Moving Day and the ethics of ‘Fantas’

Oren and David at the playground at Oren's school


I have been feeling the pressure frequently on the weekend to write a shorter blog entry because we have been busy the past several weeks on Saturday and Sunday. Today, however, I am going to have to make good on that threat as we have a big project ahead of us to complete in two days—MOVING!

For those of you who missed the allusions to it in the past few weeks, we are moving at of the house we are currently renting to a new one. While the project will definitely be worth the effort, it has been and will be a lot of work.

The sad side of all of this is that we are moving into the house previously occupied by our Scottish friends the Carr family. They have been great friends to us and the core of our small group here. Yesterday (Friday) I took them to the airport. It was quite a feat as the 5 of them had arrived with a shipping container, but were taking back what they could in their luggage. Although I have not heard from them yet, we do know that they did get on the plane bound for Heathrow.

Going back a few days… This was a busy week, but not atypical. Oren has been sick on and off, but did manage to go to school every day this week. (I gave him a dose of ibuprofen each morning before he left.)

Among the things we have been doing this week, is learning how to do Zachee’s job! You might remember that I mentioned he and his family are going to Cananda for 3 months and we will need to do the things he normally does for us. Besides book keeping, he also is charged with the often unpleasant task of interfacing with the Burundian bureaucracy to keep our team’s visas updated, our vehicles legal, our organization properly registered, etc. This is a thankless task (eventhough we are profoundly grateful for it.) The challenge of this kind of work is first and foremost that francophone countries in Africa are the progeny of a massively inefficient colonial legacy. Secondly, tasks that are now done entirely electronically, like filing and searching, etc. in the US are done completely by hand here. Finally, corruption is ubiquitous here. It is almost impossible to get even a signature on a form without providing a ‘fanta’. (Fanta is the word for bribe.)

We had a discussion about bribes and corruption in small group--especially about the morality of paying a ‘service charge’ for something as a missionary. One of our members said that she had understood a bribe to be a payment for something you are not entitled to, while a ‘tip’ is giving a fee for something that you are legally entitled to. Myself, I would be inclined to agree, except in truth, a tip is given as a ‘gratuitous gesture’, that is provided AFTER the service is rendered, not as a guarantee that it will be done.


So my foray in to Zachee’s world began at the immigration office in town where I went to renew our families visas. (Something we do every 3 months) The job requires 3 trips for different stages of the process. We had progressed to stage 2 and I needed to drop off our passports for stamping. Standing in line is the long part of the process. Filling out forms takes far less time.

For phase 2 of the process I arrived on Friday in the early afternoon (3pm) to begin the waiting process to drop off the passports. I was feeling really lucky because there was only one person ahead of me and what I had to do was really quite simple. There was no one behind the reception desk, but a man came finally, after 15 minutes, and helped the person in front of me, then left again. I stood waiting for another 45 minutes watching the numerous clerks, and other bureaucrats behind desks, looking bored, chatting, sleeping and generally ignoring those of us on the other side of the windows waiting for service. At 4 pm, Zachee came in to try to pick up Jodi’s passport. He told me that generally no one works on Friday after 11am, eventhough the office is open. We stood around for another 25 minutes, and then were told the office is closing and we needed to leave.

While we were standing I asked Zachee if someone would serve me if I offered a ‘fanta’. He said, yes. He asked me if there was corruption in the US and I explained that it was built into the systerm. I told him:

“If I want my passport processed overnight I pay $160, if I want it in 3 days I pay $90, and if I don’t mind waiting a month, I can pay $40.”

I am not sure what the difference is, except the money is distributed more equitably within the organization. Rich people still get the fastest service though. The other problem I suppose, with corruption is that poor people may not be served at all. Whether I pay a first class ticket or economy class on a plane, we are all going to arrive (or not arrive) together. In a corrupt system though, services are only rendered to the rich.

I guess I have my sense of integrity to comfort me as I fume over the fact that I stood at the front of a line in the passport office to get my visa renewed for an hour and a half without being acknowledged, and eventually told to leave as it was closing time. I also have a better understanding of the challenges Zachee faces almost weekly as our program officer. He will be sorely missed when he leaves in June.

I will need to be back in the immigration office bright and early Monday morning as Rebecca and I are going to Rwanda on Wednesday and need to have our visas renewed before we leave. Prayers would be appreciated if we are going to do this without resorting to ‘fantas’.

The week was not all bad though. Val Carr dropped what I would have to call an atomic bomb of fantastic news on us. During my language lesson on Wednesday she called and said:

“We have a problem. The orphanage we were going to give the our trampoline to decided they did not want to deal with the risk of having it there. Would you like us to leave it at the house for you?”

“Uhhhh OK.”

Honestly, they left a lot of stuff that belonged to their kids including a playstation, TV, legos, matchbox cars, etc. I think Rebecca will have to go through it all before Oren realizes what is there as he will probably not be given most of it.

We did go over last night to put the safety net back on the tramp. (It had been taken down.) Zachee came over with Tim. They had not seen the house yet. Timmy was ecstatic to see the tramp and Zachee could not believe we had managed to find such a great house. He said “Oh, Tim will want to live here!” (Timmy has already suggested that Oren should be his little brother. I am actually hoping that having this larger house and stuff for kids will help Oren make some new friends, (especially French speakers). This is definitely a place to share with others. Hopefully we can continue the Carr’s tradition of having people over for folk dancing as well. We are also hoping to run an English speaking Sunday School for kids on Saturday morning. We will work on all that as soon as we are settled in.

Oren is still having a tough time, with the whole idea of being here, and having a new baby brother. He is still quite possessive of me and needy in a not entirely pleasant way. He does seem to do much better with friends, than with me alone. On ‘daddy day’ this past Thursday I walked David and him over to school in our jogging stroller with David in the front pack-- Rebecca had taken the car to work. (As an aside I will say that a mzungu man pushing a large 3 wheeled stroller with a child in it and a baby in a front pack would be mildly interesting in the US, but is the equivalent in Burundi to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I cannot tell you how strange that was. Everyone would stop working when I passed, traffic stopped, or almost drove off the road rubbernecking. It did take a real effort to have a sense of humor about what a freak I was, especially with most of the people laughing hysterically at the sight. I was certainly not a “light under a bushel” that day.)

The reason we were going to school was for ‘activity afternoon’. Mdme. Cecile has a Thursday obstacle course and other activities for kids. Oren really likes it and I have some pictures in this blog of the things they do.

OK, I have to start packing now.