Burkina Faso Part 2: Going Home

Some chickens we were given as a gift during a field visit to an irrigation project.

For those of you who have been waiting to hear from us, we have emerged out of ‘radio silence’ and are back online again.  This is the first week I was actually unable to get to an interconnection at all for more than 7 days.  This was not due to the fact that there is no internet in Burkina Faso, but not at the place we were staying, which was not very close to town.  Our schedule of meetings did not really permit any time to go off to the city to download or upload.

So now I am back in Burundi with Oren and David, Rebecca is still in Burkina, and that is the tale I will tell now.

I left off on the last entry explaining that we had ended the week by traveling to Burkina Faso for Central West Africa regional meetings.  Like most places out here, getting to it entails making an overnight stop in either Nairobi or Addis Ababa depending on whether you want to fly Kenya or Ethiopian Airlines. 

Burkina is more or less a desert, although it does remind me of places I have been in Mexico, only much less developed.  Oagadugu, the capital city is large, although it is does not seem really well planned.  There are more things available here than in Bujumbura, but I would not trade the climate in Burundi for anything Burkina Faso might have to offer.

By Sunday evening we had all arrived, reps from Burkina Faso, Congo, Chad, Nigeria, Rwanda, Burundi, as well as area director Mark Sprunger and Africa Director Bruce Campbell-Jantz.  We had several days of productive meetings and even did a field visit to an irrigation project in a nearby commune.

What I have been most struck by here, is the fact that this country is so desperately poor and low on the UN Human Development Index, eventhough they have not had any kind of war for at least 3 decades.  Literacy, for example, is about 21%.  Even more remarkable is that Burkina Faso is a country with large Christian, Muslim and traditional belief populations who live together peacefully.  In fact, in a single family, people of different beliefs will live together in harmony.  This is quite a contrast to neighboring Nigeria where inter-religious tension and violent conflict is on the rise. 

It is a bit perplexing to me that a country that has enjoyed peace and stability for several decades can be so desperately poor.  Even the AIDS rate is quite low, but again, it does not seem to help much as far as life expectancy.  Probably the biggest problem is the very arid climate.

I have to admit after spending 5 days in this flat, dry desert country, I was feeling grateful to be working in the relatively cool, lush climate of Burundi.

The CWARM meetings ended Thursday and Friday morning people were starting to head back to their countries.  However, prior to arriving, Virginia Lepp, the Country Rep. for Burkina Faso and Chad, asked us if we might be able to stay a few extra days and lead a team retreat for their team.

We thought about it and realized it would mean Oren would miss part of another week of school.  After some consideration, we decided that Rebecca with her pastoral experience would stay and lead most of it, while I would return home with the kids to start school.  I would get home Sunday, and she would get back by Tuesday.

We had considered other scenarios including leaving David with her, but realized that this would complicate leading a retreat with one child in tow.  On top of that, David has not been very well, as far as sinus infections and other bronchial issues and did not seem to be improving in the Burkina climate.

On Friday, we met the Chad team who had arrived for the retreat and learned that Chad is basically a hotter, more arid, poorer version of Burkina Faso mired in conflict.  It sounded like a very tough assignment.

I was happy to be part of the retreat the first day, and in fact, introduced the topic, which was based on some sermon ideas Rebecca and I have been working with.  In brief, we took the four ideas:

Poverty is a spiritual problem

Evangelism must be holistic, considering soul AND body,

Transformation of a society must begin with the individual

Our Lord is a God of hope for a future generation

And worked them into opportunities for personal reflection on one’s assignment.  There were 3 SALTers and several other service workers.  I also led an exercise class (in an airconditioned conference room) for the group which they really loved on Friday evening.

Saturday morning we said goodbye to Rebecca and the boys and I headed to the airport.  I began to really think hard about what I had committed myself to—about 36 hours of travel with 2 young children in tow.  I had David in our travel backpack with all of his bottles, diapers, etc, a briefcase with laptop, and Oren was pulling has travel toy bag.  We checked everything else.

