Friendships and a Good Samaritan

Oren and Dad on top of the swingset at Club du Lac Tanganyika


I would have to place Oscars Night among the many things that seem extremely remote and irrelevant to me right now (American Idol would be at the bottom of the list).    Not just that the an opulent display of wealth and glamor is such a contrast to anything around here, but more that we are so much less exposed to what I would call the daily hype of media in every form that exists in the US.  I do log on to the New York Times online daily to see what is going on in the world, but generally my interest is far more engaged with events like what is happening in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Nigeria, Congo, and other parts of Africa.  These places are far less remote to me now, not just geographically, but we find that among our friends and acquaintances, more than a few are from countries that are or have been in conflict recently.  Generally, getting information here is a far more proactive process than it is in the US where media competes for one's attention so incessantly.  On the good side, making choices about what to be informed about is refreshing and I do feel less caught up in the 'crisis of the moment' being served up for ratings competition among the media moguls.

I did have a moment of nostalgia though as I remembered the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre Annual Bardavon Gala was happening this weekend as well.  As former director, this is the 3rd year it has happened since my departure and career shift.  Consequently the last group of freshmen I taught are seniors now.  It is funny how the mind experiences time-- at once these things seem so vivid and yet as distant as if they are memories from my childhood.

But this week had much to keep me engaged--not all good.  It started again with illness, both our cook and David.  That meant that Rebecca and I had to split the morning work on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday between us, going in one at a time rather than together.  This always makes sharing a position tricky as it is not always clear where one left off and we often find ourselves either duplicating tasks or letting them slip through the cracks.

David's illness was not too serious, a bit of fever, maybe a cold, and in fact I had come down with it myself by Wednesday and had it until Friday.  (Rebecca was feeling it by Sunday evening.)

Oren was in excellent health all week and in fact had quite a full week of social engagements beginning on Monday when he went over to see his friend Emily after school.  Tuesday he had Timmy over to his house between morning and afternoon school.  (I don't know if I have mentioned recently that on Tues and Thurs the kids come home for lunch then return to school for an afternoon session.  This is because there is no cafeteria or school lunch program at the Ecole Belge or any school in Burundi.  It means 2 extra car pick ups on those days along with everything else, and they do not coordinate with our workday.)  We often try to coordinate with Zachee and Bridget on Tuesday and Thursday to have one of us take Timmy and Oren to one or the other's house on one day, then vice-versa on the other.  That saves at least one set of pick-ups per week.

Oren is also extremely good with Timmy and they can play together for almost an entire day with little adult input.  (Oren will be sad at some point this year when Timmy's family moves to Canada to live for some time since Timmy is definitely his best friend here.)

Wednesday was also a special treat for Oren as an old friend Kierin, came back to Burundi for a week visit.  Kierin's family moved to Uganda last year from Burundi because of a change in work by his parents.  He had been the only other American child in Oren's class last year.  (This year I think Oren is the only American in the troisieme maternelle (kindergarten) and one of 3 in the entire school (K-12)).

Friday we all went out to Khanna Kazana (Indian food restaurant) together with Joy and Jesse Johnson, our American missionary friends.  Oren and David are about the same ages as their sons Zack and Micah and the four of them had fun tearing in and around the restaurant which has no walls, only an enormous roof.  David was a particular challenge in this regard as he wandered out into the nearby garden and caught an enormous black toad and was very keen to release it onto the floor in the middle of the restaurant.  To try and stop him immediately turned the activity into a game of tag as he would tear away hiding behind other seated groups or weave around the tables in the crowded restaurant in an effort to escape, brandishing the toad like a broad sword and laughing mirthfully the whole time.  In general though, it was an enjoyable evening.

not my photo

Saturday, after exercise, we spent most of the day at the beach.  Oren saw his friend Kierin again and we had a very nice day playing with the kids.  The lake was quite placid and David really enjoyed splashing about in it.  It is interesting for me to see the continued growth of a tourist industry here.  When we first arrived there was basically one place frequented by mzungus, and those were overwhelmingly UN peacekeepers, military contractors, and some die-hard missionaries.  Now there are 'resorts' springing up all along the lakeside and I have seen a steady increase in watersport activities.  Kite boarding is one of the most popular and I saw this sport for the first time in Burundi.  But it is also obvious that sailing, jet skiing, water skiing and fishing are on the rise.

