Two Thanksgivings and a Farewell

Marcelline separating beans for our Thanksgiving succotash.

Rebecca and I are sitting here in our bedroom this evening still reeling slightly from the just-ended whirl-wind tour of Grandma Jean.  It seems like she just got here. She arrived exactly 2 weeks ago on Sunday evening on a Brussels Air flight to Bujumbura, and departed in the same way this evening.  

Rebecca and the boys took her to the airport while I stayed home to lead the small group Bible study that meets on our house on Sunday evenings.  (Rebecca was able to stay for about half of it.)

I said reeling because this was a very full week, which included, among other things, two Thanksgiving dinner celebrations on Thursday and Saturday.  But I don't want to get ahead of myself here.

Monday really felt like a 'getting back to work day.'  Coming off the retreat the past week meant catching up on a lot of email and other administrative tasks. Ruth and Krystan as well as Jodi were still at the house until Tuesday morning, although they all had made dinner plans to visit others on Monday night so we had a fairly quiet dinner together with just Jean and the kids.  

Probably as a result of all the activity and travel of the past several weeks, illness began to set in and affected many of us.  Both Oren and David have been sick with bad sinus infections and fever, and sadly Jean got hit with it as well.  Both kids missed school during the week at least once, and David was out for several days with high fever.  So doctor appointments and starting a regimen of antibiotics for both boys and Grandma Jean were part of the week's offerings.

Wednesday was probably the low point of the week as far as illness as it seemed everyone but Rebecca and I were in bed with fevers, and we considered whether going through with our ambitious Thanksgiving plans for a large dinner with Burundian friends the next day was a good idea.  We did not want to cancel it as there had been considerable planning and preparation put into it even the day before. Among the things prepared were several crafts, like little turkey napkin rings constructed by Grandma Jean and Oren.  

We weighed our options and decided that in our experience, most of the viruses we have contracted here go away in about 24 hours so we did not change our plans to proceed with the Thanksgiving meal. 

Last year we had invited a group of Burundian friends to share Thanksgiving with us at our house.  My parents were visiting at the time and it was a great opportunity to have them meet several of our Burundian friends all at once.  We decided to recreate the event again with Rebecca's mom.

This year we included many of the same friends to join us again.  We had Onesphore and his two children (his wife is still doing a medical residency in France), we had Zenon and his family (he is a partner from Campus Intervarsity ministry), and Zachee, Bridget and Tim and our program officer Felix. With Jean and us we were a group of 15.   It was good that most of these folks had some knowledge of English which meant Jean could talk with them as well.  (At one point in the evening she recounted the Thanksgiving story from the Native American perspective of Squanto—the Indian who assisted the pilgrims.)

It was very nice to share this meal with Burundian friends.  We did our best to make some traditional Thanksgiving favorites and came up with some great hybrids of Burundian and American food.  Succotash was not hard as white beans are available here, as are sweet potatoes (white, not yams), as well as regular potatoes and pumpkins (for pie).  Recently some stores around here offer rotisserie chickens for sale, so I bought 3 of those as well.  

The real challenge was to be the cranberry sauce (for me the sin qua non of Thanksgiving ‘fixins’).  There is no way to get fresh cranberries here and to date, I have not seen any cans of it imported.  Rebecca came up with an awesome substitute though by using a fruit we find locally called a japanese plum or tree tomato.

I have not seen these fruits in the US before, but here they are quite common.  They have a very deep red interior and a thick skin that looks like a plum.  The taste is generally very tart and astringent.  Usually it is squeezed out as a kind of dressing on fruit salads made with mangoes, bananas, and pineapples.  They are not very good to eat alone unless you really love sour fruit.

But as a substitute for cranberries it was almost indistinguishable and in some ways even better.  Rebecca wrote down the recipe, however if you are not in a country where you can get Japanese plums (tree tomatoes) it will probably be hard to reproduce.  But here it is.  

Fresh “Cranberry” Relish for Burundi

(guaranteed 100% cranberry-free)

Add into blender:

4 medium carrots (sliced into pieces) OR 2 carrots and 2 apples (seeded and quartered)

8 – 10 Japanese plums (Tree tomatoes) 

* to do this, cut plums in half, and scoop out flesh and purple seeds from each half into blender with a teaspoon. Use everything but the outer skin.

