Au Marche--Mw’Isoko--At the Market

For those of you who have been praying for the safe arrival of Gramma Jean’s suitcases, your prayers have been answered! They did arrive about two days after she did. Picking them up was an interesting experience. The lost luggage section in the Bujumbura airport customs warehouse is not a place that inspires confidence. When you walk in, it looks like a very likely place to lose a piece of luggage hopelessly. Nonetheless, we presented our lost luggage fiche to the douniare and after disappearing behind several hills of luggage, he emerged, to our amazement, with her bags--completely intact and unopened. It was quite a relief, and Oren was delighted to get the Cheerios and plastic animals that were stashed inside.

This has been a week of errands for us here. Today we head up country with Jodi and her luggage to install her in Burasira where she will spend the next 3 years. It is quite a challenge to get someone set up from scratch in a new household when you do not have a Walmart nearby. Nearly every item has to be bought at a separate place, and it is all so expensive (and must be negotiated vigorously). A can opener runs about $15. Rebecca braved the market with her mom and Jodi and a Burundian friend, Francine. They spent hours haggling over the price of pillows and sheets, and made several trips to different tailors to have pillowcases and couch covers made. (There is no Martha Stewart section of window dressings in the market either!) Here is a picture of Rebecca bargaining for some storage baskets.

There are other unusual shopping risks here. For example: Among the purchases we made was a large pressurized gas container for the stove we bought her. I was driving it home in the land cruiser (alone) on a particularly bumpy road in town. The gas bottle tipped over and hit the spigot. Within seconds the entire car was filled with gas. I stopped, jumped out of the car and ran around back to open the back end doors. Fortunately the spigot was not broken and I was able to shut the gas off and air the car out. None of this was accomplished without creating a considerable traffic jam and scene in the crowded street when I stopped in the middle of the road, and dove out of the car yelling “Il y’a du Gaz!!” The smell in the car was awful, and our night guard Gaspar had a lot of cleaning to do when I got home. It is better now. (Here is a picture of Gaspar with us out in our yard. He is a great help to us at home. Not just guarding the house at night, but doing our ironing, cleaning the car, feeding the dog, minding the front gate, and running various errands.)

Grandma Jean has been keeping herself very busy here as well. She has made some connections with the University Medical Library and even met with the Dean of the medical school to alert him to the availability of online medical publications, and suggest ways they might get access to some computers to be available in the library for faculty and students. She has also been teaching some new recipes to our cook Marcelline. Cinnamon rolls were an addition to her repertoire this week. Here is a picture of Oren getting in on the act during the lesson. I am putting in a picture of Marcelline as well. She has also been a big part of the marketing for items for Jodie to take up country this week. She is very good at driving a hard bargain, and always gets a better price than us bazungus.

I am trying to include a story of the power of faith in the life of remarkable individuals we have met here. What is amazing is that it seems that no one in Burundi is untouched by the crisis of violence and civil war that ripped this country apart the past 15 years. This past Wednesday, in our prayer and share group, our pastor Immanuel Ndikoumana was talking about having a confidence in God’s love and purposes that even transcends our natural fear of death. (We were reading Romans 8 for those of you are Biblically inclined .) In his own case this was tested many times, but once when he was sitting in a car at the market and a militia surrounded him with the intention of killing him. He recounted to us how he had been meditating right at that time on Romans 8:18 where it says: “I consider that our present suffering are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” He described a sense of profound serenity that came over him as the men approached, and when they looked in the car he smiled at them and began to laugh. The leader was incredulous and demanded to know why he was so happy. Immanuel told him and the leader of the gang said: “We cannot kill this man.” And let him go.

What is particularly disturbing to me, an American who has been quite well protected from danger in my life, is that stories like this are not atypical in the Burundian context. Learning to deal with fear and the threat of violence is a part of the lives of most people here. I am becoming aware of the dire choices that individuals and communities must make in response to this experience. Either they will succumb to fear, and continue the cycle of retribution in the name of security and survival, or they must be able to transcend it, forgive, and look with HOPE at the ‘current sufferings’ as something that can be overcome. This hope is only possible through a radical love, that reconciles us to our most feared enemies. The encouragement I have is that I am meeting a cadre of courageous individuals who are willing to risk standing up in their communities, against the tide of fear and ignorance, and say that--despite all they have suffered--there is the hope of a good future, that is worth living and dying for. I have found that such courage comes from their commitment to emulate the example of the Lord they serve.

“For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently.”
Romans 8:24

This is a picture of our Bible study group. Immanuel is in the back in the middle. His wife Azele is in the front. The others are Val and Charles from Scotland, Fidel from Chicago, and Suzie from Timonium, MD.