This Saturday though I saw something else new.  Someone flew a small, nearly ultralight sea plane over the hotel and landed it right out on the lake in front of us.  They then took off and flew out toward the mountains of Congo.

Lake Tanganyika is interesting because it is very large, tidal, and the 2nd deepest lake in the World.  It is quite picturesque as well.  We do enjoy swimming in it, but also sitting in the Ubuntu restaurant in the evenings where we frequently see a family of 6 hippos who spend the evenings basking in the shallows there.  It is true the Lake does have hippos and crocodiles, and probably shistosomiasis in some places, but to date I have not heard of anyone being eaten, or killed or becoming sick as a result of swimming there.  So maybe Burundi will be able to market it to water sport enthusiasts.  (As long as Burundians find another place to dump their trash soon!!)

After our day at the beach Saturday, which had the partial intention of wearing out the kids, we actually enjoyed a parents night out.  We were able to recruit a couple of the single young women who are volunteering with some Friends church related NGOs to sit for us.  (They attend my morning exercise class.)  The occasion for a 'date' night was the birthday of Naja Spanner, our Danish friend.  It was a very nice adult party with fabulous food and a very large gathering of friends from the missionary and NGO communities.  We had a very enjoyable evening with friends and got home about 11:00 pm.

Sunday, after church, we had one more social encounter that reminds me of the transiency of the lives of ex pats here.  We went to a 'fire sale' of some friends of ours.  This event was a not so subtle reminder of how unpredictable our lives can be here as ex. pats.  Our friend is a lawyer who works for the UN who has been here with his family for about 2 years.  Their kids attend the Ecole Belge and even take my ballet class.  We got an email from him that told us they were moving in a matter of days to a new assignment and had to sell everything in the house.  (It was a bit sad because the kids and his wife were actually not in the country when this transpired so they left without even a chance to say goodbye.)  We went over to the house which was truly an opportunity for some great deals and we bought a few items from the pantry that could be used by future volunteers.

We passed on a lot of the great toys, electronics, etc. because we have honestly accrued a considerable amount of stuff from other mzungus who have had to leave precipitously and sell or give away everything.  I will say that this is one of the reasons forming community here is a challenge.  While we often feel the need to have relationships with other expats, it is hard because no matter how long one is here, there is an unacknowledged awareness that this situation is temporary, and in fact may change suddenly, unexpectedly, if not for you, then for others in your circle of friends.  It is not, and cannot be, home because of this.

This is not to disparage in any way the close friendships we have made with Burundians.  We do have several Burundian friends that we consider to be very close.  But I have learned now that it is naive to think that making friendships across cultures is simply a matter of extending oneself or 'being nice'.   To begin, I have learned here that even the idea of friendship is a cultural construct and carries very different implications for different cultures.

In our culture, for instance, an intimate friendship is probably based most centrally on shared experience and common interests.  But if someone you consider close asks you regularly for money and is constantly in debt to you, I think you would consider that friend to be superficial at best and a perhaps a manipulative con.

But here, it would be unimaginable to have a relationship called friendship in which exchange of money or other resources was not a regular and expected part of the bargain.  Close friends are ones who you can count on or can count on you for a financial need.  To be in hock a friend is a benefit to both you and the friend, certainly would not be a cause to avoid him.

All that to say, negotiating a friendship across cultures begins with an agreement on what friendship is.  I admit that the Burundian friends I feel closest to are the ones who accept my cultural construct of friendship.  I know that the friends here that ask me for loans or other items from time to time are harder for me to feel comfortable with.  But I wonder if the ones whom I see as close friends on my terms regard the relationship as more superficial than I do.  I guess I should ask.


Probably the low point of the week both culturally and just in terms of misfortune happened to Rebecca on Wednesday evening when she was driving home from work.  Here is her story.