1 orange with peel still on (quartered, remove seeds and tough center section)

Juice of 1 lemon

½ cup sugar

½ cup pineapple juice OR ½ cup other juice (apple, mixed berry)

Blend until a smooth consistency, about a minute. If the blender has trouble, add a little more liquid, either juice or water.

Pour into a dish, chill and enjoy.

Probably the mzungus enjoyed this addition the most, I think the Burundians could have taken it or left it.  But they did have a great time together and we are glad to have a reason to get together with Burundian friends in the evening.

Thursday was not the only Thanksgiving dinner we had though.  Through Oren’s school we have connections to a few American parents.  One of them, Olivia, has a daughter in Oren’s class.  She is here with her husband and 2 children.  He is part of the UN mission here working as a lawyer to reinforce the capacity of the Burundian justice system.  She invited us to a real American Thanksgiving dinner with TURKEY!  (It was brought in through the diplomatic pouch of the Dutch embassy, I think.)  

There are a handful of Americans who have children at the Ecole Belge, it includes us, the Horsts and an American woman named Ann Glick who is married to one of the diplomats with the Dutch embassy.  We were all invited to share Thanksgiving together at Olivia's house Saturday evening.

We took Jean and the kids and went over in the afternoon on Saturday.  The only thing I can say about the food is it was fabulous.  There were 2 small turkeys cooked to perfection as well as filet mignon, pork stuffing, sweet potato French fries, all other standard Thanksgiving offerings including pumpkin and shoo-fly pie (complete with flies that had to be shooed!).  Rebecca’s cranberry sauce may have been the runaway favorite though.  This was a group of people who could definitely appreciate the importance of it, and would also miss its omission at a meal claiming to be Thanksgiving.  I think she passed on the recipe to several people there.

What was interesting about the event was the unusual concentration of Mennonites there.  Besides Rebecca and Jean (bretheren) we had the Horsts who are Mennonite, as well as Ann Glick who is Mennonite as well.  Since there is no Mennonite church in Burundi I think that every Mennonite in the country was at that dinner, completely by serendipity. (Olivia did not know this about the invitees at all.)   When it was time for a pre-meal blessing, Ann suggested we sing #606 (a version of the Doxology humorously nicknamed the Mennonite National Anthem because it is so well-known by all Mennonites.)  It is quite impressive to hear with all the complex harmonies and parts rendered seemingly spontaneously.  There were a few guests from Ecuador and Benin (UN colleagues) as well as the other Americans who seemed quite impressed by it.  I certainly was.  I think the propensity of Mennonites also accounted for the tastiness of all the food as Mennonites are some of the best cooks of simple, traditional food in the world.  (If you don’t believe me, check out the More With Less Cookbook.)

It was really great to have a second Thanksgiving meal with this culturally very diverse group.  It is also always interesting to hear about the work of other expats who find themselves here in Burundi.  There is a fairly large UN mission here, but unless they have kids in Oren’s class, we are not likely to have much interaction with them.

The kids also played very well together as they are all in the same school.  I will certainly not forget it soon and will probably see if something like this can be created next year.  The fact that we had the chance to share a tradition cross-culturally, but also participate  in it with those who share our own cultural traditions was a special blessing this year.

Sunday was our last day with Grandma Jean and we took her to church in the morning.  I am happy that she decided to assist Rebecca with the Sunday school class she is teaching.  Rebecca has been offering an English medium class for non-french speaking children at PTI.  There are quite a few ex-pats who come to the service, particularly from Kenya and Ethiopia, which are Anglophone.  She is up to about 20 kids now and it is a really good class.  (Thanks to some very good curriculum we brought with us from the US this summer.)

I am glad also that Jean took some pictures of the class to get an idea of just how modest a Sunday School classroom at the church is.  As you can see there are no desks or even chairs.  Children sit on the floor.  There are no supplies whatsoever, but fortunately we have a stock of crayons and Rebecca photocopies pictures for them to color.  Other crafts are very limited because it is almost impossible to buy things like straws, pipe cleaners, cotton balls, and other kinds of craft supplies.  Nonetheless she makes do and the kids seem to really like to be there.

