What Do You Bring With You?
Painted on the exit doors of the Catholic church in the village where I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer was a short phrase: "Utahanye iki?" In Kinyarwanda, it means "What do you leave with?" or "What do you bring with you?" The phrase was clearly painted to prompt churchgoers what messages they took away from the service, but with just a few more days remaining in Rwanda after living here for eleven years, I found the same phrase popping up in my mind. What am I leaving with? What am I bringing with me? As the days living in the Land of a Thousand Hills dwindle, I wish that I had left more of myself here, and wish that I could take more of Rwanda with me. It has been a good practice of non-attachment, realizing that I occupy such a small, insignificant part of this big planet, and that when I leave this country, it will continue on without me, and me without it. Still, the feeling of trying to grasp at the sand falling through my fingers remains, and t
