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Tag Archives: rwanda

Introducing…The PotentialiTREE!

25 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by harulawordsthatserve in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

family, friends, fundraising, love, rwanda

Dear Friends

I’d like to introduce you to my ‘other family’ – Beatha and her three sons; Mucyo, Mugisha and Mugabe, who live in Rwanda.

Beatha and boys

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IMG_3120 (1)
IMG_3123

The top photo is clearer, but from almost two years ago now! The others were WhatsApped to me just last week!

You can find out more about the background of our friendship on my other blog, most of which was written around the time I last visited, in early 2013.

me-and-beatha

https://beathaandherboys.wordpress.com/

Beatha and I met almost 17 years ago now, and I have been supporting her monthly, with the help of my family and friends, since she left her husband back in 2010 when he became dangerously violent towards her.

Now I’d like to invite your help so that I can continue to support this courageous young family and help them continue to thrive. I’ve set up a GoFundMe campaign…

https://www.gofundme.com/for-beatha-and-her-boys

…to raise £900, which will cover the family’s basic costs for the next six months, while I focus on a longer term solutions AND…

I’m recording and celebrating progress on my PotentialiTREE!

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IMG_3133 (2)

For every £1 donated to my GoFundMe campaign I will colour in one £1 sized circle, and write your name and a single word ‘blessing/gift/wish’ of your choice into it. If you don’t ask for a particular word(s), then the default is LOVE ❤️ The first £300 is the roots/base of the trunk. This will cover the rent of Beatha’s house for 6 months, so she and her sons can remain safe and sheltered. Let’s grow this!

 

In the meantime, here is the story of when I first met Beatha, for you to enjoy!

 

I worked full time teaching in the school, preparing and delivering lessons, running the English Club, learning the languages (most of my day was spent speaking French or Kinyarwanda) and generally finding my way into a new country, culture and climate. I went shopping for food in the local markets, where my bartering always drew a crowd, and prepared my own food on a single ring camping gas stove on which I also boiled all my drinking water. This had to be left to cool and then put through a filter before any thirst could be quenched. I was doing my level best, desperate to prove that I could and would take care of myself. After about a month of determined independence it seems I made a mistake, or cut a dangerous corner somewhere along the line. My stomach blew up to about three times its normal size, filled fit to explode with a gas noxious enough to threaten the climate all by itself. All I wanted was my Mum.

After two visits to the local health centre and three days off school, eating nothing but plain roasted sweet potatoes with no oil or butter, I was pretty much recovered. However, it turned out my getting sick was all the excuse the nuns needed. They guarded my well being fiercely, on all fronts, and insisted I allow them to find me an appropriate live in help.

Within days I was informed that they’d found a young woman who would cook and clean for me, and she was to have the second bedroom in the small bungalow I’d been given to live in. She’d had a simple life but spoke a little French, and the Headmistress, an exuberant and inspired nun named Anna Beatha, knew her through complex family connections that I couldn’t quite understand. I don’t remember exactly how it was decided and agreed upon, but for sure somehow it was. Beatha was on her way.

This was a time of deep and uncomfortable reflection for me. I could acknowledge that I wasn’t coping well on my own. I knew that all the other teachers (and many Rwandans in fact) had live in help. I knew I could pay her a decent wage from my volunteer allowance. However, my idealistic, independent self remained resolutely uncomfortable with the idea of becoming a person who paid someone else to, basically, do their ‘dirty work’. What did that make me? I was already so aware of being different here – the last thing I wanted was to be put in the role of ‘superior’.

But time worked its mysterious magic and I eventually began to see the potential gifts. I’d be able to practice my Kinyarwanda all day, be free to focus fully on my teaching work and give more to the students I loved whose hunger for learning was such a joy to nourish. Most importantly, I’d be giving someone who very much needed it a job. And so, albeit very reluctantly, I became an employer for the first time.

When Beatha arrived it was late afternoon and the sun was already swiftly making its way to bed. I’d managed to buy a local charcoal cooking stove as instructed, but sadly noted that there was not much food in the house. The busyness of school had caught up with me and I felt embarrassment rising, threatening to redden my cheeks. Not much of a welcome. What was she going to make with rice, tomato puree and some sorry looking vegetables? But at least I had oil and salt. I wasn’t very hungry anyway. The idea of employing a live in housekeeper and cook remained an incredibly distasteful prospect to me and it was doing funny things to my newly sensitive stomach.

