Home Alone (with the kids)

David is really beginning to notice things. He likes Bella especially.

I suppose that as a parent with a child in preschool I should be getting used to illness. Oren has a fever again that started Thursday and he needed to stay home from school Friday. (I think he is just beginning to understand that there may be some ‘perks’ to being sick, i.e. staying home from school. Our new service workers had left him an MPEG of Bolt, a story of a dog who thinks he is a superhero. Oren watched it about 4 times in a row on Friday!)

But that comes later in the story. Monday was the start of an auspicious week. We had been orienting our new service workers, Ruth and Krystan over the weekend, and on Monday, I was charged with taking them to Kigali for the first time, to meet the staff of Friends Peace House, AND to begin a two week ‘live in’ up country in a town called Byumba. Rebecca and I had made arrangements for them to stay with Eugene Twizerimana one of our partners, until the middle of next week. They will learn some Kinyarwanda, among other culturally useful things (we hope.).

The drive was going to be a bit of rite of passage for me as well. After dropping them off, I was going to drive back to Bujumbura completely alone for the first time. The reason we did not go as a family this time is that it would have meant pulling Oren out of school again for several days, and we are really trying to be the kind of parents that don’t cause their children to be absent from school excessively because of their own work agendas.

The prospect of the family not going was pretty depressing to me, but Oren took it the hardest of all. He pleaded with me to go. He said he could put his seat way in the back of the car and not take up any space. (He seemed to think it was a space issue.) I told him, not this time, but that he would be going back with us in 2 weeks to pick Ruth and Krystan up. He was very sad and I assured him I would be back in two days.

The trip went well. We arrived on Monday evening after a very smooth drive to Kigali via the new route. It took about 5 hours. On the way in to Kigali, we stopped in a town called Nyamatta where there is a large genocide memorial, a church, in which about 4000 tutsi were massacred. I had visited it before, in fact Doug Hiebert, the former MCC Rep. took Rebecca and I to it on our first trip to Rwanda. I thought, as sobering as it was, that it is a significant introduction for new workers to the country.

While we are now 14 years away from the actual time of the genocide, there is no doubt that that experience colors every area of life in Rwanda to this day. I told Ruth and Krystan that it is the backdrop against which every interaction they will have is played. Yet, It is not something people talk about personally very much, especially to strangers.

I need to diverge here to talk about Guchacha. These are the local tribunals that have been set up around the country to try prisoners for ‘crimes against humanity.’ The government has recently announced, that after 14 years, the guchacha courts will close as of June 1st as all prisoners will have been tried and sentenced by that point. (It is important to remember that there are people in prison who have been waiting for a trial for the past 14 years!!) The good thing is that once sentenced, the time they spend behind bars in credited to them as time served.

The director of Friends Peace House, Sizerre, is a judge for guchacha in his district. I asked if it would be possible to see one of the trials before they were all finished this month. He said it was hard for foreigners to get in, but he would try to get me in to see one before the end of the month. I am hoping this might be a possibility.

Continuing on…

From Nyamatta we went on to Kigali and checked into our guesthouse. (Africa new Life.) We did some business and shopping after that and had an interesting evening as Ruth’s dad was in town for business! (He works for World Relief in Kenya.) He is an old MCCer as well and we had a nice visit over dinner. The next morning we went to Friends Peace House to have formal introductions of the new ‘Consultants’ to our partner.

They were introduced around, I did some business, then we headed in the car up to Byumba. (We did stop by the Friends Church to make sure their house was almost ready, and fortunately it was!) I requested one of the Friends Peace House staff to come with us as I had only been to Byumba once, and did not want to get lost. Fortunately Jeanette, the director of the Women’s programs was available to go with us.

We got to Eugene’s house about mid afternoon and he introduced us to his children. He has two young girls one boy an an older girl that he is raising alone. (His wife died exactly one year ago.) They were extremely gracious, and we had a fanta together before Jeanette and I left them up there.

I had the strange feeling of dropping a child off at college. I was excited for them but nervous as well. I did leave them with a cell phone and money, and instructions on how to contact me, but I think they are fine. They did seem excited about all that was happening.

Another interesting side note. We had brought a water filter from Burundi because Rebecca and I were worried about their drinking water. Upon getting to Kigali, we realized that there was a loose bolt that was causing it to leak. We needed a wrench to tighten it. I decided it was worth it to buy one at local hardware store in Kigali as we did not have one in Buj.

We were in luck on our drive to the guest house. There was an area with about a dozen hardware stores all in walking distance. (This is normal, usually all businesses of one type will be in the same area. When I go to change money at a Forex, there are usually about 50-75 in the same block.) I went into the first (biggest) one and asked for a wrench (clef). They took a brief look around and said they were sorry they did not have one. Not discouraged I went to the second store, and got the same story. By the third hardware store I was getting concerned and took a bit of time to look around. It seemed that there was paint, plumbing supplies and even construction materials….but no tools!! I asked at the next store if they had any tools at all, they said no. I asked where one goes to buy tools and they said a used parts shop. So here is something I have learned: Hardware stores do not sell tools in Rwanda, as far as I can tell. As an American who usually made a trip to Home Depot once a week, and often came home with a new tool, I found that really odd! We never did get a wrench, but fortunately Eugene had a filter at his house.

On Wednesday I got up early and drove back to Burundi alone. Honestly it was quite easy and I listened to three Bill Moyers interviews I had downloaded onto my ipod while I had decent internet connectivity in Kigali. I got back about 3 in the afternoon.

