Dreaming of Bardavon, Tintin in Tibet, and Carcisonne:

Oren and his friend Crystalle at Ubuntu by the pool.


Well I can’t say it hasn’t been an interesting week, although putting things in order of importance might be difficult. Despite being here and surrounded by many pressing needs, we have found ourselves preoccupied with home-that is the US. There have been several reasons for this. For me, an interesting milestone passed by. The Bardavon Opera House Gala, the biggest dance event of the year for the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre came and went. As the director up until last year, it was a bit strange to think about it happening, and I cannot deny that I did feel some pangs of sadness at missing the excitement of my old job, especially this performance, attended by nearly 2000 people. For any of you who have made an abrupt career shift maybe you can understand the sort of feeling of vertigo one experiences from time to time—like I am going to suddenly wake up in my bedroom in Poughkeepsie New York to discover that the past nine months have been a strange dream. I have to confess that I am certainly not yet as good at my new job as I was at my old one. I am hoping that I will improve over time.

The other reason we have been preoccupied with home is because Rebecca’s dad (Dave) has had an extensive surgical procedure to remove a spot of cancer on his gum. The operation required replacing part of the jaw with a piece of his fibula (leg bone) and a tracheostomy as part of the recovery process. We have been praying about him and checking email almost hourly for news about his recovery. So far we have been getting very good reports.

I also need to confess to a morbid obsession with the stock market and debate on the solution to the problems of the US economy. It is, as many of you know who read this, like some kind of bizarre nightmare. I think of watching “The Waltons” as a teenager—stories of a epoch in America I could never imagine—like ancient history. Are we really going to go through the tribulation of a Great Depression again? What will that mean for those of us living outside the country? What will that mean for charitable giving that supports our mission? It is stranger to hear about the declining economy in the US as I am watching signs of economic improvement in Burundi, driven by a time of peace unprecedented in the last 14 years. Of course Burundi is by UN indicators the poorest country in the entire world, so there is room to grow, I imagine, even in bad economic times.


So this week has had us tuned into Skype, Facebook, The New York Times on the web, and email quite a bit. But life here has not be uneventful either. On the home front, our au pair, Denise, left this past Monday. She had administrative and accounting qualifications and I think had been hoping to find a job in that field. We did not think it was likely she would succeed as work is hard to come by, but she did. (We were happy for her despite our loss.) But that leaves us without a child care worker. Oddly enough, this has not been a great hardship, as Oren is in school every morning, and we have been taking turns being at home with the kids in the afternoon. By adjusting our language lessons slightly we have been able to cover the week between the two of us. We will see how long we can keep this up. For the time being, David can come with us to the office in the morning, but that may change sooner or later.

This week was a bit slower than last week at work. We are still tidying up our database as a few late plans and final reports are straggling in, and we are writing memorandums of understanding for grants this year. Zachee has been in charge of that.

We also have received confirmation that all of our searches for new positions in MCC Rwanda/Burundi have been filled. By next September we will have 5 more workers than we do now—two new service workers in Kigali seconded to Friends Peace House, and three one year positions to build capacity with partners in Burundi. The workers in Kigali will be here for 3 years and they are a couple. We have been finding a place for them to live when they get here in May.

We have been enjoying life away from work this week as well. We returned again on Thursday night to Khanna Khazana, the amazing Indian restaurant I wrote about before, this time with Zachee, Bridget and Tim. We had a great evening out and it was good to see Oren and Timmy getting on so well. Oren will even cautiously use some French like “Viens, Viens.” When he wants Timmy to follow him. Generally Oren has been showing some willingness to try to speak French and does greet our staff and friends in French with little or no prompting.

Another breakthrough! Oren told me, when I picked him up from school on Wednesday, that he now likes to go! That was quite a surprise considering we spent the first 2-3 weeks literally forcing him to go and leaving him off in the class screaming for us not to leave. Mdme. Cecille is very strict, but I have to say her method seems to yield some positive results. She sent home his binder (a collection of his year’s work to date.) It had about 40 pages of pictures he had colored, lines and circles he had drawn, paintings, numbers, connect the dots, and numerous other preschool skills. His work was actually remarkably good. I had no idea he could color in the lines so well, or complete a picture without losing interest.

I think the reason he likes school is because he is starting to make some friends there as well. He likes to see them and I know several of them speak English, so eventhough the teacher does not speak English, he can still find people to talk to.

Another amusing Oren story: When we were last in Rwanda I decided that, though he was a bit young, I would buy him his first Tintin book. For those of you who don’t know about this comic book series written by a man whose last name is Herge, you can look it up on the internet. It is a series comprised of around two dozen books about a boy named Tintin, his dog Snowy, and other interesting characters, notably a hard of hearing professor, and a salty sailor named Captain Haddock. The series is de rigeur for third culture kids (boys and girls) because each adventure takes place in a different part of the world. The comics were actually created in the 1940s but the adventures do not seem dated. However, some of the social norms of the day seem a bit politically incorrect to us now—particularly the amount of smoking and drinking that are part of the scenes of many episodes. Captain Haddock is notably a heavy drinker, and his imbibing often leads to hilarious mishaps. (Snowy is known to have a weakness for spilled whiskey as well.)

The episode I bought for Oren, one of my favorites, was Tintin in Tibet--A story where Tintin must journey to Tibet via Nepal to try to rescue a friend who has been in a plane crash. He encounters many things, Buddhist monks, Sherpas, yaks, and even the Yeti (Abmoninable Snowman). To my amazement, Oren loved it! He has had me read to him about 10 times, and often looks at it himself. He particularly like Captain Haddock and often quotes him saying “Billlons of blue blistering barnacles and thundering typhoons!”

His love of Haddock is not without complications though: On Tuesday,Oren and Rebecca were at a play date at another missionary's house. Rebecca gave Oren a glass of water and he asked her loudly, "Mommy is this whiskey?" All she could do was splutter for a moment. She told him, “No definitely not, whiskey is not for little kids, I would never give you whiskey, even mommy and daddy don't like it, it's yucky.” But he came back with this. "But I like whiskey because I like to be drunk!" Unbelievable! What bad habits missionary kids can pick up from their parents! He seems to really identify with Captain Haddock for some reason, and gets a big kick out of all the silly things that happen to him.

Fortunately this is not the only influence Oren is getting. At Bible study, following the play date Oren saw me reading the Bible and wanted to do so as well. He got his kids Bible out with lots of pictures and started to look through it carefully. Rebecca asked him what he was doing and he said, "I'm reading the Bible, trying to understand the message, trying to understand what it means for me." The story he spent the most time on was how David fought Goliath. He certainly says interesting things and never ceases to surprise us.

On the weekend, not having TV, movies, computer games, or even regular internet access, we find ourselves doing other activities heretofore nearly forgotten.
1) visiting—Usually friends from church with kids. The Carr’s with the trampoline is the number one choice
2) going to the pool—Today David took his first swim in the kiddie pool with Rebecca
3) Reading—right now I am reading a French novel about Haiti called Le Crie du Oiseau Rouge and a book about the history of violence in the region called When Victims Become Killers.
4) Playing Caricsonne—a fun game where you build a map and try to take over territory, cities, farms, roads. Oren usually plays with us and last for about 30 minutes of the game. It is fun to play an ‘adult’ game with him.


So that is where I will stop for now. I need to be up to be the worship facilitator at church tomorrow. (non-musical) Thanks for all prayers about Oren’s and David’s health. They both seem to be over their earaches as of yesterday.