Reading is bad for your health.

Le 4 mars   On the way to Rwanda, my dad was busy reading instead of sleeping. I poked fun at him the first day, as I’ve rarely seen him this tired and out of it, telling him “Dad, you said you did everything to avoid jetlag, but I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to sleep on the plane.”

The book he was reading was Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza, which is about the author’s story of the Rwandan Genocide and how she found God throughout this time. He wanted to finish the book before landing, he said, and he succeeded. He was, however, extremely tired.

The day before my parents left, my dad handed me his copy of Left to Tell and told me just how much it had meant to him and how excited he would be if I, too, would read it.

Having heard such ravings about the book, I set right to it, once I sat down for the 4 hour bus ride back from Kigali to Gisenyi. And then in every waking moment from there, my nose was in my book. It moves quickly and is hard to put down.

And it was. Two days after I’d started the book, I had already finished it. Maybe I wasn’t getting full nights’ sleep, but I was truly enjoying reading. So…I pulled another book off the shelf that I’d been looking forward to reading for months. It’s one that my cousin Melissa recommended to me by her favorite author, Jodi Picoult, and she’d said, “Laura, you’ll really like this one.” At T. F. Green airport, before my departure in September, I found the book on the shelf and promised myself that I’d read it before I got back.

I tore open the book and dove in. Five days later, I was already done with the 500 page book. HOW on earth did I ever do that? That’s right – I forfeited writing, journaling, and even sleeping just to read one more page. I suppose there are better places to get caught up in a good book, perhaps a vacation or a relaxing weekend, but I happened to pick “middle of volunteer work in Rwanda where 7am means sleeping in.” I was exhausted all week and all I thought about was getting to my book. That being said, once I finished, instead of diving into another book, I decided to catch up on my sleep and writing.