I am glad Burkina is a francophone country so I can communicate easily at the airport.  I got through immigration and customs with little problem.  The first day of air travel was very, very, very long.  We spent several hours in Togo on the ground on the first leg waiting for people to join our plane.  Then we had the long flight back to Addis Ababa.  We flew from midday into late night, which was quite surreal, sitting in the last row of the dark plane, cramped in with Oren and David, trying to keep them entertained or getting them to sleep.  

The small but essential mercy was that there was one extra seat in the plane and the person assigned to share the 3 seat row with us was able to move and give us all the seats.  Otherwise I would have had to go about 12 hours the first day with David in my lap, crammed in the middle seat of the Boeing 737.  (I had forgotten, when I volunteered to do this, that we had not bought David a ticket.)

I must say, no matter how modern travel becomes, riding a plane, especially in these circumstances, always reminds me vaguely of stories of crossing the ocean stuffed into the hull of some steam ship-maybe riding 3^rd class in the Titanic.  A crowded plane in coach is small, and at night you feel you are in some kind of bouncy tube hurtling through the invisible night sky.  There was a melancholic adult movie about a middle aged woman, whose husband worked too much for the UN, came close to having an affair with one of his Syrian colleagues,  It was set in Cairo and had a heavy sort of Michael Nyman piano score  (Cairo Time).  It added to the disjunctional weirdness of it all.

We arrived in Addis about 10 pm and I think out of sympathy, airport officials helped me get through the transit process quickly and to a hotel for the short overnight.  (I like that Ethiopian Airlines gives you a free hotel when you stay overnight.)  The boys were actually very good but fell asleep right when we got to the hotel at 11pm, so we missed dinner.  The night was a bit restless as we shared a bed, and I noticed David was running a low fever.  But no one woke up until morning.

The night was too short as we had to have breakfast at 6am (4am Burkina time) and head back to the airport.  We arrived there quite early and spent 3 more hours at the gate but finally boarded the plane to Bujumbura.  We did make a stopover in Kigali, but got back to Burundi by about 2pm Burundi time.  We breezed through the airport thanks to our resident visas.

Felix was there to pick us up at the airport.  I was wiped out.  We went home and after bidding goodbye to several friends who stopped in to greet us, the boys and I settled in to play, jump on the trampoline, have dinner, and unpack a bit.

I started David on antibiotics, and the boys are sleeping comfortably in my bed tonight.  It is good to be home and through that ordeal.  Rebecca gets back on Tuesday so I will need to get the boys off to and back from school for 2 days, but that will seem like a piece of cake compared to traveling with them for 2 days.

The house was in good condition when I came back, the wall is back up, and the friend we left Bella with, was able to successfully breed her, so we are hoping to have puppies here in a couple months.  

Thanks all who have kept us in prayer, hopefully even more so when you hadn’t heard from us for a week.  I will ask Rebecca give her report when she gets back in the next entry.

Trip to Burkina Faso, Part 1: Getting There

 Oren and David in front of the 'resort' where we had our Regional Meetings outiside of Ouagadugu.

It has been my experience, as late, that if one child spikes a fever and the other one comes into your bed that same night and begins throwing up, it is a safe bet that the next day is a family travel day.  

Many of you know from the last post that we are out of Bujumbura this week in Burkina Faso where we are having our annual regional meetings.  I will begin by saying that we are all indeed here, despite the challenges of the voyage, but let me back up again to the beginning of the week since we did not begin our travel until Saturday.

I feel like I need to acknowledge another week, with gratitude, that no child missed a day of school because illness.  I cannot say the same thing for our staff.  We have in fact, it seems, rarely seen our three workers (Marcelline our cook, Odifax our cleaner, and Gaspard our night guard) all on the same day at all in the past two weeks.  This is not only been due to their own illnesses, but in the case of Gaspard and Odifax, their wives and children have been down with malaria as well.)  Gaspard has had it particularly hard, with his wife, having just borne their fifth child, sick with malaria.  They live up country so we have had to give Gaspard extended days of leave in the past three weeks to go up and care for them.  Just when it seems all were getting well, his father died this past week and he had to ask for another week off as he is the oldest son in the family and responsible for all burial arrangements and inheritance settlements.

