Hope and the Wilde Ride

Hope School student drummer, part of the welcoming committee for the visit of Dr. Robin Wilde.


I admit that there are some days that my enthusiasm for writing a weekly post wanes.  But I never regret the effort put into it when I read back over the activities of past weeks.  Sometimes I am surprised to find how quickly I forget the details of time past, even in the last month.

This week seems particularly important to get down in print.  I would describe it as challenging and at times, a bit of a nail-biter.  In retrospect I would say that the adage "all's well that ends well" certainly applies, but it did not begin that way.

Over the last weekend I spent some time ruminating over a particularly onerous task prepared for me on Monday.  Sadly, one of our service workers had been experiencing theft by someone among their house staff.  The service worker needed help to communicate the reason for dismissal cross-culturally, so Felix and I said we would do the job.

Firing people, especially very poor staff, is a responsibility that runs right up against my bourgeois sense of compassion.  By that I mean that despite feeling very violated that a trusted worker in my house may be going through my stuff and stealing things, there is something in me that feels, in some way, that because of my privilege I deserve to have someone poorer steal my money.

I have talked with Burundians here (all of whom have house staff, usually a cook and a nanny) and this makes no sense to them.  Many will dismiss a cook for shorting them about 10 cents on a trip to the market to buy food.  They insist to me that there are people out there trying to find a job who are honest. Why reward someone with employment who is not honest?

Sadly, also, stealing by workers is expected by the Burundians I talk to.  In fact, my Burundian friends have all told me that, to a great extent, the onus is on you yourself to keep valuables locked up at all times when workers are in the house.  Leaving them out is an invitation to steal them and one should expect it.  Most of the Burundians I know lock their bedrooms and don't let anyone clean in there.  Rebecca and I feel we have enough trust to let our workers clean in the bedrooms, but I have to admit, I do not know a single person here who has not had to fire a worker for theft--even us in the first few months we were here.

All that said, the day arrived and Felix and I met with the staff of our service worker one by one on Monday at the office and dismissed four of seven.  (The thief had bought a parcel of land shortly after one disappearance of money, the other workers dismissed were related to the person who stole.)

This was a hard but necessary job that took most of the morning.  I was glad Felix was there to help me.

The week had no where to go but up after that set of meetings on Monday.  Tuesday I taught ballet in the afternoon as usual.  A propos to that, I am excited about the recent purchase of 5 large mirrors that I am having installed in the room where I teach.  I was able to buy them from saving the small fees I have charged for classes over the past year; hopefully the installation will be completed next week.

Wednesday was definitely the highlight of the week.  (I should mention here that Jodi was down from upcountry this past weekend and stayed with us Monday and Tuesday as well staying with us.  Her reason for being here was to help with a task set for Wednesday).  I need to give a bit of background though:

About a year ago, I received an email in response to my blog from a pastor named Dr. Robin Wilde.  He told me was the director of an organization called Foundation for Hope in Africa (based in Wisconsin), which supported projects in Uganda and Tanzania. They were interested in doing something in Burundi.  He asked me for some suggestions, and looking at the work they did, I suggested they consider a partnership with UCEDD, our partner who runs the Hope School for the Batwa.

We had several more correspondences back and forth between me, him, Innocent (who directs UCEDD) and Jodi (our volunteer seconded to the Hope School) and out of all this came a plan for him and his colleague Roger to stop briefly through Burundi between visiting a project in Eastern Congo and returning to Kampala where they had brought a small team for some work.

The plan required precision in timing that concerned me greatly in the African context.  It involved them leaving Goma in Eastern Congo by a small chartered Mission Aviation plane at about 1pm and arriving in Bujumbura about 2.  We would pick them up at the airport and zip them up the 3 hours to Nyangungu where the Hope School is located.  They would stay the night, then I would zip them back down the next morning to catch their plane and get back to Kampala by mid-afternoon  (the pilot was not allowed to fly after 5pm because he would exceed his maximum hours).

Things went typically African right from the start.  Robin called me about 2 pm to say they were still stuck in Goma and were not given permission to take off for no apparent reason.  (It turned out of course that the immigration officials were 'holding then hostage' in an attempt to extract a bribe.)  When they were finally given permission to leave, immigration in Congo had delayed their flight for about 4 hours.

This created a dilemma for me because I realized that I did not feel it was safe to leave after 3:30 to drive to Nyangungu as we would need to drive on some of the smaller dirt roads after dark.  There has been an increase in banditry by armed gangs on the roads after dark, particularly on some of the smaller roads we would be travelling.

I made a plan B to drive them half-way, to the town of Gitega (about 2 hours up the road) if they got here by 5, and then continue on to the school early the next morning.  Plan C was to stay in Bujumbura and just describe the school to them--not a good option but I had decided that there was no way I could safely drive to Gitega after 5 pm as that would mean we would be driving in the dark at least part of the way.

I received a call from Robin at 4 pm that said they were given permission to leave and were on their way and would be in Buj. in an hour.  Jodi and I drove out to the airport (Rebecca and the kids were not coming on this trip) and the plane touched down just before 5pm.  Fortunately the airport was empty and they came out of immigration at about 5:05pm.  This made my dilemma even more difficult.  Should I try to drive to Gitega 5 minutes after my absolute deadline to leave had past?  I said a prayer and decided to go for it.  We got in the car quickly and I sped up the mountain.  We were in Gitega just before 7pm.

We had no reservations anywhere in Gitega, but it really was not a problem.  We stayed at a hotel on the edge of town that had rooms.  Robin and Roger were exhausted from their ordeal in Goma and went right to bed after dinner.

Innocent and Beatrice (his wife who directs the school) met us at the hotel the next morning and we proceeded together the last hour and 45 minute drive.  This gave Innocent a chance to say more about the school as we drove.  When we arrived at the school about 8:30 am we were met with a rousing welcoming ceremony including singing and traditional Burundian drumming (the school has a drum team now.)

Our time was going to be short.  We only had about an hour 45 minutes to spend at the school in which we wanted to visit some classes, talk to the principles, see the Batwa community, consider some project sites, as well as visit the seminary to see whether it would be suitable as a guest house for potential future mission trips.