We weren’t given the opportunity to exchange much in the way of greetings. The Headmistress herself had escorted Beatha over to our little house on the school playing fields and immediately set her up in the kitchen to cook, leaving us with a cheery, ‘Goodnight’. And then we were two. I was left waiting nervously in our tiny lounge, reading my mini English-Kinyarwanda phrase book and smiling at Beatha in that well meaning but frankly exaggerated way that probably looks more frightening than kind and reassuring. After an amount of time that no doubt felt longer as a result of our mutual awkwardness she came into the room and placed the food on the table. “Bon appetit,’ she said with a shy smile, and went as if to leave the room.

Immediately I realised with shock that she thought she was expected to serve me my food and eat hers alone in the outdoor kitchen. More from sharp instinct than conscious choice I touched her firmly on the arm in an invitation to wait and frantically flicked through the dictionary until I found the useful phrase I’d noticed earlier. “We eat together,’ I said. She half smiled and subtly nodded. She’d understood. Relief and joy flooded me, oh God Bless you dear dictionary and may your wise and practical creators joyously prosper evermore!

Without a word she left to fetch an extra plate and cutlery and joined me at the table. We ate our meal in awkward silence, punctuated occasionally by my laughable attempts at small talk which she dutifully struggled to understand. Not long after dinner, we both went to our own bedrooms to sleep…or not. I lay awake restless and wondering if I was right to believe that the evening hadn’t gone too badly. However, despite the adrenaline running through my veins I did eventually fall asleep, filled with questions that buzzed through my mind like a cloud of hungry mosquitoes. I felt the raw edges inside me being found and crossed. Who and what had I become by climbing over these carefully constructed walls of deeply held beliefs?

About six months later, when our mutual trust and firm friendship had been established, Beatha confessed that she’d barely slept at all that first night. Before meeting me, she’d never even spoken to a ‘muzungu’ let alone slept under the same roof as one, and she’d been terrified! She pointed to the cover of my Brant guide book where an impressive silver back gorilla was pictured glaring out at us. In her own way she expressed how fear had been the result of her friends saying that they suspected I might turn into some kind of gorilla like monster during the night and eat her! Although she insisted she hadn’t really believed them, she still hadn’t slept…just in case. I laughed so hard I truly could have cried. However, as my laughter died down I realised in wonder, not for the first time, what a brave young woman stood before me and how much there remained for me to learn.

 

Thanking you in advance for feeding this PotentialiTREE with your generosity 🙂

 

 

 

Wednesday Writers’ Well

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by harulawordsthatserve in Poetry, Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

creative writing, creativity, gratitude, imagination, international womens day, joy, miracles, nature, rwanda, soul food, well, well being, writing prompt, writing workshop

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“The aspiring poet is constantly lowering a bucket only half way down a well. coming up time and again with nothing but empty air. The frustration is immense. But you must keep doing it anyway. After many years of practice, the chain draws unexpectedly tight, and you have dipped into the waters that will continue to entice you back. You’ll have broken the skin on the pool of yourself.”

 – SEAMUS HEANEY

Beatha and her boys

This is my friend Beatha Munganyinka, with her three boys.

You can find out more about Beatha by following the link below

https://beathaandherboys.wordpress.com/

Before I dive in to the regular Wednesday post, I’d like to (re)share a poem I wrote a while back, in recognition of the fact that today is International Women’s Day. For inspiration I turned my thoughts to my heroines…the mothers of Africa, or more specifically, the women in Rwanda who have been such friends and sources of inspiration to me. For more about International Women’s Day, follow this link:

https://www.internationalwomensday.com/Theme

She bears a year old child upon her back

Her body oozing sweat in vicious heat

A child beside with nothing on her feet

Walks in silence down the dusty track

No waste of precious words to voice her lack

The woman’s rod straight back shows no defeat

Her head held high she stops to meet and greet

For all are friends who walk this dusty track

A car pulls up to offer them a lift

She feels the soothing air conditioning

Her daughter waits to see what she will do

The man inside is offering a gift

He’s smiling now and beckoning them in

They walk on by, thank God her mother knew

 

And now, a belated welcome to this regular slot each Wednesday, which I call Writers’ Well because: it’s intended to be a source of nourishment and inspiration for the writer in you, it expresses my belief that creative writing can benefit our well being on many levels, and…I love the above quote from Seamus Heaney. It gives me goosebumps every time. It also resonates with my own intention when leading writing workshops. It’s not about producing good writing, it’s about brave, real writing. Writing that goes down deep within to draw up something unexpected.