Odifax usually substitutes for Gaspard at night, for an overtime bonus, but this puts a strain on him when he works both days and nights.  (We give him half days off when he does this.)

Marcelline has been down with typhoid, amoeba and other parasites off and on this past month.  

All of this is challenging enough on a regular week, but on this week before leaving it came to a real head as we are continuing to host Jimi Juma the South Africa peace rep and his wife Dina who are staying at our house still waiting for a visa.  On top of that, our next door neighbor knocked down the wall between our houses to repair some cracks in the foundation, AND Bella our golden retriever, went into heat, and has been escaping out our neighbor’s frequently open gate.  

So when Odifax told us that a new family emergency involving a brother in Rwanda necessitated his leaving over the weekend, we really felt like we were being tested to the point of breaking, especially since it was the weekend we were leaving town.

In short, much of our week involved working through the logistics of leaving our home for a week with no staff, 2 guests, a dog in heat and a broken wall.  I won’t go into all the deals we made but somehow we did manage to farm Bella out to a friend who is hoping for a puppy when we breed her, and found another friend to do night guard duty for a few days this past weekend.  (I should note that Jimmy’s wife Dina did step in to help with the cooking and marketing a few times this past week as well.)

I am hoping that our staff will be back this week we are gone and the wall gets built, God willing things will be less problematic in our absence.

Before our big travel day this past Saturday, I made a trip up to Gitega on Wednesday to check in on Yolanda.  I am kicking myself for not bringing my camera because she has really made her little house into a home.  She even admits that chartreuse walls have grown on her.  She has most rooms up set up for her and I brought her some more chairs and a bed for the guest room.  The kitchen looks great, yet simple, and she has a nice dining room.  We have ordered her a wicker couch from a local artisans collective which should arrive next week.

The only thing that remains a problem is the water.  I knew it might be, and she confirmed that Gitega does not have water at least some part of every day and sometimes there is none several days at a time.  I gave her permission to have the sisters arrange for a small water tower to be put up on the property which MCC would pay for.

After visiting her, went to together and had a lunch, actually an official commissioning ceremony for her beginning life in Gitega, with our partner UCPD.  There were four of them eating lunch with Yolanda and I at a restaurant.  Sharing food and fantas, as I have mentioned is an extremely important way of expressing solidarity.  

When we were done, Yolanda and I both realized there were several items in Bujumbura that she needed, so on the spur of the moment we decided she should come back with me, pick them up and take a bus back up the next day.  We headed down the mountain that afternoon and arrived in time for dinner.  Fortunately Gitega is only 2 hours away on paved roads, so traveling back and forth is not particularly difficult.

Thursday evening was special because Rebecca and I, in the midst of this very hectic week, had actually arranged to have a date night!  We have some missionary friends here, an older English couple, who offered to watch the kids at our house.  It was really nice to be able to do this, we went out to a restaurant we like in town, which honestly, on the inside feels like a place in Soho, New York City, rather than a third world country.  (It is run by a Belgian woman, I believe.)  

Friday we did our best to tie up all the lose ends left at work, made sure all of our service workers had enough money for the week, and began packing for our trip on Saturday.  (You know you are getting to be an expert traveler when you don’t begin packing for a 10 day trip until the night before you leave.)

Saturday:  Our flight was leaving at 2:30 which means we we going to head to the airport at noon, we decided to go ahead and invite our friends over for morning exercise and brunch.  I though it would be good to be able to some stretching before 2 days of flying.  We had a big group as several couples with kids in Oren’s school came as well as some Danish students here doing a short term internship.

Felix picked us up at our house at noon and we headed to the airport.  