About 1 minute from home, our LandCruiser engine started losing power, and spluttered off as I pulled over to the side of the road. I could not believe what had just happened. So I started the car and prayed that I would make it to the turn off up to our house, just ahead. I did make it that far, and was the next in line to turn off this narrow thoroughfare, but I had to wait half a minute for on-coming traffic. And before I could make the turn, the engine coughed, spluttered, screamed and clouds of black smoke started pouring out from in front and behind. The cars behind were honking. I tried to start the car again -- more pyrotechnics. People started screaming for me to turn off the car. My car was flanked by a crowd of 20 adolescent schoolgirls in uniform, waiting for their parents to pick them up. They were laughing and laughing, calling out mzungu! Obviously, it was such a riot that a foreigner would wind up in mess like this. But meanwhile, the mzungu circus (that's me) was blocking all traffic in all directions. 


Fortunately, one blocked car was driven by Kieren's dad, who had just left our house with Kieren in tow. He hopped out and got to work helping, with one other Burundian man, to push our big old truck off the road. It was no easy task, and meanwhile, the school girls continued to watch and smirk without lifting a finger to help solve the situaiton, even when I begged them to help push.  I must say, this was the most irritating aspect of the experience for me, and I continue to brood over what motivated their thoughtless nastiness.  (Paul reminded me that a group of adolescent girls in any society would not be the cultural ambassadors of choice--unless caddie, cliquish bullying is a sign of goodwill in ones country--so that probably explains it...) 


On the positive side, there was our Good Samaritan (aka our Good Muslim Neighbor). Somehow, he noticed it was me in trouble and walked down the road to help me, and even sent his guard to watch the car while Paul waited for a mechanic.


I (Paul) was struck by the poignancy of the "Good Samaritan" reference--the outsider who truly behaves like the good neighbor.  The girls who stood by and laughed would almost certainly all have been church attending Christians (most everyone is here) but the one who helped was the Muslim foreigner.   Anyone who thinks parables aren't still relevant or may not have anything to teach us as Christians should be warned.

I am going to end here as this is getting long and it is late.  We are going on a team retreat Friday and will be upcountry through the weekend, then off to Rwanda so will probably not post again before midweek next week.  We enjoy your thoughts and comments.

Phases of 50 Part 2--Collective Memories

One of the highlights of my 51^st Birth week, was receiving nearly 50 Birthday wishes from Friends on Facebook.  What is particularly gratifying about this is the span of time and space this network embodies.  Not counting my family, I received messages from friends whom I have known since as far back first grade.  This is no small thing since I was a 3^rd culture kid and went to Elementary School in a Country that does not even exist any longer.  (East Pakistan).  But also the breadth of relationships was gratifying, many are lifelong friends I made during my 25 year dance career as a dancer, a choreographer, and then teacher at Vassar College and other places that span the US and many parts of the world.  Probably the most cohesive group is my senior class in High School (Woodstock ’78 in Mussoorie, India)  I think we had a class of about 60 and I am friends with most on Facebook.

I have to say, I am not the only dancer/choreographer that has gone on to other things after 40.  Many of my peers have left the dance world (although among the few that remain, some have gone on to impressive careers choreographing for movies, on Broadway, or working as Professors at dance departments of different Universities.  Many of my former students are in mid career all over the US and the world.)  But I am very impressed by those who left and have gone on to other careers.  Some are doctors, social workers, successful entrepreneurs, many went back to school at some point in life for graduate studies, and most have families with great kids.

I am mentioning this for the benefit of parents of teenagers who are about to set off to College and may want to pursue performing arts (particularly dance) as a career.  My own experience and the experience of my peers would suggest that it is hard work, but good preparation for life.  It teaches, discipline, sacrifice, commitment, frugality, and other values that serve one in any pursuit in life.  It is not a dead-end or waste of time!

I certainly do not regret my choice to pursue dance after college for many years, I am proud of what I accomplished, and I also do not regret setting it aside it to pursue work in mission and development after 25 years.  I am very blessed to have a wonderful family, 2 awesome sons and an amazing wife.  But also I am thankful for the many friends I have met along the way through the many phases of life. 