Jodi and Innocent gave them a whirlwind tour while I acted as cameraman.  (Since funding would depend and convincing constituents of Hope Fund, good video and photos were important.)  I would not have thought it would be possible, but we did manage to do a very good presentation of the school in our limited time.

We were back in the car at 10:45am heading down the mountain.  We took Innocent and Beatice part of the way back so we had a bit more time to dialogue with them.  (Jodi stayed at the school).

We zipped back to Bujumbura and I got them to the airport about 5 minutes before their plane was set to leave.  I actually prayed and thanked God for the minor miracle of making the logistics of this trip actually work.  I have learned a lot about not setting time limits when trying to do something here, but somehow he was merciful in working within the limitations we had imposed.

I was also blessed that Roger and Robin made a good connection with Innocent and were actually impressed and moved by the work that UCEDD is doing with the Batwa at the Hope School.

I got back home around 2pm, that Thursday exhausted but relieved.  I think Rebecca was very happy to have me back to take a turn with the kids again.  She was feeling particularly pressed by deadlines looming in the next 3 weeks due to the end of one fiscal year and the beginning of the next for MCC.

Friday was not a day off for me though, despite the long trip on Wednesday and Thursday.  I had committed, several weeks earlier to do a lecture on Transformational Leadership at a conference run by one of our partners (Harvest for Christ).  This is a lecture I had given before and I do enjoy sharing it because it is a talk that I have developed from spending time in this cultural context and I feel speaks directly to the challenges of leaders (church and organizational) in Burundi.

I had prepared lecture notes so I did not feel the talk would be difficult.  However, on Thursday night I found that they in fact were not on my computer and I realized only then that they had been the casualty of a computer crash last year.  I would have been in a panic had it not been for my wonderful, incredibly organized, wife who remembered where she had put a hard copy of the notes she had found, and I was able to use them.  (Project for this week--copy them back into the computer.)

The talk was in Ruziba a commune just a bit out of town, and I only had minimal anxiety finding the location.  The talk was very well received, especially the section about power and authority and the ways in which these function in an organizational structure.  Generally in Burundi all authority is seen as positional--(that is hierarchical), the style is directional--(top down as opposed to team oriented with shared responsibility) and punishment is seen as the only way to influence others (as opposed to rewards, or even the concept of a shared vision.)  This is sadly a result of the colonial education system still very much in use today, as well as the monstrous inefficient French bureaucracy that continues to be the only truly enduring government institution here.

This leadership style, though, is also the inheritance of the church here, and pastors often play the same role as an autocratic CEO in a family business in their churches, with the congregation as the hapless employees.

The idea of a transformative leader who instills a shared vision, leads by example, EMPOWERS OTHERS to carry out the vision, are very foreign concepts here where leaders are often secretive and obsessed with consolidating power.  Also the concept of a learning organization that evaluates itself responds and adapts is equally foreign.  The young Christian leaders to whom I spoke, though, were quite enthusiastic about these new ideas.

(Speaking in a Christian context, I was able to draw on Paul's description in the Bible in Corinthians as the church as a body with many members.  In this conception every part is essential even though functions are quite different.  The brain can hardly claim that it is more important to life than a liver, heart, or even a limb.  Seeing an organization or even a local church as having the relationship of members of a body as opposed to a fiefdom with nobles and serfs was quite effective here because the passage is quite familiar, but the implications were quite a new revelation to those listening.)

Saturday was a welcome respite from the busy week.  We took it easy in the morning, played with the kids, and then went to a Birthday party in the afternoon for Isabel, the 2 year old daughter of our South African missionary friends Tim and Jeanette.  The party was at David's school and all the kids seemed to have a good time.  (Oren brought Timmy along so he would have another older kid to play with.)

Sunday we went to church then worked around the house trying to clean up from the neglect of the week.  Things were a mess for several reason 1. Marceline has been sick all week, 2) Our cleaner has been doing substitute nightguard duty, and 3. The puppies are at that age where they are not yet potty trained but Bella (the mother) is not cleaning up their messes.  Our porch gets pretty disgusting on a daily basis now.  As cute as they are, I will be happy when we can start to pass them on to new owners (after Feb 20th).

We are looking ahead to another week of travel, this time as a family, to Kigali, should be back by the weekend though.

Unsung Heroes of the Faith

Here is the recently painted hallway in our house. I am staying with the circle motif.



Beginning to write after 10pm on Sunday night is now the rule of thumb and not the exception.  I have a very full week beginning bright and early Monday morning so I will need to make this short and sweet and complete before tomorrow because I do not know when I will be able to return to it.

I would describe this week, above all, as relational.  It is a very important part of life here.  In fact visiting people for social calls is a national pastime, and pretty much everyone in the country is out between the hours of 5 and 10pm visiting friends, family, neighbors.  Usually this is done without any invitation or warning that you are going to show up.  One just goes and is always welcome.  Hospitality demands that food or at least a beverage is shared--banana beer up country, but in town among protestants, a fanta suffices.  It is not unusual for the visiting party to have some request for money or other assistance, although conversation is not always an important objective, and folks will sit around watching TV or listening to the radio together for hours.

Rebecca and I usually do not participate in this ritual because of the kids.  (We do not have a nanny, which is the exception not the rule here, especially for Burundians.)  But this last week we actually headed out as a family for several visits.  The first one was on Monday, to the home of Jean Claude and Francine, some close Burundian friends who very recently had their baby 'Duke'.  This is their first, and Rebecca had given her the book "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" which was greatly appreciated by her before the birth.  (Books, as I have mentioned before are almost impossible to come by here), so this resource was a rare treasure, and I think Francine is now the local prenatal authority.

Duke is doing very well and David seemed interested in the new baby, although the kids spent most of their time running in and around the small house.

