if my life were a movie

10 february 2010

I think we would open with:

"If there was a breeze blowing that day, I didn't feel it, but the waves on the lake told me it was so."

I think I would like an arial shot, the young girl walking out onto the grand peninsula that reaches far into Lake Burera. - a favorite hangout spot for village children, soon to be converted into hotel property - what a shame.

She sits herself down on the rocky cliff, the grass is too saturated from the week of rain. She watches the clouds play out over the lake and the distant mountains - a painted backdrop would never do - Hollywood could never recreate this serene setting. She lays back, pointing her ears to the sun and suddenly the chorus of insects fades away into only the songs of birds and the sound created by their flight, overcoming gravity as the air brushes over their wings.

These things we can see and hear, but how do we breech her thoughts. As she sits, head tilted back spotting the spoonful of marshmallow fluff that is once again topping Muhaboula, the volcano, behind her, her mind wanders back across the lake, to the small room that houses the school's 10 computers.

How am I to teach 60 students on 4 computers (with the solar power at school, there is only enough electricity to run 4 computers at a time - on a good, sunny day that is.. cloudy days, don't even think about it) she wonders to herself.

And the thought hits her.

There is this thing we often don't recognize. Something that she grew up with in America, when every student in her language class had access to his/her own computer. When she grew up playing Oregon Trail and Mavis Becon in elementary school, when she was able to go home and chat with friends online as a 12 year old. Something that she had as a child, that is missing in the lives of these students here; the privilege to try.

In America, she thinks, we learn by experimenting.

What are the different organs of the body?

Let's cut open this frog and find out.

What happens when you mix these chemicals together?

Let's do it and see.

In America, she had had the chance to learn by doing, and here the students learn by reading and writing. Reading and writing about hypothetical experiments and hypothetical cases. Reading about how to use a computer without having the opportunity to set a finger on the mouse.

The privilege to try.

The freedom to learn.

And as she notices that it is due time to head back to teach her class of second year students, ages anywhere from 14 to 18, she stands up and begins the walk home.

On the way, she meets a kind soul.

Who would play the old man she conversed with - in Kinyarwanda where possible, French where not - on the walk back from Musangabo? He was old, wrinkles in all the right places. Grey hairs peeked through is cheeks, forming a scruffy beard. his voice was kind, he was familiar, like someone she'd seen before, or maybe just the general wise-kind-old man archetype character we so often hear about in the movies but never actually meet.

How would they portray the scene where she and the old man approach the corner, the bend in the road, and in the distance an entire school full of blue uniforms comes running, racing to the greet the musungu with the English words she hears them reciting, waking her up in the morning, every day.

And the old woman? Bent over her cane with a mouth sporadically decorated with what is left of her teeth. She greets the muzungu, always with a full smile and asks her again if she want eggs. Those blue uniforms quickly surround her, forcing the old woman out and the white figure is left in a sea of black students bombarding her with "good morning" (and luckily for them, it actually is morning - so she responds with good morning and not good afternoon - they haven't gotten to that one yet) and "what time is it?" as they spot that she has a watch wrapped around her wrist - although chances are good that they do not catch nor understand the "9:45" response.

And where would the camera be to accurately depict the waves of children that follow her down the road.

I would want it to appear just as it feels to me, and it feels to me like a rush of emotion and amazement - this is my life.

How can you catch that on film?

"what is Love?" I asked my class today - trying to define "falling in love". I think that's a much bigger question than they realize, one I don't have the answer to, yet. I'm getting there though.