We came home in the afternoon and Sunday and actually took out, cleaned up and started to decorate the Christmas tree.  Oren has been very excited about doing this and to share some of the decorating with Grandma Jean.  (In case you are wondering about the tree, it is artificial, made in China and pretty scrawny, but seems to have held up well the past 3 years.)

Sunday evening we had our small group again.  Jean needed to be dropped off about half-way through so Rebecca started with us then took Jean and the kids to the airport while I finished with our group.  

There was much to be Thankful for in all of this.  We had a great time with Grandma who helped us out a lot in her first week and has even committed herself to help us in the future with a campaign to get some good children’s books sent to Burundi to share with our partners who run schools.  (Particularly the Hope School for the Batwa).  It is always a tremendous blessing to have ‘representatives’ from our families and friends at home to bring their love and support out here.  It is true that absence does make the heart grow fonder.

Retreat and Recovery

Oren building a multilevel railway with some new pieces of track Grandma Jean brought from the USA.

I think I am beginning to understand how the Levites (the priestly tribe of Israel) felt on a Sabbath.  It seems like much of the time of worship was dedicated to hauling water slaughtering animals and tending a giant barbeque grill.  In other words, it was hard work and probably exhausting.  Just coming off a three day team retreat, I think both Rebecca and I were ready to collapse on Saturday night into a coma of exhaustion.  I am not saying it was bad, but organizing and running a retreat is not as renewing as being on it.  

Just to back up a bit, I might have mentioned that we would be having a team retreat this past week and we did so beginning on Wednesday evening and ending on Saturday evening.  Because of this, the first part of the week was front loaded with much preparation work-- photocopying songsheets, worksheets, cooking food, shopping for snacks, organizing art supplies, as well as planning activities, discussion topics around a theme, and a general schedule of events.  Rebecca was good about making sure this process was inclusive and asked many to contribute to the retreat according to their gifts.  

Because of this we have had many unique offerings in the past including bookbinding and yoga, and this year, thanks to Nathan and Yolanda, we added sculpting in clay and watercolor to the repertoire of activities.  

Although we did not have the retreat in Bujumbura, members of our team began arriving here as early as Monday (Yolanda and Jodi).  Ruth and Krystan got here on Wednesday which meant that by Wednesday evening, including Rebecca’s Mom (Grandma Jean), we had 7 adults (Grandma Jean, Ruth, Krystan, Yolanda, Jodi, Paul, Rebecca) and 3 children (Oren, David, baby Misha) staying in our house.  This pretty much meant that all parents were sleeping in bed with their children and Yolanda was in the living room, but our house is big enough to feel like it can accommodate this many people comfortably.  

One of the reasons Yolanda came down early was to see a mutual friend, Jean Claude, defend his masters thesis at Hope University here in Bujumbura.  I went as well because I was curious about how this differed from my own experience of defending a thesis and I must say it was quite interesting and a reminder of just how much less people make-do with here than in our country.   It was pouring the whole week and the evening of the defense was no exception, we drove to the campus, in a poorer quartier of town and did our best to avoid getting drenched as we looked for the room.  

The classroom was set up somewhat like a tribunal in a German prison camp.  Far from a state-of-the-art, multimedia, controlled climate and acoustically optimized, room one might find at Vassar where I used to teach, it was in fact a cinderblock room with bare walls, save one blackboard, no working lights, and a tin roof that amplified the rain to a deafening tone making the exchanges of questions and answers almost impossible to hear.   The windows also had no glass and the voices of students standing  and chatting under the awning (to avoid the rain) added to the din.  

The room was crowded as many had come to hear the defence and Jean Claude was attired in a white suit and tie on one side of the front of the room at a desk complete with a floral centerpiece, and the panel of 3 professors in suits on the other side of the room at their own long table complete with a second floral centerpiece.

Since Jean Claude had decided to write his thesis in English (his 3^rd language) some of the questions were asked and responded to in English, but others were in French. Jean-Claude’s thesis was an analysis of why education was failing to bring the Batwa tribe into mainstream society and why there continued to be an extremely high rate of attrition from the free primary education among Batwa disproportionate to other ethnic groups.  