The other visit to Burundian friends was on Saturday when we went to Onesphore's home (our partner from Harvest for Christ ministries).  The occasion for this visit was to welcome back his wife Innocente who had been in France for a 2 year residency for her gynecological training.  It was such a blessing that this day finally arrived, as we were with Onesphore on the day she left.  It was a tremendous sacrifice for both of them as he was left here with their 2 small children Jim and Deborah.  They felt like it was worth it, and we are happy that the ordeal is over for both of their sakes.  (I think it must have been hardest for Innocente to be away from her kids for that amount of time, rather than Onesphore who had a lot of extra responsibilities, not typical of a Burundian father, but that he took on willingly.  (I have a picture of them together here).

Oren and David did make some social calls of their own to various friends including a visit to the house of the Horsts, our service workers where they enjoyed playing with the animals in their growing menagerie.  (Cat, dog, rabbits, chickens, guinea hens).  Jal, their son, had built a tree house recently with his Dad and Grandfather, which Oren was really excited about climbing to.

The work week was fairly normal, and did not involve any trips out of the city of country.  Our program officer Felix was out of town all week at a conference in Uganda called the Great Lakes Initiative (GLI) run out of Duke University.  It has been in Burundi the past 2 years in January (you can look at past blogs in the month of January if you are interested) and Rebecca and I have assisted in hosting it.  We were sorry to miss the very inspiring discussion that has come out of this gathering, but were relieved to not have to be responsible for the logisitcs of it for a third year.

For some reason, perhaps because we are coming to the close of our fiscal year, I have been thinking a lot about accountability, and particularly the field of accounting.  I have to admit, I have occasionally been guilty of what I would consider a societal stereotyping of the accounting profession.  Perceiving it, it at best as the dreary repository of nerdy number crunchers and at worst, (after the Global Financial crisis), as the lair of unscrupulous, sleight of hand, con artists.  But I have realized the error of my ways, particularly here in this context.  (For those of you old enough to remember the Monty Python sketch about the chartered accountant who wants to be a lion tamer, you get the picture of the cultural disparagement of accountants I chuckled at.)

I now regard accountants as truly the unsung heroes of our faith.  I say this because I have found that in terms of honesty and integrity, most flaws in our character show up, eventually, in the way we handle money.  In MCC, I have really been schooled in this fact because of the way in which we are subsidized.     Our position is technically 'volunteer' which is to say that we are not paid a salary, but rather our needs here are paid for out of the budget MCC provides annually for our country program.  That means we do a budget for the year estimating how much we will spend on our needs (food, schooling, housing, etc.) as well as the grants we give for the work of our partners, and the needs of our other MCC team volunteers.)  Because the budget is fixed, what I spend on food, directly affects what we are able to give in grants to help the vulnerable people our partners activities support.

Consequently, our family has to do a monthly report in which we have to account for every penny we spend every month, from vegetables we buy on the street, to gas in the car, and meals we eat out.  When I think that lowering our own costs makes more money available for the work we support, there is a real incentive to be as frugal as possible.

I will say that being required to keep track of everything I spend money on, and accountable for it to our organization has been a challenging act of humility and obedience, but not one I regret.  I have learned a lot about the extent to which I wasted money in my life at home in the US.  Being accountable in this cultural context where people have so little has been one of the hard lessons I have learned.

But that has given me a new appreciation of the profession of accounting, especially for us as Christians. I have learned that it is one thing to claim to be an upstanding person of integrity, but it is quite another thing to transparently demonstrate this by letting someone shine a light into the dark  crannies of all your expenditures.  Most of us might consider this to be invasive, but in a community that strives to be 'salt' and 'light', integrity begins in ones own wallet.  (Many of us hide secrets, and most of those secrets that need correction come at a cost and leave a paper trail.)

For our partners, we demand an equally rigorous amount of accountability for the grants we give them.  Every penny must be accounted for to demonstrate that it went to the purposes for which it was destined.  Although we deal with quite a bit of money, I do think about the fact that it is mostly collected by individual Mennonites, many of them rural farmers giving small but often sacrificial contributions into church offering plates, because of a desire to help those in need in other parts of the world.  I am glad that as a Christian, that someone is holding me and all of us working at distributing gifts, accountable to those gifts and to those people.  (I admit, it is becoming a pet peeve of mine to see Christian organizations and churches that distribute money on the basis of blind 'trust' that do not insist on accountability structures that assure that 'trust' is merited.  I have come to see trust as a verifiable action, not a feeling, or some abstract religious idea.)

So the people charged with keeping me fidel to my call, are accountants--in our program, in our partnerships, and at MCC headquarters.  It is a noble profession and one that is held in high esteem in the Bible.  In the Old Testament, the Levites were responsible with collecting and seeing that the tithes were properly handled. I even found in reading Nehemiah that modern structures of accountability were built in, with local Levites collecting tithes, but then having to give an accounting themselves to a priest in the temple.  (2 people)

In the new Testament, I think Barnabus was one of the first Christian accountants, charged with making sure that money collected for distribution to widows did not unfairly favor Hebrew widows over other minorities.


In Burundi, the biggest challenge for us to work here as Christians is trying to work with local churches here with integrity.  Accountability structures are non-existent in many churches here, even well established ones.  The offering, for instance, is often seen as the property of the pastor, who does with it what he pleases, but most often treats it as a salary or speakers fee.  Money coming in from abroad from international Christian missions, or the main branch of a church, is frequently misused, going into the pockets of leaders, rather than used for purposes for which it was destined.  To make matters worse, a pastor or church leader will often take umbrage at even being asked to give an accounting of how money given or collected is spent as if such a question directly impugn his calling (and status) as a 'man of God'.

To a great extent, that has been the work of some our Christian partners--to educate pastors and churches in accountability and setting up accountability structures to use money demonstrably honestly.  It is really a new concept in churches here and often met with considerable resistance, because unlike in the US, a local church is often seen as an income generating opportunity for a pastor, and Christian foreign aid is seen as a personal entitlement to those who are working in a church or other Christian project.

So I conclude by singing the praises of one group of unsung heroes of our faith: Accountants.  Those noble men and women who put time and effort into seeing that we are wise and discerning about the way we use our money, and that the use of our resources, reflect the values we profess.  If any accountants out there want to have some opportunity to capacity building here in Burundi with Christian partners, or churches, we could probably make an opportunity for you without much problem.