I should say a bit about the geography of flying to Burkina Faso and you may want to look at a map to follow along.  It is in West Africa, and like most countries over there, it is nearly impossible to fly there in any direct way, even if you are in a contiguous country.  We chose to take Ethiopian airlines from Bujumbura to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) which means heading East to go West, then take a 9 hour flight from there the next morning across the continent to Oagadugu (the capital of Burkina Faso).

The nice thing about Ethiopian is that they put you up for a night free in a hotel between the two legs of the trip. 

I was a bit surprised to see, on our arrival, that the plane were would take from Bujumbura to Addis was a turbo-prop and not a jet.  I am not unaccustomed to smaller planes, but not usually to travel a distance between two points that I can actually distinguish on a map of the world.  I wondered how long it would take.

As it turned out it was a brand new generation of smaller (60 passenger planes) that is really not bad, cramped, but the engines are extremely quiet.  The flight took 3 hours and would have been comfortable had we bought a ticket for David and not had to have him sit in our laps.  

When we got to Addis we met the Hartman-Sauders, one of the other families on the way to CWARM (the name of the meeting—Central West Africa Regional Meetings).  I felt really sorry for them because they were coming from Nigeria which is very close to Burkina Faso, but had to fly across the entire continent to Addis and fly back across, over Nigeria to go West to Burkina Faso  (like going LA to San Francisco via New York).  Brenda, Mark, with their kids Valerie and Greg seemed no worse for the wear as they are quite used to traveling having been out on the mission field with MCC for the past 5 years or so.

We all stayed at the same hotel in Addis, but did not visit much as we were all pretty beat and went to bed right after dinner.  (about 9:30 Addis time)

Oren and David are definitely getting used to travel.  Oren is almost completely self-sufficient, packing his little wheeled flight bag with small treasures and coloring books to play with on the plane.  David still wants to run up and down the aisles whenever possible and does not really watch any movies if they are available.  He was notably disappointed to not have his own seat on this trip, but he does not cry or throw tantrums when we are in the plane and usually takes at least one long nap.

Sunday:  The leg to Burkina Faso was long!  We stopped briefly in Togo on the way.  But we did get there, fairly exhausted, but this is where the real challenge began.  I should note that on the flight besides us and the Hartman-Sauders, were Gopar the West Africa Peace rep, and Suzanne Lind the MCC Congo rep.  (Addis is one of two hubs to West Africa destinations.)  So we were 9 in all heading to this conference on this flight.

Without meaning to offend, I would say that on first impression, coming into the airport, that what Burkina Faso lacks in charm it seems to makes up for in heat.

This is a very flat, dry country, one of the least developed in the entire world.  The airport does not make a great impression, at least at this time while it is under construction.  Essentially we arrived and were processed in a warehouse with a dirt floor.  We had to spend about an hour filling out paper work for visas for which they wanted extensive documentation, $200 per person, 2 photos, and then kept our passports for which we must return to pick up 2 days later.  

The kids were beginning to lose it at this point.  To add to the challenge there was no access to a bathroom until one passed through the immigration process.  (Another long story short, Oren peeed into an empty water bottle at one point in the ordeal.)

It was a marginal improvement to emerge from the crowded makeshift airport into the blazing heat of Oagadugu, but we did get to ride an airconditioned car to our retreat site.

The place is called Lambila Beach Hotel, and while there is a reservoir in the area, there was nothing resembling a beach.  In fact, like everything here, the grounds are mainly comprised of dry dirt.  Despite this there were several redeeming features: a small pool, and airconditioned rooms as well as some playground-like features.  

One thing that we did discover is that there is no internet access so posting this will have to wait a week, at least.  Hopefully no one has been too worried about the late posting.

More about the Burkina trip in the next entry.

Waiting for the Rain--Again!

Yolanda showing off her new kitchen.




Constipated.  Not me, the whole country--weather-wise that is.  After a lovely beginning to rainy season 3 weeks ago marked by several days of showers, we have had not a drop for more than 3 weeks.  So we are back to living in the daily gathering dust in our homes.  But added to this is a real unpleasantness of sticky heat.  Most of the dry season Burundi is relatively cool and breezy, but during these transitional weeks if it does not rain, the air becomes still and sticky, impregnated with water but not shedding any.

