Friend's House

Where the heck am I and oh my gosh it’s so dark and everyone is touching me and I barely have enough AirTime to call anyone and it’s better to stay on the moto then get off and be completely lost. This was the flowing thought process of my 2 minute panic attack as I realized how truly lost and alone I can be when I push myself beyond the margins of normalcy and familiarity (which I do quite often). Because my friend Courtney and I wanted to meet up, she had invited me to dinner with her host family at their house about 15 minutes from my own. Unfortunately, since my phone was stolen at a soccer game about two weeks ago, I’ve been living in an 1800s mindset by communicating solely on physical presence (or bumming other people’s phones in dire situations). Even after I was finally able to register a new SIM card (the hold-up on me getting a new phone in the first place; the network had been down the entire two weeks), I only had a few minutes AirTime total. I internally compared this to Pirates of the Caribbean when Jack Sparrow was only given one bullet; use it wisely. Therefore, when I told a moto driver tentatively where to go, I'd hoped I’d be able to see Courtney, who said she’d have her phone flashlight as my beacon towards the promised land of good food and (at least one) familiar face. However, we had unfortunately miscommunicated about the time of our intersection, so even when I apparently passed directly by her house, I didn’t know it and simply kept driving with my (very patient) moto man. The paved road turned into cobble stone and then the stone into dirt. As we ventured further into the rural neighborhood, my moto driver gave up and stopped for directions from some men eating corn on the side of the road (they looked really content with their corn party; my own hunger made me a bit jealous). When we stopped, a small crowd of about 15 Rwandans-both adults and children- crowded around to help and get a look at the Muzungu (white person). The children began stroking me- seeing if my white pigment would wipe off to reveal a new color like some sort of Rainbow Scratch drawing*- and I had an immediate flashback to Haiti and the chaos of language barriers and uncomfortable inspection. When one of the men who knew a morsel of English asked me where I was going, I told him the initial directions Courtney had given me. However, when he persisted in knowing the exact location, I just relented in a type of frustrated humor and submission and said I was going to “a friend’s house for dinner.” Immediately, my audience began repeating “Friend’s House,” attempting to mimic my Western dialect and recall such a location. My moto driver began asking everyone in the vicinity where this fancy and rather obscure restaurant “Friend’s House” would be located. They were all repeating the words and racking their brains thinking of where the posh dinery could be. One man even touched my arm and began giving my moto driver directions to “Friend’s House;” apparently this little hipster man was sure he had visited this nonexistent restaurant, and he was intent on kindly giving us directions. I tried, through my uncontrolled laughter at the misinterpretation of the situation, to explain to this man and the entire congregation that “Friend’s House” was not a place any of them knew because it was not, in fact, a renowned restaurant but a literal English translation of where I was going. My explanations were futile. During this pitstop, I had my brief panic aforementioned and gave up by calling Courtney (there goes my single bullet). After she got a Rwandan man to explain to my driver in Kenya-Rwandan where he should go, we took off again, retracing our steps. However, anytime we passed another moto driver, my driver would again ask where “Friend’s House” was, just to get second opinions. After we went all the way back onto the main road, we realized we were lost again, so I used the remainder of my AirTime to call Courtney one last time before my phone would cut off: a cold breakup after all we had been through. Some companion that thing is; he abandons me after all I had done to attain him. Anyways, these last directions were enough for us to understand that we unfortunately had to go back for a third time. By God’s grace, I saw Courtney on the way and was able to gleefully hop off after about 50 minutes of travel. Although I payed my driver the most yet, he deserved it after all the inquiring about “Friend’s House”. 

*Those black pieces of paper that have rainbow underneath when you scratch: appropriately named