Being a French system I was aware that form is as important as content in all of this and many of the questions and corrections were focused on the form of the thesis, to wit: how to write acknowledgements (thank professors before family) and which prepositions to use in the title (at school rather than in school)  (As an American it sounded quite nit-picky).  The formality of all of this certainly was daunting, and I knew that points were awarded or taken away based on solely on these criteria.  What made it all a bit comical though, was the deafening acoustic din in which this solemn examination was taking place.  To add an element of film-noir to it all was the fact that by 7pm the room was entirely dark, making reading from prepared text nearly impossible, EXCEPT for an intensely bright strobe light attached to a video wielded by a free-roaming cameraman who stood between Jean Claude and the professors and was panning between Jean-Claude, his interlocutors and the audience (with several close-ups on your truly--the mzungu).  It gave the whole thing a feeling of some kind of criminal interrogation and added to the many distractions that everyone seems to accept as normal around here.  I continue to be humbled by what people endure to have an opportunity for education around here in contrast to the comforts of academic pursuit in the US that are almost entitlements (electricity, laptops, internet access everywhere, libraries, classrooms, and study alcoves complete with comfortable seating, and a general ambience of quietness in which to reflect and exchange ideas).

Despite the challenge of it all, he did pass with a good grade and Yolanda and I were happy to congratulate him on his accomplishment.  I believe his thesis had been influenced somewhat by experience he had doing some work with our partner UCEDD who runs the Hope School for the Batwa.  

Tuesday was pretty normal, schedule-wise.  It is the day when I teach ballet in the afternoon, and Rebecca and the kids did take the opportunity to take Grandma Jean to see Oren’s school as well as a swim at Entente Sportif.

Wednesday was occupied with logistics for leaving and food preparation for a large group.  We were happy to have Enoch, our back-up cook (and cook trainer) to help make tons of cinnamon rolls for our guests.  He is a great cook and we enjoyed fish curry, tomato tarragon soup, fajitas, and other tasty dishes while he was there helping out.

We actually had our first meal together as a group at our house on Wednesday and asked everyone to wear a costume (as an icebreaker)  It was pretty funny and I have at least one only slightly embarrassing photo of the event at the bottom of this page.

The kids went to school on Thursday as the Horst’s son Jal as well as Oren are in the Ecole Belge. So we headed up to Igenda in the afternoon, a town where there is a retreat center about an hour out of Bujumbura.  We have been there in the past several times and even had last year’s retreat there.  It is beautiful and sits among several tea plantations with spectacular panoramas of rolling hills that remind one of Switzerland.  It is also quite cold!  Very cold, in fact, when it rains, which it did for much of the time we were there.

Upon arrival we huddled around a warm fire place in the main open foyer, trying to avoid getting splattered by rain that was being blown under the roof by the wind.  It was difficult to really get unpacked and begin, but Nathan did have his clay and we started doing some sculpting by the fire.  Nathan told us he bought the clay from a Batwa man who was stunned that he wanted it, and not a ready-made pot.  

He did show us some techniques of pot making, bead making, and how to fire at low temps in a wood fire.  We all made our own things until it became too dark to see.  (Oh yes, there was no electricity in this place when the noisy generator is turned off.)  I made a bust of a head, which I don’t think came out badly considering I had no tools and virtually no light.  (Unfortunately by the time we left it was beginning to turn to mud and crumble apart.)

Our reflection times, interspersed through the retreat focused on understanding our mission through conceiving of poverty as a spiritual issue, and seeing transformation as beginning at the levelof the individual.  Among the interesting passages of scripture we considered was the story of Jesus healing a woman ‘bent-over’ for 14 years on the Sabbath, as well as the story of Zaccheus.  It was interesting to consider how Jesus ministers to and transforms lives through liberation of both victims as well as oppressors.

We tried to find ways for members of our team to encourage and build each other up through affirmation and praying together.

Friday morning we saw a brief pause in the deluge of rain showers and we went on a group hike.  It was relatively successful even with young children in tow.  It is one of the few places in Burundi I have found where mzungus can hike without attracting too much attention.

During all of our meetings Grandma Jean ran an entire kids program for all the children.  She was assisted by Zachee’s sister Ina who also came on the trip.  It was a real Godsend to have someone watch the kids and allow the parents to have some adult time together.