There is a certain testiness associated with this inter-season as well as we swelter and wait, parched for that elusive rain shower.  (Actually I have no data, but I could swear that there has been an uptick in the number of traffic accidents and impatient drivers cruising around during this time.)

The week has not been all bad despite this seasonal perturbation.  We have had healthy children all week, which is no mean feat.  Neither of them missed any school.  It has been good to see David acclimate to the Montessori pre-school where he goes from 8 to 12 every day.  He does seem to like going now and seeing the cages of parrots, guinea pigs, rabbits, and turtles at the entrance.  He definitely prefers to get into the car with Oren and us rather than stay at home with Marcelline which he had been doing several mornings a week.

Rebecca and I sadly have been missing our morning swims which usually proceed dropping the kids off at school, because the pool has been drained for renovations.  This is actually very good news, despite the inconvenience because it has been falling apart.  The good news is we drove by yesterday and we found that they had finished and it was in the process of being refilled!  It should be done by Tuesday this week so we can swim there again soon.  It does look really nice with all the broken tiles and ladders replaced, and all the outside surfaces repainted.  (We will only be able to enjoy it for 3 or 4 days before we leave town again for 10 days as we have meetings in Burkino Faso for which we leave Saturday, but at least we will be coming back to a renovated pool later in the month.)

Monday last week, I took Yolanda, our service worker up to Gitega to get her set up in her new home.  Rebecca stayed back with the kids as they were in school.  It had the feeling to me of a momentous event as this was the official beginning of the work of her MCC term.  We had been up several times earlier last month to find a place for her and sign a contract.  This time, after dropping the kids off at school we loaded the Landcrusier, stuffed-full of furniture and other necessities including a bed on the roof and a dining room set inside as well as stove and cooking gas, and headed up the mountains.  I am happy to say that nothing fell off.

Yolanda's little house is modest, almost like the servants quarters of a larger house in the same cloture.  I was happy to see the sister who is the landlord waiting for us when we drove up, to give us a key.  Her kirundi teacher paid us a visit as well as we were unloading.  The house had received a fresh coat of paint, chartreuse on the outside and the stone work in the living room painted like a black and white holstein cow.  (not exactly to Yolanda's taste.)

We were also told the water was pretty inconsistent in Gitega and she would need to store water on the property or we might even put up a tower for her.

We spent several hours in Gitega getting various things for her, such as food and basic supplies and set up her bed and stove so she could at least sleep and eat.  She still needs furniture for the living room, but after a brief visit with our partners, I left her there in the afternoon and headed back down to Buja.  It did feel a bit like living a kid at College, but Yolanda is very independent and capable in both French and Kirundi and I do not think she will have any trouble getting around.  I will be going back up this Wednesday to bring her a refridgerator and living room furntiture.

The other news is that we have had a guest all this week.  Her name is Dina and she in a Burundian married to a Congolese man named Jimmy (nickname).   He has been living in Bukavu, but has been down in Bujumbura to work on getting a visa for South Africa.  He is, as of recently, working for MCC Southern Africa as the regional peace representative.  The problem is that he is having a very difficult time getting a visa to get down there and start his job.  They have been more or less in limbo for the month.  He did come down her to do some teaching at a peace seminar in Gitega this week and left his wife Dina with us.  He came back just today to join her and they will be here for the next week.

I don't know when their visas will come through, but hopefully soon, I know that there is some frustration for him to be stuck here waiting to begin work for this technicality.  The sad truth is, being Congolese makes it very hard to get a visa as there is generally a stigma associated with them as people wanting to escape their country to make a better life somewhere else, and not return.  One can hardly blame them considering the dangerous mess of a place Eastern Congo is these days.  Prayers or direct influence with the government of South Africa would appreciated this week.