Writing Prompt:

Each week, I share one of the writing prompts used the previous Friday in my weekly workshop, along with an example of what was written in response. Today’s prompt (allow around 15 mins in total) is called…Mundane Miracles

Begin by making a list, speedily and spontaneously, of about 10 things/experiences, you consider to be little everyday ‘miracles’. If you’re doing it in a group, you can pass your list round to the right after each item and add to each others so you get some creative cross pollination of imaginative ideas.

Now, with your list for inspiration, though you do not you have to use everything on it, nor are you limited to the things on your list(s), write a poem. Here is what I wrote:

 

I believe in miracles

the daily, mundane kind

no need to wake from death

or fly with pigs

just smile

smile with heart and soul on show

and you catch me in that glow

and I feel that joy and lightness

grow in me too

watch that wild thing following freely

with nothing to gain

but a moment of connection

unspoken friendship that neither asks

nor wants but flies away

as lightly and spontaneously as it came

colour, that child of light

ever changing as the day births,

grows and dies

spilling a vast palette

from an ever changing sky

onto a receptive world below

that forgets blue is so much more

that a single four letter word

nothing need change

for life to become

a series of mini miracles

it’s all already there

just waiting to be noticed

 

 

May your day be Miraculous 🙂

If you enjoyed this prompt, then you can find more here:

https://wordsthatserve.wordpress.com/upcoming-writing-workshops-and-some-prompts-for-you-to-play-with/

and here:

https://wordsthatserve.wordpress.com/writing-prompts-the-elements/

 

 

 

Celebrating Small

22 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by harulawordsthatserve in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

fun, fundraising, generosity, giving, little things, quotes, rwanda, small things, working togehter

IMG_0008_NEWA much younger, and even smaller, me!

I’m not a tall person. In fact, I’m small enough to be one of those people who’ll ask you to get them something from the higher shelves in the supermarket, and I’m one of those people you’ll be jealous of as you watch them sleep soundly curled up in their coach seat with their knees nowhere near the back of the seat in front of them.

I’ve always known that small can be beautiful, and that it’s the little things in life that matter most. Just today the smallest of gestures gave me such pleasure. I was next in the queue to wash my plate and cutlery after lunch, Another person arrived behind me and I offered to take her plate and wash it along with my own. She gave me a huge smile, handed it to me, and left, and I began to wash. Moments later she returned and began to dry the plates and cutlery I was washing and placing on the drain rack, so it turned into a team effort. Beautiful. We did it together, and it became not only effortless, but a pleasure.

So in celebration of small things working together to make something big, I’ve just added ten new perks to my indiegogo campaign;

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/for-the-health-and-education-of-my-rwandan-friends/x/9801530#home

…one new perk for every single digit amount donated between £1 and £10. They look something like this:

£1 is for…oneness!
I will sing this simple song (one by one everyone comes to remember, we’re healing the world one heart at a time…) once through for each person who donates £1, to thank them, and in recognition of the power of one…by one. If I get more than 50 (!) donations of exactly £1 each I might just post myself singing it on YouTube that many times through!

‘Not all of us can do great things,

but we can do small things with great love.’

– Mother Teresa

£2 is for…pairs!

I’ll write you a rhyming couplet on a topic of your choice (within reason!), for example, on generosity:

What grace it is to give and share with all,
If yet I stand let not one near me fall.

They laugh at me, these fellas, just because I am small
They laugh at me because I’m not a hundred feet tall
I tell ‘em there’s a lot to learn down here on the ground
The world is big but little people turn it around
– sung by Gavroche in Les Miserables

£3 is for…Beginning, Middle, End

I’ll send you a mini 100 word story about my time in Rwanda. Just choose when you want it to come from – the beginning, the middle, or the end?