Bonus photo:  When in doubt about how interesting your writing is, add a picture of cute puppies and all is forgiven.  As you can see, they are getting bigger.  The boy is looking forward, the girls right.  Name suggestions anyone?

Bearing Fruit and the Birth of the Great Lakes Peace Institute

Oren playing with his food.


It is great to have a week where one of the highlights is a sermon you heard on Sunday.  The preacher was a young Burundian man named Florentin, educated at Fuller Seminary in California, who preaches from time to time at PTI (the church where we go).  It is hard, I have found, for a Burundian or a mzungu to preach a sermon that is cross-culturally relevant.  Often I find the message directed at the issues of one culture or another, but to say something to both simultaneously is a challenge, and not an expectation I have anymore.

But Florentin spoke about our call as Christians in what he has called 'the season of work' (as opposed to the season of blessing).  This already promised to be a bit controversial because my sense was that this was a corrective to the sermons often preached here at the beginning of the year about how we are indeed entering our season of bounty and blessing, when God will 'open the floodgates of Heaven' and bless us 'more than abundantly' with all we could hope, think or imagine.  But instead, Florentin said he did not believe this was such a season, rather, for Christians here, it is a time to work in the vineyard.

For him this meant to live fully as Christians, bearing the fruits of the Spirit:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.  Living in our homes and workplaces in a way that 'the world does not recognize us,' and would probably hate us.  He referred to things like not participating in, but rather standing against injustice and corruption here, even at great personal cost.

As far as the work itself, he exhorted us to find the work that God has prepared for us specifically, where we are indispensible--not where a hundred other people could do the same thing.  He asked why teachers, economists, psychoanalysts, and theologians in the congregation are not going out into the interior of the country (villages) to work, where they are really needed!  (He joked that it is because we love electricity too much--touché).


But the take home lesson for me was what he said about why we do this.  He made it clear that we do not do this to 'help' others, to alleviate poverty, or whatever other noble intention we imagine ourselves to have.  He said we do it to manifest the fruit that God has given us the capacity to produce.  Good fruit is simply what comes naturally from one who is connected to the true vine.  It is the end in itself.  And not only that, but the one who is actually most blessed by bearing this fruit, is the one who bears it, not the ones receiving it.  He gave a lighthearted example, saying what is a teacher if she has no students?  It is the teacher who receives the blessing of using her gift when she has the opportunity to teach.

This is a supreme corrective to me as a Christian missionary.  I confess I came here with the naive idea that I was going to do some good in the world.  With that attitude, disappointment can come fast and furious.  All of one's high aspirations and best laid plans are quickly dashed against the obdurate realities of poverty and despair.  It would not be possible to remain here in a way that is 'goal-oriented' at 'helping' others.  One must find a different understanding of what one is doing here.

When I see that what I am doing is bearing the fruit of the spirit put in me, and doing the work that God has put before me, for Him, I can truly experience the blessing of being here.  If what we do does some good, it is He who is working through us, not us who are doing it and we may not know even what seeds we are sowing for Him in the work we are doing.

I don't know how this sermon affected everyone else, but it has helped shift more fully a paradigm I have  felt a need to reconsider.  I tried to recount it to Rebecca as well as I could as she was in Sunday School at the time (with her now quite large class), and I am thankful that David slept most of the time so I could really have a chance to hear it, a rare gift.

The remainder of Sunday was spent around the house, cleaning, watching puppies, and painting the hallway.  In the evening we met with our small group where we are studying the book of I Samuel.  We marveled at how the story of the Kings of Israel begins with the faithfulness of a barren woman--not even the mother of a king herself--yet in her prayer following her pregnancy, able to understand the profound, paradoxical character of God.  (Not unlike Mary in the book of Luke.)

The earlier part of the week was full, but interesting.  Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were business as usual in terms of work and routine.  Kids were in school, Rebecca and I swam before work every morning, prayed, and worked everyday during normal hours.  Actually, Rebecca had an interesting opportunity on Tuesday and Wednesday. She was invited to share devotionals with the senior staff of the World Vision team in Burundi. She found it a good challenge for her herself to look closely again at some of the parables of the Kingdom in Mark. She was well-received, even though people were challenged by the interpretation of the parable of the weeds: we are called to suffer and forgive the presence of evil, since we are not qualified to be the harvesters. Oren played with different friends but Timmy remains his best friend and they are able to play for long periods of time without supervision, even with David.  Oh, and I taught ballet to 'mes petites filles' at the Ecole Belge on Tuesday.

Thursday was a travel day for me.  I went to Gitega to do some strategic planning with our partner MiPAREC.  This is an organization that runs an annual, one month program, called the Great Lakes Peacebuilding Seminar.  It is an excellent training ground for peace trainers in our region.  I left the car with Rebecca and was able to catch a ride upcountry with Zachee and Bridget. (Bridget was part of the strategic planning group as well.)

We arrived mid morning to meet our hosts from Miparec as well as partners from Rwanda and Congo who are stakeholders in this program.  We were called together because the organization is experiencing some growing pains.  MCC and other donors have diminished funding for this seminar, now in its 7th year, and they were not sure how to keep funding it in the future.

I have to say, I often find strategic planning dry, but perhaps as a prelude to the sermon I was to hear on Sunday, I felt very intrigued and well-interested in finding a solution to the problem, (and gifted to do so), particularly because it allowed some capacity-building opportunities for the organization.

The meeting began typically with the our hosts handing us a budget for the seminar (about $26,000 for 20 people for one month which includes training and room and board.)  In the past, all students were invited to come for free and in fact their transportation was covered as part of the grant.  For MIPAREC the question seemed to be, 'who is going to step up and pay for all of this as donor funding has diminished?'

For me it did not take any complex accounting to see how they could still cover the cost of 10 participants with the grant money received and offer the other 10 places to other NGOs who wanted to send participants at about $1800 each.  (a great value for a month of training and transportation, room and board.)  One donor who was at the meeting immediately offered to buy 4 places of the 10 left.  That only left 6 to fill.

What was satisfying for me was to help them see how to conceive of the program as something that had market value and not simply a charity, and how to work in the direction of self-sufficiency and sustainability.  I think the solution was received with enthusiasm, as perceiving the program in this way was novel to them.