I also appreciate greatly the fact that Facebook allows me to enjoy a collective memory of much of my life through friends that I had made along the way and with whom I shared significant experiences.  It is also gratifying to find that many are genuinely interested in what has happened to me, the ways I have changed over the years, etc.  I don’t spend a lot of time communicating on Facebook but it is like a living Year Book that I can open from time to time and see the past and the present of people I know.   

Celebration this week really began for us after Wednesday Feb 15^th when all of our reporting was due for the fiscal year.  Replicating the data to our headquarters in the US on Tuesday night successfully was almost an emotional event.

We had several social events afterwards on different nights.  On Wednesday we had the Horsts (our service worker family) over to dinner.  The reason for this was partly to officially pass on the first of the puppies who are going to new owners.  Jal (their 7 yo son) was very excited about bringing home the boy pup that they named ‘Scooby’.

On Thursday we went over to Allison Gill’s house, a young missionary woman here who actually helped us breed  Bella and has been promised a puppy.  We delayed on delivering the puppy though, as she will be going back to the UK briefly for several weeks, so we will hold onto her pup until then.

On Friday we dropped a second puppy at the house of John and Nadine a long term missionary who has married a Burundian. He has kids about Oren and David’s age (all girls) and is the owner of the male dog who is the father of the puppies.  It was interesting to talk to John as he is very much a jack-of-all-trades, but among his more impressive jobs is being sound engineer for the President of Burundi.  He is very busy and has a ‘lorry’ of equipment stored at his house which he takes ‘on tour’ whenever the President is upcountry.  (The President usually travels with an entourage of several choirs and a dance company when he goes campaigning or Evangelizing around the country.)

Oren and David had fun playing with the girls who have several swingsets and slides.  The puppy was a bit scared by the other big dogs there, but they did not seem to be threatening her in any way.

After our puppy drop-off we returned home and had a family dinner followed by a Birthday cake which I shared with Oren, David, Rebecca and MY PARENTS (on Skype.)!  You can see the picture of them on the computer next to the cake.  Friday was my actual Birthday, but we had planned a party on Saturday.

Admittedly, the party we planned on Saturday was fairly last minute with all of our time focused on deadlines at the beginning of the week.  Rebecca started texting people on Thursday that we wanted to have a contradance on Saturday for my Birthday.  (Actually it has been my ambition to one monthly.)  Anyway, we did get the message to all of our close friends and had a very good turn-out on Saturday.  Most of the folks from our small group were there including Tim and Jeanettes family, and Peter, Astrud and Travis came with family, many of our German friends were there as well as Naja and Thomas, and Zachee and Bridget (all with their families).  There were several other guests as well and we definitely had enough to do some dancing. 

I like to transform our house into a dance hall, that is take all of the stuff out of the living room and put it on the porch.  It is nice to sit out on the porch and have all that space in the house, like a dance studio.

We had prepared 5 dances that progressed in difficulty and were able to teach 3 of them but danced the more difficult one several times.  I am hoping that by the time we leave our friends will all be adept contradancers.

We ended the evening with a pot luck, and cupcakes decorated with the message Happy Birthday.  It was a really nice day. 

Sunday we went to church where there was a young English guy (David) speaking who works with a British Aid Agency.  He talked about the need this country has for Godly transformational leaders, modeled by Christians, who exemplify humility.  He compared it to a recent trip upcountry with a govt. official to see the opening of a school.  The official complained about having to get up early (9am—and he actually arrived 2 hours late), took umbrage that his title was slightly misspoken by the officiator of the ceremony, looked for a cause to ask for a bribe, then, as he left, made some inappropriate advances toward a young female subordinate.  David ended the sermon by asking what it would have been like to have this leader model the exact opposite behavior—arrive on time or early, laugh off small flubs of protocol, take interest in the project without looking for something for himself, and then not abuse power over subordinates, but rather respect them.

It was a good sermon and a reminder here that as  Christians and leaders, our behavior should reflect the values we hold, and model the servant leadership of our Lord.