On Tuesday I did begin teaching my ballet class at the Ecole Belge again.  It began well with about 20 5-8 year olds in the first section and dozen 9-16 year olds in the second section.  I am committed to getting some mirrors put up in the multipurpose room this year, although finding them in Burundi will be no mean feat.  I do look forward to teaching this class as a change from my normal routine and to keep us connected to activities at Oren's school as parents.

Oren continues to do better in school these days and it does seem that he is becoming more and more willing to speak french, still not to us, but to his friends and teachers as well.  He continually gets very good reports from his teacher, Mdme Crystalle who seems to like him very much.

The other highlight this week for Oren and I was my success in dowloading the movie "The Swiss Family Robinson" from Itunes.  This is a movie I loved as a kid, especially growing up in another culture.  I always fancied our family as the Robinsons shipwrecked on an island having one adventure after another.  It took 6 straight days of downloading to finally get the 1.4 gigabyte file, but it was worth it.  Oren loves it and has watched it about 4 times this past week.  It is as good as I remember it, although I am more politically sensitive to the portrayal of Asian pirates and their own mission to colonize New Guinnea, but beyond that, it would hold up to any action film made today with the latest technology.

Despite the long wait for the movie, I still appreciate a slow internet connection as it makes spending excessive amounts of time on the computer surfing the internet fairly unappealing.

The rest of the week was fairly normal.  We have felt fairly caught up with our work these days.  (That is to say, we are not behind.)  This has primarily been due to the fact that now can work together every day from 8 until noon while the kids are in school.  It has been good in that respect.

We went to a Birthday party for one of Oren's friends this week, Sebastian, whose father works for the Dutch embassy and whose mother is a Mennonite from the US and very familiar with MCC.  It was a nice party, and as they are new in town, and living at the Club du Lac Tanganyika hotel, it was nice to be able to connect our children and us together.

Saturday we had our normal morning exercise class (less Yolanda) but had several danish guests who are here doing some short term work.  In the afternoon we went to a different pool for a swim to cool off then spent the evening with our German missionary friends.

There is another new family in town with two children--Emily and Rebecca a bit younger than Oren and David.  They have been joining us at some of these social events and after church today, the wife (Kristen) and kids came over for lunch at our house.  Oren is quite a gracious host these days and seems to like to make new kids feel at home in Burundi.  The kids played on the trampoline and with his toys before they left about 2.

Actually Sunday afternoon felt like our house was Grand Central Station.  We had a number of visitors pass through who were arriving or leaving town.  There is a peace conference we are sponsoring in Gitega and several MCC peace officers are teaching there.  Today was a kind of 'changing of the guard' when Jimmy finished teaching and Gopar, an MCC peace rep. from Nigeria was arriving.  We all met at our house, today in the afternoon and shared some fantas.

By late afternoon, we felt we needed a break from all the social engagements and headed for a third time this weekend to the beach for a short time.  We met Zachee and Bridget there and had a nice visit with them while Oren played with Tim.

We are gearing up mentally for a busy week as we need to prepare to leave regional meeting in Burkina Faso on Saturday.  It is a long 2 day plane trip to get there, but it is nice to see the other reps and their families.  The next blog I write should be from there, but don't be surprised if it is delayed by several days as I hear the interenet there is sketchy at best.

Oren's Fly Moves and Other Fun at Home

Oren, David and Timmy chillin' on the front porch.

Once again trying to get this posted before I fall asleep.  I wish I had time tomorrow morning but I will be taking Yolanda up to Gitega then so I need to do this now. (Postscript: major long power failure prevented publishing until Monday evening).

I am happy to say that this was a week to regroup and get reaquainted with the family.  After being out of town most of last week, it was very good to have a week at home with Rebecca and the kids.  Last week I had been in Rwanda where I had left our area director at the DRC border in Goma.  

The plan for him was to visit some projects with the MCC Congo Rep then cross back into Rwanda at Bukavu on Thursday and head back to Bujumubura where he would make his connection back to Nigeria. The fact that Mark would pass one more night in Bujumbura before he left gave us the perfect opportunity to have a farewell ceremony for Zachee as he had officially retired from MCC and we have hired his replacement.  