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
– Khalil Gibran

£4 is for…my favourite things!

One of which, obviously, is the song form the sound of music. Number four also happens to be my favourite number. But what else would you like to know about my favourite things. You can ask me for four and I’ll share them with you…food, film etc

It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.
– John Wooden

£5 is for…wise!
I’m an avid collector of great wise and inspirational quotes. I’ll share with you my current top five.

Nobody’s going to fix the world for us, but working together, making use of technological innovations and human communities alike,
we might just be able to fix it ourselves.
– Jamais Cascio

£6 is for…pics!

As in pictures. I’ll send you six digital photos, not yet shared on this campaign, from my time in Rwanda, spanning several years.

Some think love can be measured by the amount of butterflies in their tummy. Others think love can be measured in bunches of flowers, or by using the words ‘for ever’. But love can only truly be measured by actions. It can be a small thing, such as peeling an orange for a person you love, because you know they don’t like doing it.
– Marian Keyes

£7 is for…heaven!

I’ll name my seven heavens on earth, places of natural beauty all over the world, that I’ve been to and felt blessed by. A good perk for those travelers amongst you who might like to check some of these out for yourselves!

The older I get, the more I’m conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn’t it?
– Sandra Cisneros

£8 is for…plate!

I’ve just started a new job as a residential cook in a retreat centre. I will share my eight favourite recipes, incorporating everything from starters and salads, to sweets and mains.

Every successful individual knows that his or her achievement
depends on a community of persons working together.
– Paul Ryan

£9 is for…’crime’!

This isn’t a ‘who dunnit’, but a ‘yep, I dunnit’. Yes, I’ll confess, I’m no angel or saint, so choose of the following; rage, lies, poison pen, death, theft…and I’ll share my (humorous rather than heinous)confession!

Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.
– Georges Bernanos

£10 is for…when?

I’ll make a playful prediction on a topic of your choice; love, career, health or money. Now let’s get this clear, I have NO psychic skills, so if I’m ever right, it’s purely by chance. If you get in touch to let me know I hit the nail on the head, that would be nice.

Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realising
that life is made up of little things.
– Frank A Clark

Blessings on you all and – celebrate small!!!

Happy Birthday to…me!

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by harulawordsthatserve in Uncategorized

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

creative writing, donation, happy birthday, rwanda, writing prompt

me beachObligatory embarrassing ‘me as a child’ photo…

Yes, today is my birthday and I wake up to knowing that, in this moment, there is nothing at all I need beyond what I already have – and that makes me one very lucky person, and something I would like to remember to celebrate every day, and not just on the anniversary of my birth.

When I was a child I would bring a tray brimming with bags of sweets to share with all the children in my class. This was a tradition that came from my Dutch mother, and was a way of sharing the abundance on a day when we tend to become the focus of giving.

Bull Terrier CarpetToday, I would like to offer you something too, and no, not virtual sweets, that would be too cruel (like those dreams when there’s a delicious looking cream filled cake right in front of you but you just can’t pick it up…you do have those dreams too, right?!)

I would like to offer an emailed copy of the 36 writing prompt cards I’ve recently completed the first draft of, some of which I’ve been sharing here over the last few days. All you have to do is pop over to the campaign page I’ve set up for my Rwandan friend Beatha (see link below) and make a donation – anything from one pound upwards – then give me your email address in the comments below, and I will send them to you 🙂 AND…if you don’t fancy the prompt cards, then go ahead and make a donation, and I will write you a poem on a topic of your choice! Delivered straight to your inbox 🙂

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/for-the-health-and-education-of-my-rwandan-friends/x/9801530

I taught English in Rwanda and Beatha was my housemate. One day the heavens opened while I was teaching and sheets of rain fell beyond the classroom door. How was I going to walk home? Then, through the rain, a figure appeared. Beatha had come to collect me, with an umbrella, so that I could make a dignified exit as befitted a teacher. Well actually, I had already raced home splashing in the rain (much to the amusement of my students) and was banging on a locked door when Beatha arrived tut tutting and asking why I hadn’t waited for someone to come, or for the rain to stop. I was like a child and look at the state of my clothes! She was my ‘umbrella’ in Rwanda in so many ways, now I want to be her umbrella.