By Saturday, despite the enjoyment of hikes and nature, we were pretty much all ready to head back.  The rain did detract somewhat from the pleasure of being there and we had another brief reprieve from it as we were leaving.  We stopped on the way down the mountain at an old tea plantation house for some fantas and playing but when the rain caught up to us again we continued down the way to Bujumbura.  

We got home in the late afternoon but went out to dinner together at a restaurant along the lake for a final closure on the evening.  I am not sure which part of this was what made the whole trip exhausting for Rebecca and I, but we came home after dinner and flopped into bed almost before the children were asleep and stayed there the whole night.

We did go to church on Sunday morning with Jean. Yolanda left on Sunday afternoon and Ruth, Krystan (with their baby) will leave on Tuesday with Jodi.  

We did have a meeting with our small group on Sunday evening and it was refreshing to share and reflect on the weekend events with them.  It is good to feel affirmed and renewed by others who can share our joys and concerns on a regular basis.

I am very happy that the next several weeks will be spent in Bujumbura and I am looking forward to beginning to prepare for the holidays here.  I am thinking of repainting the living room while we have Grandma here for extra help with the kids.

Bonus photo:  The Fresh Princes of MCC-- DJ Felix and Ice P.  (From the costume party on the first day of the retreat.)

Come Thou Long Expected Grandma

David playing on a traditional Burundian wooden bicycle on our porch.

It is about 4:30 am right now.  The power is off and our inverter is currently on the fritz.  I am grateful to have a computer that has a battery that works about 8 hours.  I did not get the blog posted last night because I did fall sound asleep at about 11pm. The reason for not starting before then was the unusual business of Sunday evening this week.  One thing we have added to our weekly routine Sunday is a prayer and share group that meets at our house from 5 to 7pm.  This is about the 4th week we have done it and I am hoping it continues to go as well as it has in the months ahead.

In the past 2 years, Rebecca and I have tried to get a group together without much avail.  I had mentioned the problem of missionaries not seeming to ever have time to meet regularly and also the number of short term people that are here.  We have also had problems  in the past, when we had the group open as a Bible study, of having awkward situations where people were coming primarily with the motivation of connecting with mzungus to ask for money, a job, or other favors.

This group, though seems to be one that has more stability.  We have 3 couples, Tim and Jeanette, our South African missionary friends, Ahn and Sani, a Korean pastor and his wife that are here planting a church and pastoral training school, Ina, a woman from India who runs a pharmacy with her husband, and Rebecca and I.  We are hoping that Libby and Handa, a Burundian couple, will be joining us as well in the near future.

All of these folks are here long term, and made the decision to be working here in a very sacrificial way.  It is inspiring to be sharing and praying with them, but also holds Rebecca and I to a very high standard of sacrifice and obedience as they are really models of people who take their faith and following Jesus very seriously.  

We have been studying the book of Nehemiah the past 4 weeks and I have led most of the sessions.  It has been good to read this book again in the Burundian context as I consider this man and his project to rebuild his nation and unify his people.  There are many lessons for Burundi.  The thing I appreciate about him that is a good corrective to what I would call a 'blind faith' approach to doing a God inspired mission, is his practical and meticulous planning.  He begins by hearing a call (actually an articulated need expressed by his people in Jerusalem), praying about it, making an appeal to the King, then taking time to fund raise, get a grant, supplies, and legal permissions before beginning.  He does field visits and a base line survey before commencing the project.  He inspires a shared vision among his people, involves EVERYONE in the project, and deals very directly and effectively with threats from without and within.

This week we read chapter 5 where he deals with the very corroding effect of corruption in the leadership and wealthy of the community.  He rebukes the leaders and nobles and reminds them of the importance of not taking advantage of the poor through usury (1% interest rate--ha, ha)  forcing them to sell their land and their sons and daughters into slavery.  Nehemiah recognized the problem of a community where income disparity between rich and poor becomes more and more extreme.  In Burundi, I observed, the problem of corruption is certainly having a corroding affect, but in my own country, I believe that the growing divide between the  rich and poor is beginning to tear at the fabric of our democracy as well.  Nehemiah seems to be particular poignant in both cultural contexts.