We had the gathering at our house on Thursday evening.  Jodi, Yolanda, Rebecca and I, as well as Bridget and Zachee, Mark Sprunger and Felix were there.  Among the things we gave him were a scrap book of emails and photos that we had collected.  We had asked people who knew him from the past to send a note to him recounting a memory.  

Those of us who were there in person also told a small story about a special memory about him.  Jodi even read a small speech she prepared for him in kirundi.  Bridget was particularly inspiring because besides being his wife, she was also the original country representative for MCC when Zachee was hired 10 years before.  It was touching to hear about the time he was originally hired and the committment he had to MCC over the years.

We ended the evening with a big dinner together prepared by Marcelline and our cook trainer Enoch which featured filet mignon and beautifully presented salads.

We had a full house Thursday night as Mark, Yolanda, and Jodi all stayed the night.  Friday at noon I took Mark back to the airport.  He told me he was very encouraged by the visit and felt that our program here seemed to be running well.  He particularly mentioned our project with Batwa as one of the highlights.  He went back to Nigeria, but we will be seeing him again in Burkina Faso in about 3 weeks for our annual regional meetings there in mid-October.

Among the other highlights of the week was a rite of passage for Rebecca.  On Tuesday one of us had to make a trip upcountry to Gitega to sign a contract on Yolanda's house.  I had just come back from the long week of travel and wanted to have some time with the kids so Rebecca volunteered to make the drive up the mountains this time.  She has never been the driver for this trip although we have made it together frequently.  She and Yolanda left together in the morning and were back by late afternoon.  I was glad she was able to do this as it is something that might be necessary from time to time.  It is a bit scary more because of reckless drivers barreling down and passing trucks on blind curves then because of the condition of the road.  Skill and experience and a wary eye are all necessary on what I would consider a fairly routine trip for us.

I should also mention that the kids were actually well all week and did not miss a day of school!  This felt like a real victory and answer to prayer for us as they were sick almost all of the week before.  David seems to be adjusting well to school and did not even whimper when I dropped him off Thursday and Friday.  The good health of the kids was evident in the time I spent with them out of school as well.  It was so good to just play with them this week.  Probably the best time was Friday evening when I put on some music they like and Oren insisted that mommy and daddy sit down and watch them do a dance performance.  They entertained us in the living room dancing on the coffee table for nearly an hour straight.  It was actually hilarious to see Oren bustin' some moves.   He is very inventive and reminds me of some post modern choreographers (Merce Cunningham or maybe Trish Brown) that I admired in my dance career days.  

It was good to have a week at home after the long week of driving the week before.  Getting Yolanda installed in Gitega will probably take several trips in the next two weeks but probably only day trips.

The weekend was a chance to relax with exercise on Saturday mornin and a trip to the beach in the afternoon where Oren is really starting to show some virtuosity riding the waves. It was a great time to be there, since we got to see a lot of friends playing in the kid pool along with us. We had dinner at Ubuntu in the evening with Jodi and Yolanda and our friends Jean Claude and Francine.

Sunday was pretty normal with church in the morning. As a new change, we did invite some friends over to try to once again to start a small prayer and share group.   We will see how this goes this time.  We have had difficulty in the past because of the short duration of time people spend here and the general unavailability of our missionary friends, but we will see how this goes.  Prayer for a group of friends that could make this committment would be appreciated.

I am looking forward to getting back into the routine of swimming every morning this week.  I missed it the week I was in Rwanda, but also this past week because when Rebecca and I went Monday morning, we found it was being drained for repairs.  This was kind of a good news/bad news discovery.  On the one hand we were disappointed to miss swimming, on the other hand, the pool was desperately in need of some repairs.  I do not think it has been repaired since it was built by Belgian colonialists in the late 50s or 60s.  It is a nice pool but I was afraid it was going to deteriorate to uselessness in the next several years.  The manager said they should have it refilled this week, so we can always hope it will be done soon.

Bonus photo: (Grandparents, don't look!) Oren doing a dive to the couch for his big finale.