HUGE tunnel of adventure. We hear there are abundent baboons in this tunnel. And elephants and hippos... this tunnel is probably the best thing ever. We love this tunnel.