We did far more planning as well, and actually created a structure to institutionalize the seminar with an Advisory Committee with authority to make decisions, under which there is now a curriculum committee, logistics committee (that runs the seminar and invites and selects participants) as well as an Alumni association. When we were done we re-christened it The Great Lakes Peacebuilding INSTITUTE,  since we felt it had grown beyond seminar status after 7 years.

The meeting took the better part of two days, which is long.  And I admit, as a mzungu, meetings here seem slow to me.  Things that would be done in a matter of minutes can take hours here, often because of arcane French formalities that are preserved here (everyone making a speech at the beginning and end being one of them--the leader usually makes at least one response speech as well at each end.)

I also wish I could capture the old-school way of brainstorming, not with powerpoint, IPADS, magic boards, computer projectors, etc. but rather with large flipcharts and magic markers.  We went through about 75 pages of flip charts which were all dutifully masking taped to the walls all around the conference room.  I have to say, it is quite effective, maybe some of you out there in the corporate or academic world might want to try to 'kick it old school' for a change and do a meeting without electricity.

Actually electricity was a problem as we had very little at the conference facility and none all night in the room I slept in.  I was really unprepared for Gitega, having brought neither flashlight nor warm clothes (Gitega is cold at night.)  I had to use my computer to find the toilet at one point and pretty much froze in the dark all night.

When it was time to go home I left for Buja by taxi with Laurent, one of the Congolese from the meeting, as well as Yolanda, who was heading down from Gitega to catch a bus in Buja for Uganda (she was heading to a conference there).  This was the first time I had come down the mountain by cab and I was a bit nervous, but interested.  Six of us were packed into two seats and the trunk was loaded with supplies, including several hundred kilos of rice and beans.

If this were the New York City subway, I would say we were on the local, because I was surprised at how many stops and starts we made down the mountain to discharge and load on cargo.  The last hour we had unloaded the beans and started the descent with four 20-gallon plastic jerry cans of boiling hot milk.  (I guess they pasteurize it and send it down the mountain hot.)  The car actually got quite hot from the heat generated by these enormous jugs.  We discharged them at the bottom of the mountain just as we got to Bujumbura.

Yolanda and I were the last passengers let off, and we were not able to get all the way to our house by car as the roads in our neighborhood remain impassable. Still we were none the worse for wear.  The 2 hour 80 kilometer drive from Gitega to Bujumbura, cost us $5 each.

Yolanda stayed with us Friday and joined us for a group of 6 who did exercises on Saturday morning before heading off to Gitega.  Our family went to the beach with our friends Jeanette and Tim on Saturday afternoon where Oren could not resist skinny dipping in the Lake as soon as we got to the beach.  It was great to be back with the family, and I confess that of all the things I do here, my deep bliss comes from raising our children and watching them mature.

A few notes from Rebecca about the week:


On Saturday morning, after exercising I left the kids with Paul and I headed to the market to get fabric to cover our couches. I had found a really nice fabric before Christmas and wanted to get 12 more meters of it. The type of fabric is called a pagne. It comes in 6 meter pieces and it's what women wear here for skirts all the time. I had a swatch of fabric with me and prepared myself for "market battle" in advance: parked the car in a secure place, hid my wallet, stowed the money I needed in a highly private and inaccessible location, took my phone and keys and set out by foot (the battle is with potential pick-pockets). Once in the market, it didn't take long to find one of the 'finders,' a boy who helps one find things. He saw the swatch and made a beeline for the pagne section, steering past the fresh food and the fish section, bypassing the cookware and plumbing supplies. One by one, we started showing the fabric to all the vendors. One by one, they just shook their heads and said, "no, hakuna, hakuna, we don't have that, there's none of that around." We searched and searched and finally found one fairly belligerent woman who said, "yes, I've got it." Like a spider, she climbed up 15 feet of railings, on which multi-colored pagnes were hanging, and pulled this fabric off the top rail. It was the same! Apparently the problem is that it is "original," that is, it's pure cotton and well-made, not a synthetic or mixed fabric. And it comes from Congo and there aren't many of these types of fabric in circulation. So, she sold us one for a little more than I wanted to pay, after I negotiated that she should give the finder a "fanta." We kept looking for another pagne, but came up empty. As we were leaving, we passed the stall of the belligerent woman again. She said, wait, I've found another. So I left the market with 12 meters in hand -- we hope it will be enough to cover some of our living room furniture and guard against the ever-present dust.

Notes on dog food:

When consulting my Dogs for Dummies book on the question of how to feed our puppies, I found that 100% of the information refers to canned or prepared dog food. Whatever happened to "buy local" dog owners? I guess they don't buy "Dummies" books. One can buy imported canned dog food here -- but who wants to pay $4 for a tiny can? So we need to make it up as we go along. I've found a butchery here which sells ground beef for dogs. It's a paste made up of all the parts of the butchered animals which they can't sell any other way, i.e. it's offal and it smells AWFUL! But it is the perfect thing for cheap soft puppy food. I boil this up with some water, cook rice separately, mix the two, and Voila! home-made dog food. The puppies have been eating for the past three days and really enjoying it. It's good to know that I'm following historic precedent. Did you know that the first dog food was prepared by recycling expired work horses back in the 19th century? For Mama dog Bella, I can buy something called Chang Chang -- cheap bones of all kinds, which we can boil and she loves. 

Finally, we want to extend thanks to the many friends who are working to support the project of sending books to the Hope School in Burundi and the two libraries we support in Rwanda. We are very grateful to all of you! My mother has filled at least 20 boxes so far. But the container is big so there's still room for lots more. Thanks for sending them on to Ephrata, Pennsylvania before the end of January (address below two blogs ago). We really appreciate your efforts and your generosity and the resourcefulness of those of you who have tracked down French titles to send.

The Return of the Bishop

I woke up Tuesday morning to the sound of a familiar visitor, and one we have not seen for about 6 months, it was the very striking Northern (?) Red Bishop that used to perch in the top of the mango tree. I was not sure what had happened to it, but given this seasonal return, I am guessing it migrates from somewhere else.  (Although I have no idea if it is exactly the same one that used to be here last year.  It certainly acts the same.)