The other reason this Sunday evening was particularly busy was the trip, or trips we made to the airport to pick up our 'mystery visitor'-- none other than GRANDMA JEAN, Rebecca's mom.  She was due in on the Brussels Airline flight from Brussels at about 8 pm.  We packed the kids into the car and headed to the airport.  When we got there, we were told the flight had been delayed about an hour and a half and would be arriving about 9:30 pm.  We decided to take the kids back home and feed them and get them to bed since they had school on Monday.  They did not even make it back to the house, but fell asleep on the way.  We put them to bed and an hour or so later I headed back to the airport.

My timing was good and I got there shortly before she emerged from customs.  I am glad to say she arrived with all of her luggage and without incident (two 50 pound suitcases and a carry-on laden with Christmas presents and other goodies from the US) .  We came home and we went to bed shortly after her arrival.  I am sure the kids will be thrilled to find her when they wake up this morning.  Hopefully she will be able to put up with all the attention despite jet lag.  

Working backwards, I will say that this week has been, as mentioned last week, one of the few where we stayed in town the whole week.  I think this is only the second one since we came back from the US this summer.  I am hoping that we will continue to have more weeks like this where we have a regular routine.  I particularly enjoyed going swimming every day last week in our newly renovated pool at Entente Sportive.  Rainy season has begun in full force and there were several days when it was raining steadily when Rebecca and I went swimming anyway.  It is kind of nice to swim in the rain, actually, the pool water feels quite warm compared to the outside air.

Although the weather is cooler and fresher in this season, it is not remotely cold.  I am spending my 3rd year in this climate without winter, and it seems very strange to imagine the cold weather setting in in the US while we bask daily in the sun and take daily morning swims in an outdoor pool.  I do admit that I miss the more extreme changes in the seasons we have at home.  It seems particularly strange as we prepare for the holiday season.  With no commercialism and no change in weather, it is hard to believe we are entering the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.

The work week was a chance to catch up on a lot of office and administrative work, meetings with partners in Bujumbura, etc.  It is planning time again for volunteers for next year.  We are trying to identify some opportunities to bring some new 1 year volunteers out for next year.  We are also looking for an opportunity to send at least one of Burundian from among our partners to work in another country for a year.  We are considering a francophone country like Haiti or Burkina Faso where there is an MCC program.  MCC  encourages this kind of cultural exchange.

I am very happy to say that none of us were sick this week! And Oren and David went to school every day.  It took Oren a bit of getting used to after a fall break the week before and Burkina Faso before that.  But he is getting back into it with minimal complaining.  French is still coming at a snails pace though for him.

Saturday was fairly busy although it was marked by a rare all-day torrential rain storm.  I have never seen it rain so hard and continuously before.  We even had a bit of leaking in our roof as a result.  One of the events planned for Saturday by our church was an all day meeting 11am to 4pm to talk about developing a committee structure.  Rebecca and I usually switch off at such events and she was elected to go to this one while I stayed with the kids.  ---It was another opportunity for a cultural lesson...

We had known in the past that generally meetings start late here and have adjusted accordingly.  An 11 am meeting begins around 11;30 at earliest, for example.  What Rebecca had not considered was the extreme aversion Burundians have to rain and getting wet.  The unwritten cultural rule is that when it rains, everything comes to a halt until the rain is over, then picks up again with everything postponed until it is over.  With the torrential downpour on Saturday, Rebecca dutifully arrived 30 minutes after start time at 11:30, but found virtually no one there.  People started arriving around 1pm and the meeting began around 1:30 pm.  She spent the first 2 hours waiting around.  When she left at 4pm, she literally  met one or two of the leaders who were arriving as she was leaving who seemed genuinely stunned that she would be leaving 'so soon'.   

While Rebecca was at the church, I took Oren to the home of our Danish Friends, Naja and Thomas, for the Birthday Party of their daughter Eviaja.  Rebecca joined us there after the meeting and we had a nice time with many of our friends including Zachee and Bridget who were there with Timmy as well.

Saturday evening was also pretty interesting as we were invited, by some German friends who work with GTZ, to come to an 'adult' party.  Rebecca and I managed to get a babysitter, a special needs education volunteer at Hope University named Rachel.  (She was a friend of our SALTer Brandon.)  We left her with the kids and went together to the party with a group that was primarily other Germans here in the NGO community.  Rebecca and I mused that going to a German party would be a real cultural experience and imagined everyone sitting around wearing tight black jeans and turtlenecks and listening to techno music.  We weren't too far off the mark either.  It was a fun evening and we met some new people who we hope to connect with in the future.