Have a great day friends!

Love and blessings, Harula xxx

Me and BeathaI still love playing in water…Beatha not so much 🙂

 

Writing prompts 3 – The Elements

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by harulawordsthatserve in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

creativity, elements, fire, Gaia, rwanda, writing, writing prompt

P1030064Apologies for the quality of this ‘photo of a photo’, but it shows me at the street children’s centre in Rwanda with one of the local staff and some of the boys. The cooking fire was out of shot to the right, just beyond where the two boys are standing…

I recently finished creating a set of thirty six writing prompt cards based on the theme of the elements, which I ‘baptised’ and tested with a few writer friends recently. I’ve been sharing a few examples of the exercises with you over the last few days to see what you think. Today it’s one of the six exercises inspired by the element of fire. I’ve also included what I wrote in response. Enjoy:-)

FIRE

A Fireside Gathering (10 minutes)

There’s something magical about sitting around a fire, feeling the presence of others rather than being able to see them clearly in the half light of the flickering flames.

Ask yourself to remember such a time, an experience of being around or in front of a fire, indoors or outdoors. Who was with you? What were the sounds, smells, feelings that arose as you shared that warmth, and how did the fire itself contribute to the unique atmosphere of the gathering?

________________________________________________________________________

It was a necessary, practical fire, used for cooking three times a day. I sat chatting with the two boys who were on the rota for the evening meal. There were long periods of comfortable silence, interrupted occasionally by the wood ‘popping’. There weren’t really flames any more, just the hot orange glow of embers perfect for cooking. I could hear water boiling, and the comforting smell of wood smoke mingled with the rice scented steam.

There was a a hint of electric light spilling on to us from one of the bedroom windows nearby, but otherwise the fire was the only light, the sun having long bedded down for the night. There was something safe and informal, permissive, in the shadows that allowed only glimpses of what our faces might be showing, telling.

I was running this street children’s centre in the east of Rwanda, and the boys I lived there with had taken to calling me ‘boss boss’, but such glorified rank and status had dropped away in the presence of the fire, and one of the boys asked, “Why doesn’t God love us?”

The question appeared to come from nowhere and I didn’t know how to answer. I was aware that most of the boys were catholic, and I didn’t share these beliefs, so I wanted to tread carefully with what I said. “What do you mean?” I replied.

“Why doesn’t God like black people as much as whites? Why are we always poor, no school. We must’ve done something wrong.”

“Is that what you really think?” I said, replying with another question rather than commit myself in any way to knowing about God’s preferences.

“Maybe,” came the reply. And then we just continued to stare into the fire.

 

And on the subject of Rwanda, if you haven’t yet checked out today’s earlier post please do, if you have time, or go straight to:

https://igg.me/at/helpmyrwandanfriends

Go go indiegogo campaign!

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by harulawordsthatserve in Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

beatha, friendship, fundraising, rwanda

DSCF0646Dear friends

Some of you know I spent years working in Rwanda, and have a dear friend with two young boys who I support regularly. When I spoke to her yesterday, she had run out of money a week earlier and was buying food on credit from a small local shop.

I am waiting to start a new job and find myself stretched so yesterday, when I was thinking about what I could do to help, as well as writing to friends and family I set up a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/for-the-health-and-education-of-my-rwandan-friends/x/9801530

This allows people to make donations, from just 1.00 pound to as much as they wish. I would so appreciate it if you would check it out, and share the link as widely as possible. Of course, if you yourselves feel inspired to make a donation. I would be hugely grateful, and spreading the word is a powerful contribution too 🙂

Beatha is like a sister to me, and her story is one of great strength as well as sadness. You can find out more on my other blog:

beathaandherboys.wordpress.com/

I’ll be back again later with another writing prompt – this time inspired by fire!

