To be honest, this post has been the most difficult to write. I have started about five times and stopped because I wasn't sure what I was actually wanting to express about leaving Rwanda. I mentioned that I had mixed feelings about leaving. After a few days of rumination, I think it's not so much mixed feelings, but rather an uneasy feeling of having started something important without having finished another very important thing. While I know that I've done the best that I can with what I had, I strongly believe that my four weeks was not long enough to teach the Rwandan residents in a way that they deserve to be taught. I would really love to come back and spend some more time really settling into the environment and to appreciate the subtleties that never surfaced. Yet I know that I can't commit to something longer until I come home and put the finishing touches on Janius the Anesthetist. I look back at these four weeks as a thought-provoking introduction to what believe I want to dedicate a large part of my career to exploring.
After I get those five letters after my name (FRCPC), I know that I will want to explore other intellectual avenues and start addressing all the "why?" questions that popped up in the last four weeks. Questions like "Why is it so difficult to get appropriately-sized tubes for pediatric anesthesia?"or "why do they run out of painkillers on a regular basis?" or "why can't the patient monitors be serviced?" have complex answers in the developing world and I want to understand these problems better. It's not enough just to go in and say hello & goodbye; I believe there needs to be committment, patience and insight for lasting change to occur. To avoid paving the road to hell with good intentions, I'm seriously considering international development studies, or working in an environment where project management skills are taught, so that eventually I might be able to manage and fund a development project.
The professional epiphanies aside, leaving Rwanda had its sweet moments as well. Avi and I discovered the best indian ever cooked in a restaurant (Indian mother cooking is sacred, not available for fair comparison) at Indiana Khasana. We went two nights in a row, and if it wasn't for our having to leave, we'd probably have gone back regularly until our wallets groaned. Also, it was time to indulge in guilt-free consumerism!
I filled my bags with Rwandan basketwork, coffee and tea but the best purchases were the huge bouquets of flowers that we got. After having passed up Les Rois des Fleurs (Flower Kings), I finally saw them again on the roadside with a few days left to spare. Avi picked up three amazing bouquets of flowers for the equivalent of $5USD. I think I really did squeal, jump and clap my hands when he showed up with them. Please don't tell anyone.
I'm off to Ethiopia now for some exploring and tourism. Hopefully there will be some semblance of a connection there. A plus!