We ended the evening Sunday at small group where Tim was hosting 3 pastors who were teaching in Burundi this week.  I was a bit intimidated leading but we had a very rewarding discussion about the anointing of Saul and the relevance of his story in the Burundian context.  We agreed that Saul, who started out with such promise and apparent modesty about assuming power, followed by his obsession with power and refusal to let go once king, was very relevant to the Burundian and whole African context for that matter.

A Few Updates

Simon Guillebaud and Tim Van Aarde after church on Sunday.  Simon is in Burundi this week and preached at PTI on Sunday.  



This is the week of reckoning for us with regard to work.  All of last year's final reports and next year's program plans are due into our database and replicated to MCC headquarters by tomorrow evening.  We are fairly well on top of this, but we do have to work hard still the next two days, so I will make this entry a short one.

Being at home all last week meant we were able to be in our normal routine of swimming in the morning.  There were no illnesses either so the kids were in school as well.  So since there was not much news in terms of weekly activities, I thought I would update those who read regularly on some past topics:

1) ROAD WORK:  I have disciplined myself to not add weekly diatribes about the way the work is being done, or the speed, etc.  But I am happy to say that there is now light at the end of the tunnel.  You might remember that it was last summer when we came back from vacation in July to find our bridge into our driveway was destroyed to begin the project of redoing ditches and putting cobblestones on all the roads in our quartier.  My complaint was that the systematic way everything was done one phase at a time, and not broken into smaller more manageable chunks.  In fact our bridge was destroyed at least 4 months before any work actually got to our road.  Anyway it has been about 8 months now and they have finally finished our ditches and replaced our bridge.  AND this past week they cobblestoned our road.

I watched the cobblestoning and it is amazing how fast it goes.  They grade the road, then put a ton of sand on it, then bring in lots of cobblestones and embed them in the sand.  Our entire road was done in one day (which adds another layer of annoyance that they made our road nearly impassable for 9 months because of the fact that they did so much at one time.)  But anyway, I think I will say it was worth it by the end of this week when all the roads in our quartier will be fairly level stone and not deep river beds in the rainy season.  There should also be considerably less dust in the dry season.  I am including a picture of the men doing the cobblestoning looking across from our gate toward our neighbors, then another shot of the finished road and our new bridge over the gutter.

2) BOOK DRIVE:  You might remember last month I posted a blog about the work of Rebecca's mom to help MCC pack a half container of books to send to our partners who do education work out here.  I have heard now that the container will leave port in the US around the 18th of Feb with an astounding 20,000 books!! All donations from people like you.  Rebecca and I are a bit daunted about the distribution process once they arrive, but as we have been letting our partners in on the results of the drive, we have received ecstatic responses.  Our partner UCEDD, who runs the Hope School is need of a library building at the school now, something we hope to help them attract a donor for now that they are receiving the books they need.

We are considering posting a one year volunteer position out here as a librarian to help our various partners organize their collections.  If that is something that would interest you, please feel free to let us know.

3) HOME DECORATING:  I started painting the house just before Christmas and after the living, dining rooms and main hallway I have taken a break.  But last week we hired a tailor to come spend a week at our house and make slip covers for all of the couches and chairs.  This will be to keep dust off in the dry season, but it also allowed us to make a color coordinated living room.  We used some 'gitenge' fabric from Tanzania and a solid beige and covered two couches and four chairs as well as cushions.  The fabric cost about $100 but to have a tailor come and work here for a full week only cost about $30.  We had him mend all of the curtains in our living and dining rooms as well.

4) ICECREAM:  This is a special note for in honor of our SALTers last year.  A real soft-serve icecream parlor opened in Bujumbura just down the road from our office.  It offers icecram cones for about 80 cents and tastes convincingly like Dairy Queen icecream (without the variety of Sundaes).  Between this and the very good Indian Food Restaurants we have here, I feel guilty saying that I work as a missionary.  (It is like living in the lap of luxury now!)  --for those of you who don't know, when we moved here over 2 and a half years ago, ice cream was only available in expensive import stores for about $10 per pint (and that was not Hagen Dasz).