Rachel stayed the night at our house since driving to her neighborhood at night is not ideal, and she joined us the next day for church and a swim in the afternoon at Club du LakT.

That brings us full circle back to the end of the week.  More on Grandma Jean's visit and our team retreat next Sunday.

Farming God's Way and a Trip to Kigali

David catching some zzzzs in a hammock at the guesthouse in Kigali.






Last week I mentioned the fact that this was not a 'normal' week in that we were going to be on the road again.  I am happy to say that I am sitting in our family room this evening having returned Friday about 6pm.  That means we had all of Saturday in Bujumbura as a day off.  We did go swimming midday, but truth be told, the kids were so exhausted they seemed content to just lie around the house and play with toys for most of the days.


The reason we headed upcountry as a family this week is because it was fall break at Oren's school.  We stayed in town Monday because Yolanda had come down on the weekend and planned to get a ride back up with us but needed to do some shopping errands before leaving.  We also lacked at least one important car document to cross the border and needed to wait to pick it up on Tuesday.


I actually woke up sick in the morning (stomach virus or something) so I opted to stay home with the kids while Rebecca went out with Yolanda to help.  The kids had both been throwing up the night before so I suspected I had whatever they had.  By Monday afternoon Rebecca came home and confirmed that she had the same thing and was very nauseous.  It was when we were calling friends to make some arrangements for the week ahead that realized that Zachee and Bridget's family, as well as all the Horsts, and Kirsten, our German friend were all sick with the same thing.  What was very suspicious is that they were also ALL at David's Birthday.  Rebecca and I frantically inventoried the food in our minds to figure out what could have caused it.  We suspected the salsa because it was made with raw tomatoes, but there was also a ranch dressing made with mayonaise.


To be safe, we threw out most everything including the left-over cake.  Yolanda, however, did not get sick and she was at the party and ate everything that we all did.  In the end we were not able to figure out what it was and everyone who got sick, like us, felt it resembled a stomach virus more than food poisoning, so it is possible that the virus was spread at the party since David had had it earlier in the weekend.


Getting sick is such a part of life here that we seem to just accept it as normal.  If you don't have typhoid or malaria, you count yourself as lucky.


There was some concern about leaving Tuesday morning with everyone extremely nauseous on Monday, but the next morning we all woke up feeling fine so we decided to proceed.  We left fairly early (about 9:30), stopping only to put Yolanda's new rattan couch on the roof of our car before heading up.  We had no covering for it so we prayed that we would not meet rain despite the rainy season.


The kids were very excited to be heading up country.  This was going to be quite an adventure as we had decided on the ambitious trip of driving East to Gitega to visit Yolanda's home and have lunch with her, then head north to Burasira to have dinner with Jodi where we would stay the night.  The next day we would continue north to Kigali Rwanda where we would spend 2 more nights and do some field visits and debriefing with Ruth and Krystan.


We do try to see all of our service workers once per month, but this was the first time we would see most of them at their homes in the space of 2-3 days.


We did get to Gitega without a hitch and only a smattering of rain.  We left off the couch and had a quick lunch with Yolanda before heading up the 2 hour dirt road to Jodi's home.  We were happy to find that the roads were neither muddy nor excessively dusty, and we made good time.


Jodi has been doing well and due in no small part to the fact that she had bought a small piece of land and was experimenting with farming it.  She has farming experience from her work on a cooperative farm in upstate New York.  She also had the opportunity to go to a training sponsored by a South African group who were teaching a revolutionary farming technique called 'conservation agriculture' or more popularly "Farming God's Way".  Jodi was very impressed by what she learned there.


The technique is based on the idea that land should be altered and disturbed as little as possible when farming.  For instance, ground cover is not removed by tilling.  Seeds are planted very precisely in holes with fertilizer put directly in the hole.  All areas between rows are covered with grass and the same rows where seeds are planted are used over and over again.  What this technique does is help preserve the topsoil erosion and also helps fix water in the soil so that the ground does not dry up.  Yields can be 4-6 times higher than what farmers get from using traditional methods here.


