Grandma Jean!

I am beginning this entry a bit late today because we just came back from the airport. We picked up 'Grandma Jean' or 'Mama Rebecca' as she is known in Kirundi. Oren was thrilled, although sadly, all of her baggage is currently at large—apparently disappearing in Nairobi. We are less than optimistically awaiting news about it.

This has been a 'capacity building' week for me as I spent several days upcountry, where I had akazi-kenshi (many things to do). As I mentioned in a previous entry, we are setting up our service worker Jodie to teach at a Batwa school in Burasira. It is quite remote. I drove her up then came back alone. This is the first time I have driven in rural Burundi alone. Several hours of the trip were on very rough dirt roads. I did stay a night at the Catholic seminary again. I felt a real sense of accomplishment about not getting lost and beat a torrential downpour on my way down the mountain by about 5 minutes. ALSO I am able to ask for directions in simple Kirundi now. (Although I did not need to.) This is a trip I will be making monthly so it is good to feel competent.

On the way up, we stopped in Gitega where we have several partners I needed to meet. As part of the work I had to conduct a two hour interview with three of them in french by myself, then translate and write up a report. It was exhausting but I did manage to do fairly well.

Among the other highlights of the week was a conversation with Delphine, a partner of ours who directs the World Outreach Initiative, a local NGO. Again, what is striking about her story is the personal commitment to the development, peace and reconciliation work they do. The work with displaced people during the time of the 'crisis' (app. 1994-2004) along the border in Tanzania cost her husband his life. He was shot in the process of a reconciliation project. For her, her faith has sustained her as she continues their work. She does not consider the mission of development, peace and reconciliation to be separable from evangelism. One cannot evangelize without providing care for immediate needs, but one cannot change deeply marred values and generational hatred without grace, and a love that offers reconciliation to God and neighbor. Without a transformation at the personal and societal level, development is simply not possible. The sad tragedy of Burundi is the number of years it has spent in limbo, entrenched in a civil war which goes back 40 years, but has stagnated the country for the past 15.

BUT in the people I meet, I do have hope that a 'righteous generation' is emerging. Many young people do not want to perpetuate the mistakes of the generations before them. Delphine is just one of several of our visionary young partners who inspires hope for the future and affirms my faith as well.

On the homefront: Grandma Jean's arrival means that Rebecca and Oren are two short weeks away from leaving the country for their soujourn in Maryland. They will be leaving me here for another month, before I join them for the birth of our child at the end of October. I am not looking forward to the month alone here, but there is much to do in our work. Here is a photo of a us with a quilt we were given from our church in New York. We just put it up in preparation for Grandma's arrival.

This week has been hard in several ways: One of our colleagues continues to have an ongoing battle with malaria, and our night guard has amoebic dysentery. Rebecca and our cook were also both sick last week. Illness seems to be a fairly regular part of life here.

A few words from Rebecca: Much of this week has involved acquiring household items for Jodi's new house up-country. On Monday, we took a trip to the main market with a young Burundian woman who is great at bargaining. Under one big roof, you can buy anything from second hand clothes to liquor to mangoes to plastic washbasins -- but you need to bargain with each of a thousand vendors separately for each item. There are no shopping carts. Instead, as you go, you employ a young person to carry your purchases while you keep shopping. And you have to make sure you don't step on a mother and child begging on the floor of the narrow aisles.

I have been used to buying everyday items cheaply in other underdeveloped countries, but the situation is different here. Sometimes you can get items at prices comparable to the US. But most things are very, very expensive because they are shipped from other places and the price of transport is so high right now. When you consider that a drinking glass or a kilo of beans costs $1 and that most people make $50 or less in a month, you can see why people struggle so terribly with poverty.

Another challenge of this week was to learn more about public transportation while our Jeep was in the garage. Our cook Marcelline graciously indoctrinated me into the world of riding in the minibus taxis one afternoon. Every one of these vehicles carries up to 20 people and, I swear, has a smashed front windscreen, rickety seats and a sliding door that must be manually reattached every time it's opened. Marcelline even paid my fare (25 cents for a trip to the center of town). Good thing because I had to do it again by myself yesterday while Paul was upcountry! People definitely stare when a white woman gets into one of those vehicles. And I don't know much Kirundi but there is one phrase that I'm really getting the sense of, a shouted exclamation something like, "Look, a pregnant white woman!!" I guess that very few foreigners choose to stay here to deliver babies.

I am sending some pictures of some local sights. This shot was taken from an outdoor restaurant club near Lake Tanganyika. The birds are crested cranes. There is also a giant turtle that roams the grounds. Oren loves that.