'What do you miss?'
on Geri Skeen (Rwanda), 13/Mar/2011 14:42, 34 days ago
I phoned Jenny in England and she asked me what I missed. I couldn’t think of anything really, but said ‘Radio 4’. The truth is I don’t miss anything or anyone, perhaps because I know I am only here till July. Also, I have so many home comforts compared with most people here, and even compared with volunteers in more remote areas. I have water and electric most of the time, I have a secure house surrounded by a wall with a gate that locks, I can buy a wide variety of food. In more remote areas, some volunteers lack water and electricity, and can buy only a limited range of foods e.g. tomatoes, onions, beans, one type of fruit, oil, rice, though they can travel to somewhere bigger on Saturdays.The people I miss are all dead. I think of my father often and miss him. I guess I am still grieving as he died only 15 months ago. I think of my mother and Dave too, though less often now.Apart from them, it is only anonymity that I miss. In Africa’s most densely populated country, with very few white people, I have never managed to walk more than a few metres, even outside the town, without being stared at or talked to.It is people like Jenny I admire, and the volunteers here in their twenties who have committed to live in remote parts of Rwanda for two years. Jenny went to Zimbabwe straight from school to teach maths for two years to classes of sixty pupils, living in a mud hut and having to do her cooking and laundry outside in full view of curious neighbours.