5) UTILITIES AND INTERNET:  Generally electricity is much better these days and power failures are the exception and not the rule.  We do not even have what used to be the normal power cut from 10pm to 6am anymore.  Water is still not very consistent at our house and it is often off in the middle of the day, but we do have a 500 liter tower that fills when the water is running so we are rarely aware of the times when the water is cut.

Internet seems great to me.  We can download about a megabyte in a minute 20 seconds.  But it is fast enough to skype with video both directions.  I have also found that I can stream many low bandwidth radio stations available on my itunes.

6) LANGUAGE STUDY:  Rebecca and I are not studying at this time although we use French all the time and I use Kirundi in at least a few situation each week.  Oren continues to make snails pace progress in French, but still does very well in school.  David is learning french in his creche and if I say the name of any animal in French he immediately knows the English translation.  One thing Oren excels at is drawing.  He also really likes to make puzzles out of his drawings by cutting them up.  He gives them to us adults as gifts.  Truthfully, they are very challenging to put back together.

7) PUPPIES:  All four are growing fast and strong, and in fact this week is past the 7 week mark so they are now ready to be passed on to their new owners.  All are spoken for at this time.  I wish I had video footage of David playing with them.  He really gets down on all fours and behaves exactly like one of them.

I am going to stop here and go back to relieve Rebecca who is watching David.  He had a fever last night and we administered a home malaria test.  (I usually get the job of lancing the finger).  It was negative but he does have a throat infection which we are now treating.

We did not have much of a romantic Valentines Day today, but we did have a very nice weekend with an opportunity to go out to a dinner with other adults only on Saturday night.

Sunday we went to church and we were delighted to see our dear friend Simon Guillebaud, who had lived here 12 years with his family and left last year.  He is now in South Carolina working to support the work of some very good Evangelical ministries here including our church PTI and our partner Harvest for Christ.  I have posted a link to his books and video before, but here it is again.  More than Conquerors

Arugula and Social Security

A harvest of argula is among the small blessings I am counting this evening.  The source is our porch garden, although the seeds were from Jodi upcountry who has harvested 4 generations worth in the past year.  The original seed package was sent from Rebecca's mother by mail a year and a half ago (and passed on to Jodi).  We had arugula salad with peanuts and passion fruit vinagrette for dinner tonight.  It was our first harvest of this tasty vegetable this year and we expect to get at least a dozen or more salads from our porch planter this month.

It is at times like this, (and swimming) that I marvel that most of our family in the US are buried deep in snow.  Although I did miss having a white Christmas, it is at this time of year that I prefer the balmy Burundian climate.  We are currently beginning the second rainy season, so the air is exceptionally clear and the hills and valleys are lush and green.  Our avocado tree is producing loads of fruit as well, and bananas can be head for about a dime a dozen.  (that means lots of banana avocado smoothies.)

I had said last week that this past week and the coming weeks are very busy for us because we are closing our fiscal year for MCC this month and opening the new one.  That means a tremendous amout of translation, and data entry for Rebecca and I.  (Actually Rebecca ends up doing the majority of the data entry these days.)  We also try to meet with each of our partners to talk about plans for the coming year and the level of support we will be able to provide.

Because of this we were due for a visit to Rwanda and we made a plan to go up to Kigali this Wednesday and come back on Friday.  We try to minimize the amount of school the kids miss, but we did want to go all together so we left on Wednesday after school.   The trip to Kigali was fairly uneventful, we were in town by 6:30 pm and stayed at the Amani Guest House, near Ruth and Krystan's house.  We had an ambitious day ahead of us on Thursday; we wanted to meet with all of our Rwanda partners during the day as well as have a much needed debriefing with Ruth and Krystan about how things were going from their perspective.

We planned to divide up the day with Rebecca doing meetings with partners in the morning, and I in the afternoon.  The kids stayed home and played at the guesthouse which suited them fine.  I cannot explain why, exactly, but they love to go to Kigali eventhough they often spend most of their time at a guesthouse playing in the yard or in the room watching movies.

