Tears in Public

They kept stealing glances in my directions. Some don't even try to hide their full blown stares. They were creeping closer as if to take action after careful observation. Heaven forbid I was crying in public in Rwanda! Memories of the genocide memorial ceremonies came back into my mind. The wild wails, the forceful carrying of flailing bodies. I pieced it together with the later images of PTSD patients in crisis at the hospital I work at.

They kept staring at me like they wanted to cage me. To tell me to shut up, keep it inside, not excite the others. I wasn't even sobbing, just gentle, silent tears running down my face with the occasional blowing of the nose.

Everything in Rwanda is just fine and normal when you play by the rules. Any other day it is plausible for me to hide all extreme emotion, keep myself on a flat playing field. I can greet, joke, politely inquire. I can even wait for hours, handle breaking buses, rude shouts, demands for money. But everything stops short of acceptable when you just can't hold it in anymore. That one piece of bad news from home that forces you to release emotion. All of a sudden you aren't fit for Rwandan society. You catch their pointed looks over the shoulder of an American friend trying her best to shield you from their view. Some days you just have to act like an American no matter where you are, because that's how I was raised, damnnit.