Jodi is trying it out and had her field done in this way.  Because her field abuts a major foot path, people from all the neighboring villages have begun to ask about what she is doing in the field and many want to be trained in how to do this in their field.  Jodi is waiting to see the results as she did half of her land with this method and the other half in the traditional way.

She did train 8 women in the technique though as she laid out her own plot and I believe they will be trying it in their own field.


I realize, as I write this blog and think about what the word 'field' might conjure up in the minds of my friends and farming relatives in the US.  A field is more the size of an average suburban backyard and would not need a tractor to turn over the soil.  In fact all tilling is done with a large hoe like you can see in this picture.  (The picture was taken of students at a school we support in Rwanda.)


When we got to Burasira we drove out to field as it was threatening to rain.  The kids, as always made us quite a spectacle and soon we were surrounded by about 50-60 local children who watched David and Oren play on the mud bricks of a demolished hut.  It always feels a bit invasive, but Oren and David are pretty good sports about it.

Jodi's stories about life at the school are a harsh reminder of how hard life is here.  She has been working in the preschool to help implement some new pedagogical methods.  But she told us that many of the 3 year olds walk as much as an hour or more a day, barefoot, to get to the school.  The nursery school has absolutely no books but apparently the kids love to thumb through a couple old copies of The Common Place (The MCC monthly magazine) that Jodi left for them in the class.  Despite this, Jodi coninues to find a great joy and sense of hope in seeing the children who struggle against nearly impossible odds to get an education.


We left Jodi the next morning after making about 5 visits to the stables the seminary to see the cows, rabbits and pigs, and headed off to Kigali.  We had an interesting twist to our plan this time.  Zachee was working up country and had Timothy with him (Oren's best friend).  He asked us if we would take Tim up with us as Bridget was in Rwanda working this week.  We happily obliged as we knew it would make entertaining Oren much easier.


We met Zachee enroute in a town called Kirundo, had lunch with Tim and him then headed up to Rwanda.  Fortunately we crossed the border with incident.  There was some concern that we might look suspicious traveling to Rwanda with a Burundian child without his parents.  Fortunately we know all the border guards so well by now that they did not even look twice.

We got to Kigali in the late afternoon and picked up Ruth and Krystan with their baby Misha on the way to the Africa New Life guest house so we could have dinner together.  Bridget stopped by the guest house to pick up Timmy but promised to bring him back the next day to play.


That night (Wednesday) I went to bed with a very sore throat, so bad that I started a course of azithromyocin because I was sure I was getting strep.


Thursday, the plan was to divide and conquer again.  Since I had made the last trip to Rwanda alone, Rebecca was going to meet with the partner while I watched the boys.  Meeting with partners gave us an opportunity to talk about MCC's future strategic planning and what our partners should be doing in accordance with these changes.


One of the changes discussed was MCC's focus shifting more toward food security and sustainable development and less money directly for peace trainings and othe 'peace' related activities.   (This was hard news for our peace partners.)


Oren, David, Timmy, and another kid played well together while Rebecca was gone in the guesthouse lawn.


After lunch we all headed into town with Ruth and Krystan to do shopping for items that are hard to find in Bujumubura.  We met Bridget for dinner and had a delicious Indian meal at a new restaurant that recently opened up.

Friday morning we picked up Tim and headed back toward Burundi.  We had a plan to do a field visit to a rabbit raising project sponsored by a peace youth group we supported.  The community where this was being done was close to the Burundi border so it was on our way out of town.  Or so we thought... actually it was about 30 minutes off the 'beaten path' and even our guide in the car got lost several times. Nonethless we did get to it eventually and saw the rabbits and talked to members of the peace club.


We got back on the road to Bujumbura about 1pm and drove straight back to arrive home after 6pm.   It was a long day of driving, very tough on the kids, but they did hang in pretty well.  (Actually, toward the end, they were laughing hysterically.)


I am happy that this coming week we are able to be homebodies (no traveling).  We are also expecting an exciting visitor next Sunday evening.  More about that next week.

Bonus Photo:  Ruth Plett and Krystan Palikowski with baby Misha, our service workers in Rwanda.