This was a week of getting back into routines, returning to work and kids returning to school.  Actually things were quiet most of the week in Bujumbura, almost too quiet.  I could not immediately discern why driving around seemed relatively easy and orderly compared to other weeks.  I attributed this to the fact that most Burundian schools had not opened yet, even though the Ecole Belge and Montessori school (where our kids go) had.  But then someone told me that there were no taxi motos (motorcycle taxis) running in town.  I realized that was it!  Sadly the reason they are not running is that Burundi has been under the veil of a threat from Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda related terrorist group in Somalia.  (Since Burundi has troops in the Africa Union in Somalia, they have been under threat for sometime.  But the threat was augmented over the holidays and there was an incident in Kenya of a Kampala bound bus being bombed.  I am not sure what the link between the increased security and stopping motorcycles is.  There were, during the elections this summer about 50 grenade attacks carried out by individuals riding motorcycles lobbing grenades into restaurants and clubs at night then speeding off.  But that was done by political party partisans here and does not really strike me as Al Shabaab's M.O.  


Anyway life continues to go on as normal here, and I am trying not to admit that I have enjoyed the less stressful driving environment of trying to avoid killing reckless taxi moto drivers as I make my way around in the city during the work week.


School is back in session--David started back on Tuesday, and Oren on Thursday.  Probably like many of you who went on vacation, or took some time off between Christmas and New Years, getting back means catching up on things put-off for several weeks.  A lot of plowing through emails to make sure no important communications were missed.


It is also the time annual planning begins for our partners.  It is encouraging to see that it seems we will have enough money this year to do the programming we had hoped to do.  We are definitely a 'leaner, meaner' MCC from the last two years of program cuts due to the recession which has diminished MCC funding every year since we began, but this year things have held steady, which has made planning easier.


I will say that years of cutting are not all bad, and it has given us an opportunity to consolidate and really consider what the objectives of our program are.  I am reminded of Psalm 127 which says:


Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord protects the City, the watchmen stand guard in vain.


It is a reminder to me, that the work we do for Him in this context is not dependent solely on the amount of money we get, and He is faithful to provide what is needed.


We have taken the opportunity to work as a networker in our partnerships and create opportunities for them to learn from each other, as well as connect with other funders who are working in their areas.  I also am very pleased with the volunteers (service workers) we have been able to offer several of them to help build their capacity.


Most of the work we had to do this week was catching up with requests from headquarters and other computer work, so we spent most of the time in the office, especially when we got both kids off to school.  


I am happy to say that both David and Oren seemed excited about the prospect of returning to school after the Christmas break.  I think they like their routines as well.  I am noticing that while French continues to come slowly to Oren, he is becoming more willing to use it, and we are experimenting with adding one french bedtime story every night to our reading routine.


David, by contrast, seems to be absorbing french quite quickly at school and I was surprised that he knew the names of most every animal that he knows the name of in English, in french as well.  We discovered this by accident when we were talking to Oren about vocabulary and found when we would say the name of an animal in french, David would immediately translate it into English.  la vache--cow, le chat--cat, le cochon--pig, le mouton--sheep, le chien--dog, etc.

Speaking of le chien, I should probably give a puppy report.  At this point the 4 puppies seem to be thriving and are just beginning to open their eyes.  Bella continues to let David, Oren, Rebecca, and I have free access to them.  I am a bit surprised at how tolerant she is of David who is in the 'nest' constantly and is not always very gentle with them.  (He seems to think the tail is a sort of handle for grabbing them.)  We try to prevent him from going in unsupervised.


We had a fairly relaxing weekend after a busy week of catching up.  We spent the whole day at home on Saturday, with exercise in the morning followed by a day of playing with the kids.  It was probably not all together surprising that they would want a day of doing absolutely nothing but play with their toys and jump on the trampoline after being away from home for vacation this past week.  It was nice to dedicate a day of doing nothing but play with them.  We added puzzles to the repertoire of activities we do together, and they are getting quite good at putting together even fairly challenging 100 piece puzzles.


We had planned to go out for pizza for dinner, at Ubuntu, but a thunderstorm hit us about 5pm and we decided to stay home as the restaurant and grounds are not nearly as fun in the rain for the children.  We made a simple dinner and were truly homebodies the whole day.  (I did to a bit more housepainting as it is, for some reason a fairly therapeutic activity, and a definite creative outlet for me.  I will post a photo when I am done the hallway.)


Sunday it was good to be back in church after missing a week.  Rebecca taught Sunday school and has an interesting curriculum of teaching Isaiah 40 to preschoolers to help them know who God is. There actually are some good free resources on the web! Today she talked about the passage about flowers and grass withering, but God's word remaining the same.  She brought in some props (dried up grass and flowers to illustrate the point.)  I am always impressed by how much Oren seems to absorb.  He has a good memory and I have oft heard him quote passages of scripture to me that he has been taught.  (Most recently he quoted almost the entire passage of the Angel's visitation to Mary and all he said.)


We went to the beach in the afternoon, met our friend Kirsten with her daughters Emily and Rebecca ( a bit younger than Oren and David), then went home and had a potluck with our small group.  We had finished the book of Nehemiah and were deciding on what to read next. (We decided to read through Samuel I and II and Kings I and II.)


In retrospect it was one of our quieter weeks.  That is good, because we will have to do some travel upcountry in the next 2 weeks, to Gitega, Burasira, and Kigali.  This may require both Rebecca and I to make trips separately because of timing, but hopefully this will not be a problem.


We do keep up with current events somewhat on the internet and are watching the Sudan referendum with great interest.  I was also grieved to hear of the assasination attempt and massacre at the Gail Giffords rally in Tucson and the general vitriolic tone of political debate in our country.  There is a division in our country that looks more and more like the tribal/ethnic conflicts that have torn apart many of the African states in this region.  As I do here in Burundi, I would encourage Christians of all political persuasions and party alignments to resist, even in language, using 'grievious words' to express oneself.  Be salt and light in the world and in our country, --words have consequences.  Remember--


"A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievious words stir up anger."  Proverbs 15:1 


AND


"Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."   Ephesians 4:15-16

New Year's on the Island of the Little Birds

Rebecca, Oren and David helping maneuver the dug out canoe in Lake Bunyoni.

