It’s the fucking keys (Rwandan version)

July 10, 2008

My absolute favorite book about writing is Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. If you don’t have a copy, you should rush out this minute and buy one. Or at least borrow it from your local library. I use BbB in my Freshman Composition I course to keep students focused primarily on the process of writing, and only secondarily on the products. Plus, it’s hilarious. And I always know if students have read the first chapter because they will mention the key story.

My copy of the book happens to be on the other side of the world, so I’m going to retell a small part of it as accurately as I can from memory (sorry Annie). In a few brief paragraphs, Lamott tells a story about her son Sam, who was then very young—maybe four?—and his set of oversized, plastic keys. She writes that one day Sam went outside their front door and locked himself out of the house, and then proceeded to try to unlock the door with his toy keys. When he couldn’t fit the keys in the lock, she heard him say, “Shit.” She made the silent Munch painting scream and then opened the door and told Sam that both of them absolutely had to stop using that word right away. He said, “Okay,” but then asked, “Mom, do you want to know why I said ‘shit’?” Lamott said, “Yes,” and Sam replied, “It was because of those fucking keys.”

I know just how he felt.

Today I was given the keys to the offices here because others would be gone and three of us would need it on Friday. Well. Here’s the thing about your key ring: it is the picture of your life. A long time ago when a secretary friend told me that, I looked down at my key ring and it held not only my keys but the entire key ring of a friend who was out of town. When I explained that to her, she said, “Well, there you are.” I’ve known people who carry like 20 keys on their key ring, even for locks they don’t own anymore. Me, I try to keep it simple. Usually there are four: house, family member’s house, office, car.

I brought one key to Rwanda: my house key. That’s it. Simple.

Ya, right.

So now I have office keys of another sort. Some Rwandan keys are very cool—very big, but cool. Two of the office keys are skeleton keys. Really. They have modern tops, but it’s basically the long shaft and a little doohickey at the end that turns the mechanism. And I have two! There are two other regular keys, but the thing is, when I left for dinner with Steph and Mike, I thought that someone who was still at the office had keys to lock up. But no.

Shit.

Dr. Joseph called me at dinner to tell me about my transgression and I offered to go to the office to remedy my error. But Dr J said Albert would lock up. Whew. But then awhile later, one of the office staffers called me to tell me that one of the house boys was at my hotel and could I please give him the keys so that he could lock up? Steph and Mike had just ordered a take-away pizza, and the taxi driver who we had negotiated with to pick us up at a designated time wasn’t there, so I was pretty much stuck. I told the staffer that Albert was locking up, but after some more time, Steph began to get phone calls about the situation. Three calls later, she established what Dr. Joseph originally told me: Albert will secure the office. There is one more call at my hotel letting me know someone will fix my error. I know there were many more phone calls among the other actors in this story, and I will ask when I see them.

Can’t wait to be down to one key again.

But The Key Incident is a good example of how complex and complicated Rwandan communication patterns are, which is fundamentally what my abbreviated summer study focuses on. But instead of becoming more clear to me, these patterns are becoming more difficult to identify, understand, figure out, use, and ultimately, communicate about.