Hugs, Harula xxx

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Synchronicity…a Good Deeds post

24 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by harulawordsthatserve in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

beauty, family, generosity, giving, good deeds, gratitude, nature, peace, poem, poetry, rwanda, syncronicity, teaching

DSCF0646Me, Beatha and Mugisha – Rwanda, January 2013

I was in the library recently, focused and intent on writing an important email and planning a fundraising campaign to help my friend in Rwanda. A woman I’ve seen there several times sat at the computer next to me. After a while she began sighing a lot and I looked over. At first she apologised for disturbing me, and I could have left it that, but I decided to ask if everything was OK. It turns out she was in the process of trying to help a family she knows get out of Gaza. Apparently they are currently stuck in Jordan and the visa process is taking a very long time, not to mention costing a huge amount of money. I listened for a while and thanked her genuinely for what she was doing to help this traumatized family. As I was about to leave I wished her well in her quest to help them and shared that, while sitting next to her, I had been writing about my own wish to help a friend in Rwanda. She responded by giving me the name of a local woman who has been involved in charity work in Uganda, close to the border with Rwanda, and urged me to connect with her. We exchanged contact details.

I will follow up on this ‘chance’ meeting, and who knows where it may lead. It was such a great reminder that the world, the universe and all it’s wonderful expressions of life and creativity are surrounding us, wanting to interact and co-create in a magical myriad of ways…if we only take the cue:-)

Good Deeds Received

My Dad sent me a link to a wonderful article about cycling in Rwanda – so positive and inspiring. My heart still shares every other beat with that land, and to see something as simple as a bike empowering girls to not only continue their education, but to take it even further and compete in competitive cycling at international level…phenomenal! Check it out:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/28826059

Mum bought me a wonderful magazine on her way back from Amsterdam, so beautifully presented and full of inspiring, wise and creative articles. One tracked a woman who had made a commitment to give something away every day for 29 days, and the magic that invoked. She herself was inspired by a book she read about a woman with MS who had been instructed to do just that to support her own healing, and was utterly transformed. Here are links to the book and the magazine:

http://www.29giftsbook.com/

http://www.flowmagazine.com/

A dear friend replied so lovingly to a brief text I sent saying she was in my thoughts and apologising for my lack of contact, I was very touched and humbled…I’m so blessed! Oh, incidentally (or not!) she is the very friend who brought my attention to the magazine Mum gave me in the first place, only now it’s in English. My friend had originally found it in dutch.

I was sooooo excited to receive a huge smile and a tug on the leg from the gorgeous son of a friend, who is now 1 year and a couple of months(ish). I hadn’t seen him for about three months, but it seems he recognised me and wanted me to pick him up:-)

Received a very sweet thank you card, along with the gift of a little notebook, from a new colleague who I’ve been supporting this week as she prepares to teach here on the one month English Language course.

I had a very rich conversation with a former student of mine, 2.5 hours disappeared just like that while we drank tea, ate meringues, discussed philosophy and shared deeply in a mixture of English and French, finishing our time with her insisting I really must visit her in Paris as there is so much she would like to show me.

I received several very warm and generous responses to my email inviting support for my Rwandan friend. If you haven’t ‘met’ her yet you can read about her on my other blog.

http://beathaandherboys.wordpress.com/

Good Deeds Done

I sent a carefully written card to my niece, who was disappointed with her ‘A’ Level results. I included with this a lottery scratch card I just happened to have bought that day, something I do very occasionally and never win. This time I won 2 pounds! So I sent her the card and told her that, though the amount of money was minimal, there was a lot of good luck in that card because I never win!

Picked my Mum up from the airport, and had bought a few nice things to drink and eat for her to have in the car, as I knew she probably hadn’t had much on the plane.

Sent some more money to my friend in Rwanda, as she had run out, and is still needing regular hospital treatment for fluid on one of her lungs. I then spent a couple of hours carefully planning, and then writing, an email to friends inviting their continued support and letting them know of some fundraising activities I have planned.

Saw a woman I know waiting in the rain and gave her a lift into town.

There was only one seat left on the community bus and the other woman’s timing was more urgent, so I let her take my place and walked the hour and a half, picking up litter along the way and really enjoying the slow pace as I was in no rush and had the time, so I took it:-)

I’ve been working in my Mum’s take away place over the last two nights, and will soon be on my way for a full day there today, as her business partner is away for the weekend.

