Puzzle, Play, Poem

​            To be dubbed the toy master is a great honor. I am the keeper of the group puzzles by Barbara Nelson! What it means to be a toy master is to bring peace, fun and light through the puzzles. It is so satisfying to do a nice handmade with love that is such a surprise (the puzzles have no pictures on them). Everything happens for a reason and I am blooming with joy that I am the one to teach and remind how to have fun and am the keeper of the puzzles. I am silly! I am happy with who I am, sillys and all. I even in tough times, it seems I to make people smile and/or laugh with my serious comments, then realize, hey! I guess that really was quite humorous!
 
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            The play we have been working on since January has exploded with such meaning. I am constantly at a loss of what to say especially at the memorials. At Nyamata and the Belgium memorial they had guest books to sign. Sitting in front of these guest books were moments that were the epitome of loss for words. Multiple times during this trip I have turned to Lilly and would quote the play.
 
            Our play  “Anne Frank in Rwanda” has the perfect combination of words that could drive my road of emotions to explanation. The play is written by our villagers Lilly (who went on the previous Rwanda trip, wonderful lady and recent grad to become a teacher) and Eve (another outstanding woman, a teacher and is the right hand woman to Drew the director of the Anne Frank Project) they took some parts right from the Diary of Anne Frank and Immaculée Ilibagiza (writer and survivor of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi) I knew that writing, “I’m so sorry” in the guest books, was not the note I truly wanted to leave. Two lines from the play that keep bouncing around my brain is: “What to read. What to write. What to do.” (Nyamata memorial note) Also, “My suffering is nothing compared to the thousands who are suffering more.” (Belgium memorial note)

 
I was so worried our play may offend someone becuase we do say "Tutsi" and theres no Tutsi anymore. Tutsi and Hutu were made up and everyone is simply Rwandan. At the end of the play we go back to being kids and play hand clap games and involve the audience. The audience told us we made them feel happy and sad, what a contract of emotions. To look into the eyes of someone you don't know whose story you may have just touched on, then to play patty cakes with them its a feeling of sparkle, light and joy. 

            All of this has been much more emotionally exhausting than I prepared for and expected. I can be a little scatter brained but I will try to write and reflect here as much as my heart and brain can handle!
 
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Poetic on the beat cause that the way I’m feelin it:
 
Overview feels:
This trip
Is oozing with emotion.
            Experience.
                        Observation that fizzles
                                    from my brain
                                                to my heart.
 
Pumping.
Through my blood
to my feet,
to the earth,
through my sweat,
my tears.
 
To think or not to think?
 
Is that the question?
 
To run away.
To a land of no feelings.
Yet,
to feel too much
is better
Than no feeling at all.
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MUCH LOVE TO ALL. Thank you for your time to read this.
If you have met me before I wonder if you read/hear these blogs in my voice?