Robin-chat, Common Bulbul, Yellow-backed weaver, Blue-headed coucal, Malachite kingfisher, Cinnamon-chested bee-eater… I watch as Rebecca, putting down her binoculars, reviews her check-list of birds she has seen or is on the look-out for.  This hobby can verge on an obsession when occasion permits.  The occasion that was permitting this indulgence was our sojourn (5 days) at Bushara Island Camp in Lake Bunyoni (Bunyoni translates ‘place of the little birds’). The lake is situated in the Southwestern corner of Uganda, just west of a town called Kabale, about 45 minutes past the Rwanda border.

We arrived actually about 9:30 pm on Tuesday night.  We had intended to arrive quite a bit earlier, having left Bujumbura about 8 am that morning.  We had heard about this hideaway ‘resort’ from some missionary friends as well as others in the past years.  It sounded like a perfect place, accessible by road, to get away for some comp time vacation. We estimated that the drive would be about 2 hours beyond a trip to Kigali that normally takes about 5 hours. We had not counted on unusually long border crossings which we did in fact encounter that day.

The first delay, at the border between Rwanda and Burundi, was typically and humorously African. This is a crossing we do once per month on the average and usually takes less than half an hour.  Things were going as usual upon our arrival, but at the last window where I needed to get a signature from the Rwanda customs officer to enter the country with my vehicle, I found the desk vacant.  I asked the immigration officer where the customs official went and after he made a brief call on his cell, he told me he had gone to a restaurant to get some food and would be back shortly.

I was not comforted by the assurance of a hasty return as, in my experience, one would use the same expression “shortly” whether the ETA was 10minutes or up to 2 days.  I knew for a fact that this Kirundo border is very remote and at least 25 kilometers from the nearest town with a restaurant.  I hoped he had not taken a bicycle taxi or hitch-hiked.  I was also a bit surprised because generally I have found the Rwandans to be quite efficient, usually doing better at ‘customer service’ than other countries.  I even noticed they had a little complaint-compliment-suggestion box next to the customs window.  After about 45 minutes of waiting I vented my passive-aggressive annoyance by ‘politely’ suggesting on one of the cards provided, that they have 2 customs officials working at the border so there could be a way to keep the border open during lunch hour (12-2).  No sooner had I written the note when a pick-up truck came speeding up to the border and 3 uniformed officials jumped out.  Lo and behold it was, in fact, the not 2 but 3 on-duty customs officials who had, quite naturally, gone to lunch together!  (Eating alone is terribly anti-social here.)  I mused that while it is easy to change structures within institutions, it is far more difficult to change the culture. We left the border about an hour behind schedule.

We headed to Kigali where we planned to meet up with Zachée, Bridget and Timmy, who were going to join us at the island.  We were hoping we would not be too late to connect with them.  We got to Kigali about 3:30 and they arrived about 10 minutes after us.  We continued north to the Rwanda-Uganda border, about 1 hour 45 minutes away.  I was hoping it would not be a problem to cross, as it is one we have not crossed before.  Things went smoothly but very slowly!  There was a great deal of replication in the paperwork and, in fact, at three entirely different desks I gave the identical detailed information about my truck including serial and engine block number.  (None of this is entered into a computer; everything is logged manually into very wide hand-drawn columned notebooks.)  I can’t imagine how this information is used, even to try to track down some information from a past date.  But everyone involved in the logging is dead-serious about meticulously performing their function, and do not seem in the least bit inquisitive about why they are doing their job, even when it replicates the exact information as the person in the office next to them.

We did finish the crossing in about an hour and a half and proceeded into Uganda.  The change is striking for several reasons.  Uganda is Anglophone so suddenly all the signage and billboards on the road are in English rather than French.  More importantly, you change the side of the road you are driving on (from right to left).  One would think this might have been easier for me since our jeep steering wheel is already on the right, but I had several moments of remembering that I was in the wrong when a double container truck was bearing down on me.

By this time it was after 7pm and we were driving in complete darkness.  I would have been considerably more worried if we were not driving behind Zachée and Bridget.  None of us really knew where we were going, but we had directions from MapQuest.  It was supposedly about an hour into Uganda.  

Driving after dark here is nothing like driving in the dark in the US.  There are no streetlights or really any electricity of any kind where we were, so it was really pitch black outside the range of our headlights.  We got to the town of Kabale, but after that, we had turn off the paved road onto a dirt road that went down to Lake Bunyoni.  There were very few signs, but we did eventually find our way to the edge of the Lake where the boats for Bushara Island docked.  We dropped off our many suitcases and parked the cars in a secure parking area provided nearby.

I was glad in some ways that they ran the boat after dark since we had no other place to stay, but I was nervous about going out on the inky black lake in a boat that looked like a largish canoe with a small outboard motor.  I wondered about its seaworthiness once loaded with 8 large suitcases, other bags, and seven passengers.  

We did get everything in and I was relieved to see that we did not sink the boat with our group. Just before we left, 5 more locals from the island joined us on the boat to the island.  All told, there were a dozen of us and 8 suitcases on the boat.  

The lake is the second deepest one in Africa, but unlike Lake Tanganyika (the deepest) the water is very placid, and we glided along in the light of the stars.  I am glad the driver knew where he was going because I could see virtually nothing.  In fact, after about 30 minutes the only sign of the dock we would arrive at was a single dim kerosene lantern.

Rebecca and I were not really aware that there was no electricity on the Island.  But when we arrived at the dock, what was lacking in light was made up for in hospitality.  About 10 of the hotel staff were there to greet us and carry all our bags up to the reception which was at the top of the hill on the island, about a quarter mile walk from the dock.  This was all done in kerosene lamp light.  We arrived to the reception pavilion with an awaiting fireplace, and hot dinner, as well as hot tea and cocoa.  The only thing missing was Mr. Roark saying “Welcome to Fantasy Island”.  