Made and gave two good luck/blessing cards to the two women who will be teaching on the English course this month, wishing them much joy and grace over the next four weeks. I added a few little gifts, including a small poetry book each. I myself will start teaching a separate group next Saturday, as the course has become so popular.

OK folks, have a great week:-)

NaPoWriMo 8 – Priorities

08 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by harulawordsthatserve in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

compassion, meditation, NaPoWriMo, peace, poem, poetry, rwanda, spirituality

What matters more?

The life of a baby girl

or a golden broach

forged from precious memories

yet willing to be transformed

into medicine

through the alchemy of letting go

***

What serves me more?

To be led by this pain

and lose myself in the discomfort

of just wanting a hug

or recommitting to this journey of learning

to ease suffering

by nurturing my understanding of its causes

***

What’s this life for?

Proving and solidifying

a sense of self and worth

built into the hollows of material success

or knocking down every comforting wall

my mind wants to build

to see what lies beyond

 

 

 

 

NaPoWriMo 7 – Rwanda

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by harulawordsthatserve in Uncategorized

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

NaPoWriMo, poem, poetry, rwanda

Today marks 20 years since the start of the Rwandan Genocide. I lived and worked in Rwanda for three years. Knowing I’m committed to writing a poem a day this month, I could hardly choose any other subject on this day, but found it extremely hard to write. I have found much of what I have read recently about Rwanda emotionally, humanly dishonest. Quoting facts and figures is not a way to understand something like the events of 1994. Facts and figures bury the faces that can tell the real stories. And when you truly look at, witness, see another human face you can’t fail to see yourself.

You made me wear heels

that rubbed me raw and blistered

as I walked the rough red road

but I didn’t let you down

I looked the part

and the pain was negligible –

but worth it?

***

I retreated with those blisters later

in gentleness, alone

I bathed them

wondering what blisters

your soul bore

for I walked in those shoes

but a day

and you must walk in yours

a lifetime

 

 

 

 

Form Friday 5!

08 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by harulawordsthatserve in Poetry

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

africa, beauty, creativity, earth, imagination, inspiration, international womens day, life, nature, poetic form, poetry, rwanda, sonnet, villanelle, women, writing

An Italian (or Petrarchan) Sonnet was my task for this week, and once again I have fallen in love! So now the Sonnet is my favourite! Only last week I gave my poet heart to the Villanelle, but now my thoughts are for sweet Sonnet alone. Is a poet permitted to be so fickle with her forms?

On a more serious note, it being International Women’s Day today, I turned my thoughts to my heroines…the mothers of Africa, or more specifically, the women in Rwanda who have been such friends and sources of inspiration to me. For more about International Women’s Day, follow this link:

http://www.internationalwomensday.com/theme.asp#.UTjS9Tez6Sp

For more about me and my connection to Rwanda, visit my other blog:

http://beathaandherboys.wordpress.com/

A sonnet it usually written in iambic pentameter. I grew up in Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare, so I lived and breathed this meter for years. A sonnet has 14 lines in total. There are various forms, and rhyme schemes that can be applied, and these are often different for the first 8 lines and the last 6 lines. I’ve gone with ABBAABBA CDECDE. You can find more details about the background and structure of Sonnets here:

http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm

And here’s my attempt, in celebration of mothers, women and Africa! Enjoy:-)

She bears a year old child upon her back

Her body oozing sweat in vicious heat

A child beside with nothing on her feet

Walks in silence down the dusty track

No waste of precious words to voice her lack

The woman’s rod straight back shows no defeat

Her head held high she stops to meet and greet

For all are friends who walk this dusty track

 

A car pulls up to offer them a lift

She feels the soothing air conditioning

Her daughter waits to see what she will do

The man inside is offering a gift

He’s smiling now and beckoning them in

They walk on by, thank God her mother knew

 

And if you write a Sonnet yourself, do share it in the comments section, or send me a link.

See you next Friday for: A Rondeau

And here are links to the four previous Form Fridays:

https://wordsthatserve.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/form-friday/

https://wordsthatserve.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/form-friday-2/

https://wordsthatserve.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/form-friday-3/

https://wordsthatserve.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/form-friday-4/

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