Privileged Life

This is an older draft of a post I was writing over a month or two ago.  I just found it in the drafts section of the blog, and decided to post anyway, even though it has been a long time since I had this experience.  

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UPON coming back to Kibogora after a five day holiday to see Stephen in Kenya, the awareness of my incredibly privileged life slapped me in the face, once again. 

Here is just one example: 

While we waited in the airport for our delayed flight to leave, we sat in the nicest coffee shop in Rwanda, Bourbon Cafe, sipping delicious Rwandan coffee and using their free wifi.  After a couple hours, I thought it would be nice to have a coke, and Ruthie and Tim were interested in purchasing a frozen mocha coffee.  Problem?  No ice.  They'd been out since last week, when we came through on our way to Kenya and tried to purchase the same thing.  I was bumming, big time!  No ice!  What is the world coming to?  I'd been looking forward to having ice in my drink for weeks!  Even though we'd just found an ice tray, and we knew that soon we could take turns having ice at home, we still wanted ice NOW.  And now they say their ice maker is broken?  Or the delivery of ice didn't arrive?  (Not sure which.)  Oh, poor me.  Poor us.  NO ICE.  

Fast forward to today:  A little 4 year old boy is leaving the hospital today.  He has been a patient at Kibogora for four months.  His name is Deste, and he has stolen all of our hearts. Deste is an orphan from the nearby Democratic Republic of Congo.  His entire family drowned four years ago in Lake Kivu when their rowboat sank on their way to the market on a Saturday morning.  Deste was spared because, as a newborn, his mother had left him in the care of a neighbor while they went for food that day.  Because it is Deste's last day today, we sought permission to take him for a special goodbye breakfast in our Kizungu (foreigner's house).  He is sitting here as I write this, between doting Auntie Ruthie and Uncle Sam, eating fruit, mugate (bread), peanuts and Coca-cola.  He is in HOG HEAVEN.  Didn't know a kid could fit this much in his stomach.  Ruthie filled his cup with ice from our ice tray, and poured his Coke into it.  He was fascinated.  "What is THIS?"  He reached in and picked up an ice cube, discovering it was COLD.  He was frightened and immediately dropped it on the ground and started crying.  Ruthie assured him it was okay.....and he hesitantly picked it up again, marveling at the way it melted in his hand, and slowly realizing it was actually cold water.  

This 4 year old child has never seen ice before.  In what other ways are our lives so privileged and the lives of our friends here so different and so much more challenging than ours?  I'm beginning to realize......it's in just about every way imaginable.