Probably an even bigger challenge than I faced sans famille, was Rebecca, having to stay in Bujumbura with two boys and no car or husband. Here is her report on how that went:

While Paul was away in Rwanda, I needed to figure out how to go along with the routine in Bujumbura. Three days. Two kids. No car. School at 8 am. Go! (And our double stroller is temporarily out of commission while we wait for a new inner tube for the punctured tire.) On Monday, Paul took Oren to school before heading to Rwanda with Krystan and Ruth. He dropped me off at the office and I was able to do a few hours of normal work. Zachee’s son Tim goes to the same school, so he took me and David to pick up Oren. It was so sweet to see Tim and Oren greet each other after school and then hold hands as they walked to the car. Zachee drove us home then, which was quite out of his way. With the help of Charlie (a short-term mission volunteer from the UK) and Marcelline our cook, we managed to keep the kids under control well enough for me to learn about the passé simple tense in my French lesson. One of Oren’s other friends, Zack, also came over to play later in the afternoon (he brought his mom Lizzy and little sister Grace, too.) The kids and I had a reasonably quiet night, aside from David raising the roof while I gave Oren a bath. Also, our nightguard Gaspar was kind enough to reason with me about my travel plans for the morning. I was planning to do the 40 minute walk to school with Oren in the stroller and David in the front-pack. He told me I would be too tired (and I know he’s right – David is already 7.5 kg). “Let me call a taxi for you in the morning…” Gaspar insisted. Tuesday morning came, and I was so thankful for Gaspar’s counsel. I really missed Paul! He normally does everything in the morning: wake up Oren and help him transition to the world, make Oren’s snack, make breakfast, get Oren and David dressed, entertain David while I shower. Even thought I woke up before 6, I was scrambling in every direction to get us out the door on time. Thankfully, Oren agreed to be my friend, and was very cooperative. As soon as he had his shoes on, he ran down to the gate to wait for the taxi. We got to school on time (whew! Just barely!) and Zachee took me and David the rest of the way to the office. At lunch time, Zachee and his whole family took us back home with them for lunch and play time. Oren was delighted to go to Timmy’s house and see how they had fixed it again (after the flood last month). It was funny – Oren was actually convinced that everything in the house had been fixed and was brand-new (even Timmy’s toys that had not been touched by the water). The kids came up with a novel game that amused them for a whole hour: they found the little artificial Christmas tree, and decorated it with electronic singing, blinking lights, tinsel, Christmas balls, and everything else they could find. Eventually, took a taxi all the way across town and back home again. One thing about taxis here: I think there must be a policy of removing seat belts from the back seat. There just aren’t any. So even if I had a baby car seat with me, I couldn’t buckle it in. It’s just a matter of praying when you get in the door. And humanly speaking, it’s hard to have confidence. Just about every taxi has a busted windshield or fender or something. So if you find a taxi driver who is not too reckless, it’s good to get his number. Which I did with this guy, Richard, and he promised to pick us up for school in the morning. We had dinner and cleaned up the house before Bible study. And then I wanted to spend a few concentrated minutes with Oren so that he would be OK while I led the study. We read some books. Then, since no one had come yet, we started singing every Christian camp song I could think of and dancing around the living room. Eventually, someone did come – one local guy – and as awkward as it might have been, we actually had a good study. All the other regular folks had things come up. Oh well. So, Richard the taxi man picked us up in the morning. But on the way to school, we were stopped by the police. There was obviously some kind of power struggle, and they cops were not going to give back Richard’s papers. We waited and waited. When we were 5 minutes late for school, I asked one of the policemen what I should do. He said – get another taxi! Yeah right, on a busy road, with two kids. Yikes! Thankfully Richard must have made some kind of deal to drive us the two blocks and come back. As we walked to the classroom, another parent heard me telling Oren that I would be walking to pick him up and might be late. She offered to give us a ride. So that’s how we solved the final leg of the school journey. Anita is Burundian, married to a Canadian, and she was happy to practice her English. We’ve seen her family numerous times around town, and Oren likes to play with her daughter Crystelle, So I’m thankful to have made a better connection with them.

OK, back to Paul…

Thursday was a productive workday for Rebecca and I, and we were hoping Friday would be too…until Oren got sick on Thursday night. This meant that one of us had to stay home Friday morning with him. We also were realizing that Jodi had not had a visit from us for a while and was needing supplies and encouragement.

We decided that if Oren’s fever was not too high Saturday, we would head up to Bura Sera on Saturday. Oren was indeed well enough, so we headed up country as a family. It was a nice drive and we are really enjoying doing these drives together. Today we even braved the ill-fated shortcut of a previous blog. This time we did not take the wrong left turn and got from our house to Jodi’s in 3 hours flat!!

Jodi was thrilled to see us and we had a nice walk up country that afternoon. Oren helped her pick vegetables in her garden that evening, and on Sunday we went to mass at the seminary before heading back down to Bujumbura.

We got back just in time to make a dinner engagement with our friends the Carr’s. They had just got back from white water rafting in Uganda and had some harrowing stories of optional body boarding that they offer on the last set of level 4 rapids! We were meeting at our familiar favorite haunt Khana Khazanna, but the evening had a sad side—the Carr’s leave for good on Friday, and this was their last meal at this restaurant. We will really miss them when they leave. They were quite an awesome family!

When we got home at 9pm, Rebecca discovered it was Mother’s Day!! I have to say, I miss the commercialism of days like this in the U.S. At least it keeps you from letting it slip by unnoticed. We had not seen one word about it and almost missed it completely. We will plan to celebrate tomorrow.