The day was long and we had to squeeze in a shopping trip at Nakumatt and banking at the end of the day just before dinner.  We went out with Ruth, Krystan (and baby Micha) to a fantastic Indian restaurant called Saffron.  (There are actually several great Indian restaurants in Kigali.)  Afterward we dropped Ruth and Krystan off back home then stayed our last night at the guest house.

We left midmorning on Friday.  Since we were in no rush to get home, we stopped by an area in  Northern Burundi (Kirundu) called the Bird Lakes.  There is a Catholic guesthouse up there and we were curious whether it would be big enough to host a partner's retreat in the future.  It was about 10 km off the main road and did take some time to find, but we did succeed.  The guest house was a nice place with a restaurant and 10 rooms--not big enough for a partners retreat, but maybe a team retreat in the future.

We returned to Bujumbura by Friday evening and had a quiet family dinner followed by some games together (mainly puzze building).  The puppies were very excited to see us.

Saturday morning we combined our morning exercise class with a swim.  We went over to the house of a German family (Bella and Nina) to do the class.  She works for GTZ (German Development Agency) and they have a great house with a pool, trampoline, and even 2 crowned cranes stalking about the property.  We stretched on their front porch (10 of us) then went for a dip in the pool with the kids afterwards.

We spent the afternoon at home and invited an American missionary couple Joy and Jessie Johnson over to our house with their 3 kids, Zack, Micah, and Elliot.  (All a bit younger than Oren.)  We have known them since we arrived, and Jessie actually grew up in Burundi and is an excellent Kirundi speaker and 'cultural' translator for us.  They work with a church planted by Jessie's grandparents called the Emmanuel Church, which now has many congregations throughout Burundi.  It is modelled on the 'denomination' that the Johnson's belong to, a group called the Plymouth Bretheren.  They told me that they are really in need of some volunteers to help them out in teaching and other work here, so if there are any Plymouth Bretheren who feel called to mission in Africa, you would be most welcome in Burundi.  (Am I talking to you Bruce?)

Sunday at church we heard a very inspired Kenyan woman talk about the faith of Rahab the prostitute as the message.  I can't sum it all up here, but she talked in a very relevant way about betrayal.  She mentioned among her examples, Judas' kiss as an example of how betrayal may not be an extraordinary act of evil, but rather one that is very ordinary, a simple greeting, but our intent (often hidden) defines the true nature of the act, not its outward appearance.

It was very good and Rebecca actually got to hear it as she has been able to do some rotation of Sunday school duties these days.

Sunday afternoon we went over to Astrid and Travis' new home to celebrate the 5th birthdays of their daughters Jasmine and Yaida.  We saw many of our expat. missionary friends there, including some that work upcountry.  The kids enjoyed playing on the bouncy castle (I think it is one of two in Burundi) that is rented for every Birthday the kids go to.  But they all just love it.



It is already Monday now and I want to get this posted but...

I want to close with some reflection on lessons learned in the past several weeks that continue to shape my understanding of the cultural context here.  It is interesting how this seems to deepen constantly but never hit bottom.

MONEY and its availability seems to be a subtext, undercurrent, or perhaps elephant in the room, of most every interaction we have here.  It is true that as representatives of a Christian NGO, we get our share of people seeking partnerships, but I will say that even if I go to a party, wedding, or any other gathering, and am introduced to a new person, no one seems to consider it 'forward' to ask about the possibility of partnering (getting money) or other favors within the first 5 minutes of conversation.  I am blessed that our church, PTI, is one haven from this most of the time, but we are asked for favors from time to time by random individuals even there.

Since we are, by Burundi standards, definitely people of means (filthy rich?) it always is difficult to not feel a paign of guilt about saying no to even the most immodest requests.  But after 2 and a half years I have become better at it.

What I have struggled more with, though is our failed efforts to use our money to give others here a 'hand-up' instead of a hand-out.  That is, to provide money in the form of education, land purchase, training, or even to buy a piece of equipment to help others 'help themselves' get out of the poverty trap.

