Dinner Discussion

There is something about eating and conversation that just go well together. My family has always been a fan of the family dinners as I was growing up. Dinner was more than just shoving food in our mouths, it was a time to decompress, catch up on the day’s events, laugh and argue. The dinner table helped to facilitate a sense of community. I was fortunate enough to have the same luxury with my roommates last year at school.

I am privileged to have a similar community around the table at Maji in Goma. Unlike my family’s table and my roommate’s table, the table at Maji constantly has people coming and going. On one hand this is a negative because I am not able to really develop relationships when they are only in Goma for a short period of time. However, on the positive side, I have met civil rights lawyers, businessman, doctors, pastors, nurses and logisticians. There is no shortage of new stories, point of views and jokes.

I came to Goma looking to learn as much as I possibly could about the developing world and how I could operate in the development field. And I have learned a lot so far, I just never thought I would learn as much as I have from just sitting around the dinner table in the evening.