I should add that among the welcoming committee was fellow MCCer Jodi Mikalachki who had preceded us by about a week for some retreat time.  We all sat and had a nice curry dinner together then made our way to our ‘tents’ where we would stay for the night.  (The tents were large safari-style affairs that are set up under a thatched awning with a nice floor and 2 full-size beds inside.)  The only difficulty was that the tents are not particularly near the reception/restaurant pavilion, so we had to walk gingerly in extreme darkness, another quarter mile to the tent. Although we weren’t carrying bags, Rebecca was piggy-backing a sleeping Oren and David was perched on Paul’s back in the hiking backpack. Unpacking and getting ready for bed by candlelight was also a bit of a challenge.

One thing that was immediate apparent was that this is a chilly place at night. We had to wear jackets and sleep under some heavy blankets at night.  But it was a welcome change from the warmer weather of Bujumbura, especially during the Christmas season.

The next morning, early, it became apparent why this Lake is called Bunyoni--the place of the little birds.  The calls started at the light of dawn and the variety of songs was remarkable.  The kids were up early the first day and we made our way as a family to breakfast, well ahead of Zachée family or Jodi.  (We found in future days, that zipping up all the tent windows fooled the kids into sleeping later, a boon for us.)

It was good to finally be able to see the island and lake by the light of day and discover some of its offering.  Bushara Island is small: one could cross it from one end to the other in about 15 minutes on foot.  There are no roads or vehicles on it, just foot paths. The lake is actually quite irregular in shape and is dotted with the islands, as if it were a hilly area that was flooded, leaving only the summits sticking above the water. (This is actually what happened as the result of a volcanic activity many years before.)  

Activities on the isle were varied and gave one the sense of retreat, rather than being entertained.  One could go on bird watching tours, dugout canoe rides (self or guided), there was a small playground area with a slide and 2 swings, hiking around the island, and swimming.  We were excited about swimming because it is a lake that does not have hippos, crocodiles, or shistosomiasis (at least that is what the guidebook says.)

Despite the overall rustic feel, there was something very progressive about the place. They boasted an eco-friendly tourist experience.  This was evident at our campsite where we had a modern ‘composting’ toilet: a bit like a latrine but not nearly as smelly.  (Basically one pours a cu p of ash into the hole after doing one’s business.)  There was no hot running water but our outdoor shower, which was a bucket mounted on a stand with a showerhead on the bottom, would be filled with hot-water on demand.  (This meant that the job of the friendly staff was quite labor intensive, carrying water to campsites all over the island from the main reception area, cleaning campsites, even serving meals at campsites if that is where one wanted to eat.) You could even gaze at the stars while bathing!

We did most of the activities that were offered, but the kids seemed to enjoy playing in the little fort at the playground and at the campsites the best.  It was such a blessing to have Timmy along as it gave Oren and David a friend to play with. Zachée and Bridget enjoyed canoeing quite a bit, Jodi and I enjoyed swimming, and Rebecca was enamored of bird-watching on such a rich island. The Camp offers a varied menu, with interesting dishes featuring local lake crayfish (crayfish wraps, crayfish masala, crayfish chowder…). The cooking was a little inconsistent, but we found several delicious things to re-order.

Rebecca and I did take Oren and David out one day in a dugout canoe, but even with our past experience with canoeing, we found the dugout very hard to control (it has no keel whatsoever) and keeping it going in a straight line was quite tiring.

We did enjoy swimming in the afternoon and for the ambitious, the next nearest island was about a quarter of a mile away and a good swimmer could swim to it and back relatively easily  (there are no strong currents in the lake).  I did so on our last day there, and despite the fact that it is not a very ambitious swim for me, I was surprised to find myself feeling an anxiety verging on panic on the way back, almost like vertigo, when I thought about the fact that the dark clear water probably went down 1000 feet where I was crossing.  (I also had the irrational fear that I would see some dark form like the Loch Ness monster swimming in the bottomless depths below me.)  As I said though, the lake was remarkably calm and easy to swim in and I got back across without any real problem.

The 5 days seemed to pass all too quickly, even with the slow pace of life on the island.  It was refreshing to not look at a computer or hear a cell phone, even though we were not expecting to be quite so inaccessible.  We had an interesting New Year as the adults, (Rebecca, myself, Zachée, Bridget, Jodi) decided to stay up playing ‘Carcasonne’ until midnight.  (It was a new game to all but Rebecca and me.)  We let the kids fall asleep on some couches by the fire at the restaurant then played until midnight and carried the kids back to the tents afterwards.  It was a fun evening.

We played a rematch on our last night on the island then left the next morning about 7:30 am.  The boat ride back did not offer much more by way of visibility as we found ourselves in a deep mist on the lake.  It was actually quite intriguing and beautiful in a King-Kong movie kind of way.

We decided to be less ambitious on our way back and our family stayed the night upcountry in Burasira with Jodi rather than try to drive all the way back to Bujumbura in one day.  (I feel less secure about driving after dark in Burundi than Uganda.)  We spent a nice evening with Jodi then headed back to Buj around 10am.  We got back home around 2 pm to find that all of Bella’s puppies were in very good health and growing up fast.

The kids were thrilled to be home, but like us, very exhausted.  Oren even said, when we asked him about a play date tomorrow, “No, because the problem with the best-Christmas-ever, is it makes you too tired.” 

It was a great break and I tried to take some time to reflect on the year.  (Although this stage of our children’s lives makes reflection time a real luxury.)  I am happy to say that 1) I actually remember a resolution I made last year, and 2) that both Rebecca and I kept it.  We resolved last year to fast 2 days a week as a spiritual discipline, and actually did so the entire year.  The hardest month, quite honestly, was the one we spent this summer in the US.   We are going to continue this discipline this year as well, as it seems fitting for the place we are living in and the struggle against poverty we see everyday.

I did go through the Bible in a Year again and read the last chapter of the Book of Revelation on Dec. 31 and Genesis 1 on Jan 1^st, another discipline that I enjoy and has given a rhythm to the year the past 6 years.

Bonus Photo by Oren:  The whole gang at Jodi's tent-- Rebecca, David, Paul, Jodi, Bridget, Tim, Zachee.