To date I would say my efforts have been abysmally bad and several I have tried to help are actually worse off than before because I have gravely misunderstood the network of social relations and how they function here.  Some cases in point:

We lent our nightguard money to buy land near his homestead upcountry so his family could grow some crops and have extra income.  Before buying the land, he seemed to be poor but able to meet his and his family's basic needs.  Since purchasing the land he is in constant need of loans to buy cow dung, seeds, fencing materials, etc.  On top of that, it seems his status in the family has risen and he now pays school fees for his family and the families of his brother and sister.  He now usually sends his whole paycheck upcountry and virtually starves himself while working at our house because he has nothing left for himself.

Lesson learned:  Individuals are deeply connected in social care networks.  To help a single person here to 'get out' is really not possible.  When we improved his economic position in his community, he was expected to bear a greater economic burden for his clan.  Since he had taken a loan from us to do this, he has in fact become poorer because he receives less money than before from us, but bears a greater social burden in his community.  Even the harvest that his land will yield cannot offset this burden.

Our cook expressed to us a similar challenge when she asked for a raise last month.  Both of her parents have passed away and she is head of household.  (Although there are at least 3 adults among her 8 remaining brothers and sisters who live together.)  She explained to us that because of her having a salaried job, her other family members refuse to work doing 'petit commerce' for smaller amounts of money.  She and them perceive that it is her that should provide for all since she is making the most money.  The fact that we pay for her to finish high-school has made her an even more privileged hence financially burdened member of her community.

I have had a similar experience with another individual who I have helped with tuition for college.  When his elder brother saw that this person was receiving tuition money, he made this person head of household and responsible for younger siblings.  (It had been the elder brother's job prior to that.)  To make matters worse, my friend, who also runs a stall at the market selling shirts, took a month off to do an internship for school.  (I helped him with food at that time.)  While he was at the internship all of his inventory was stolen so he has not been able to continue working at the market.  He is finishing his education but he is now a jobless head of family, responsible for his other family members.

In all 3 cases it seems that at least in the short run, our interventions to give a hand-up have put our 'beneficiaries' into a worse economic position than before.  Hopefully something will improve in the long run, but it seems like a micro-cosmic model of the problem that many aid giving NGOs find in Africa.  To wit:  Development has to take into account the social networks in which people live here.  One cannot improve the lives of a few, economically, without considering the effect on the group.

The last example I have is an interesting case study in how the social network functions very counter-intuitively to western values.

I mentioned last week that I had to dismiss several workers from the household of one of our service workers.  Happily though, the next day, because we had identified a thief, I was able to hire an honest one back.  I called her and asked to come in and told her we were rehiring her to her old job and would sign a new contract.  I explained that since she had been dismissed the day before she would need to return the 2 month severance pay we have given her, or take it as a credit and pay it back over time.

She opted for the latter because she said she had already spent it all and had only a few 'dollars' left.  I tried not to show how stunned I was that this person, who had been told she was unemployed the day before and was given 2 months pay plus the end of Jan salary would have absolutely nothing by the very next morning when unemployment is about 50% here and the prospects of finding a new job soon were very slim.

But then I remembered the social network.  I have no doubt that she took that money and payed off debts of all her family, friends, neighbors, basically leveraging herself out as much as possible in her community to be sure that she had a secure set of lifelines upon which she could rely for the hard times ahead.  I imagine that the idea of hoarding the money and using it on herself judiciously over time to make it last as long as possible would have been unimaginable to her and unacceptable to her friends and family.

I try hard not to judge.  I realize there are things to be said good and bad about coping strategies in our cultural context as well as this one.  I am always surprised to find that there are other 'rational' ways of behaving that might fly in the face of my notion of 'common sense'.  Indeed, there are many ways that Burundian traditional society resembles the early church with its communitarian ideals better than community structures in my own culture.  But I admit that understanding better has not necessarily drawn me closer.  I do find that I cling to core values that have defined me since birth and from time to time regard others as just plain 'weird'.  This is a change from my naive earlier perspective that we are all basically the same.  We are not.  For me understanding is the first step toward  honest respect, even if I cannot necesarily embrace or even accept the all the practices of 'the other'.  I do pray that from all of this I might truly have a heart of wisdom in my old age.