Experiencing all the Ups and Downs

Today was such an exciting day. I traveled to Kigali last night to go to the bank so today I could be ready for getting all the supplies to make chicken food. Solomon met up with me in Kigali and we went all over the place getting the necessary ingredients…I still learning more about raising chickens than I ever thought possible. There was one point today as I was standing in the back of the truck that we rented for the day and looked out at the busy market…I’m truly in Rwanda was all I could say. I felt like I was experiencing the lives of Rwandans as they went out buying things. It really felt surreal. Travels to buy things in Kigali are definitely some of the most stressful times for me. I never know what kind of adventure and most of the time frustrations I will have…the prices are always changing and things just take longer. I had a family over tonight to help me celebrate my birthday.

I love living here and experiencing all that this journey has to offer but that being said, these past few days have been challenging for me. The transition back to Rwanda from Israel was harder than I expected. It was so easy to be in Israel and here things are just so different. The mindsets are just not the same…things take a lot longer, I feel that things don’t happen unless you look over it yourself and remind people many times, and people will say yes and come to find out later they didn’t mean it…just to name and few. I’m trying to slow myself down and adapt to work in this culture but it’s not always easy. I let it get to more these past few days (and the lack of sleep doesn’t help either). Now that I’m caring for the lives of animals, things become a little more urgent. Guess what…the hens layed the first eggs this week!!!!!!!!!!

In the process of these frustrations, I’m also learning so much. It’s now after midnight and my birthday. I’m 25…that’s so crazy and hard to believe! It’s nice to be able to have transitions like this to think about what the future might bring, things to accomplish, and just about life in general. I definitely want to continue working on my patience for living in a different place and creating a zen so things don’t bother me so much.

I continue to learn small lessons from Solomon. He has such a great trust in people and truly is able to see good in everyone. On the farm, we have 5 teams and each team has a leader. I decided this week to have weekly meetings with the leaders just to check in and see how everything is going. Solomon and I learned from one of them that some of the workers are not working hard. When the leaders say something to the other workers, they say Solomon is not around or you can’t make me work. Solomon told the leaders to tell him when it happens and he will send the worker home for 1 week and when the worker returns we’ll see hard he/she works. Not having a job is definitely good motivation to work hard next time especially since finding a job is so challenging.