Homeleave #5: Southern Comfort

Oren and David sitting atop a corn seeder in Kansas City.


As inconsistent as I have been about blogging regularly during homeleave, I am trying to update from time to time to keep friends in Burundi informed about what we are doing, and also to keep a record of the way we spent our time.

We were quite intentional about planning our homeleave.  3 months is more than a vacation and there are times of leisure as well as times of intentional visiting and relational work.  There is some keeping in touch with our program in Burundi, although Felix seems to be handling the added responsibility during this time masterfully.  There is also the shopping, doctor visits, etc. that need to be done here due to the lack of these options in Burundi.

We divided our homeleave into several parts, some more relaxing than others.  The first 4 weeks were spent mainly in Baltimore with our parents (alternating between houses) with a one week visit to Poughkeepsie, NY where Rebecca and I worked before moving to Burundi.  This was a fairly relaxing month, we did do some church visiting, but the days were spent mainly taking kids to play grounds and even going almost daily to a healthclub ourselves to enjoy some exercise.

Beginning on July 6th, we moved into a more relational mode and are dividing this into 3 parts, we spent about 12 days visiting members of my family (brothers, Aunts and Uncles, nieces and nephews).  We begin tomorrow with a week of personal time for Rebecca and I away from our children in Vancouver, Canada, and then we will do a week with Rebecca's family at a vacation spot in upstate NY.

This will leave the last 3 weeks for us to have again less programmed time back in Baltimore before returning to Burundi.

So I want to recount a bit about the visit to relatives on my side of the family.  I might preface this by saying something about the cultural experience this offered.  Most of my relatives live in the midwest or deep South--some natively and others transplants while Rebecca and I are basically a family of 3rd culture New York Yankees.  So going to a part of the country folks down there call the U-nahted States (emphasis on the U) can be intimidating.  (They can tell our 'ethnicity' by our accents and generally don't take kindly to Democrats.) ;-)

We made plans to visit one of my Aunt Binnie and Uncle Bill in Kansas City as the first stop.  (I had lived with them some in College.)  Since KC is a bit off the beaten path we flew there from Baltimore.  Although 2 of my 3 cousins were not there at the time, we had a great time with Bill and Binnie and my cousin Beth.  (Incidentally, my cousin Beth Armstong is author of the excellent book What's Prayer Got To Do With It).

Bill and Binnie live on the edge of the city limits on a 40 acre farm, so our children really enjoyed playing out in the fields, by the pond, and climbing on an antique iron corn seeder.  They also loved all the nooks and crannies in the fabulously redone old farm house where they live.

We mainly relaxed and enjoyed great food, but did go out for a tour of the city on one day.  Kansas City is a railroad town and we were able to see many model and real trains including long coal trains and double-stack container cars that fascinated Oren.  (His chief complaint about Burundi is that there are no trains there.)

We left early on Monday morning to return to Baltimore and on the same day headed south by car this time to North Carolina where we stayed the night at my brother Mark's house before joining most of the rest of my family and spouses and kids at Fontana Dam North Carolina for a 3 day stay at a Smoky Mountain resort.  The trip down went well and we visited with Mark who was still at his house eventhough his wife Christine and my nieces had gone ahead to Fontana with my parents.

We left early the next morning and got to Fontana Dam in the afternoon.  (The roads through the Smoky Mountains reminded me of Burundi roads upcountry in terms of curviness, but these were extremely well paved and even banked.

Fontana has much to recommend it and when we got there Oren and David were happy to be able to play with their cousin's Abigail, Grace, and Fletcher.  (The latter is his age.)  We all rode bikes, swam, and even did karaoke, square danced, played put-put golf, frisbee golf, went on a boat trip, to name a few of the activities.

The time seemed to go by too quickly and we could not do it all in the time we had.  We continued on from Fontana, NC to Nashville Tennessee where my brother Jonathan is an MD at Vanderbilt Hospital.  His wife Emma works there too as a researcher.  We arrived en masse with our family and my parents.

Oren and Fletcher, being age mates had a lot in common which created about as much conflict as it did amusement for them.  All in all it went well and bike riding was one of the favorite activities for them.  (Especially when Fletcher took Oren to see Engine 475 an enormous old steam engine now stationed in a public park.)  They circled the engine on bikes for nearly an hour.

We did enjoy a date night with Jon and Emma while my parents watched the 3 children.  They took us out to see the sights of historic Nashville (home of American Country Music for those who are reading this who are not American.)  We saw the original Grand Old Opry as well as the new enormous Opryland hotel complex.  (Imagine acres of enclosed airconditioned indoor gardens, like Versaille under glass.  It was impressive in its opulence.

We left Nashville on Monday and headed back the 2 day journey to Baltimore.  The kids were more antsy coming back than going out.  We stopped back through My brother Mark and Christine's house in North Carolina on the way home.  It may be the last time we see them until next year.  We left mid-morning to Tuesday and got to Baltimore by evening.  (We did stop through Harrisonburg Virginia and saw Eastern Mennonite University, but missed our ex-SALTer Robyn Mast who was working that day.)  We did not miss any McDonalds playland from Baltimore to Nashville and back though.  It does help to wear the kids out a bit during our lunch breaks.

It was nice to be back in Baltimore at my parents house and we enjoyed working out a bit on Wednesday after all that driving.  We also had a Birthday party for Rebecca at her brother Paul's house who lives up the road from my parents.  Many of our long time family friends were there and everyone shared a fond childhood memory of Rebecca.  It is hard to believe that all of us have known her since she was 2 years old.  (I could add that this was her 39th Birthday but none of you would believe me, but it really was her first 39th Birthday!)

It is late Thursday night and I am trying to get this posted before we head out again tomorrow morning for what I might call the centerpiece or crown jewel of our homeleave.  Rebecca and I are going to go to Vancouver Canada to her old seminary to ostensibly take a 1 week course on the Psalms, but it is also a getaway as a couple, away from the kids.  Our parents have generously offered to watch them for a week.  This is the first time we have ever left them alone for such a long time (in fact they have never been without us both overnight.)  So we are anxious, but excited about the chance this will give us to renew as a couple.  (Those of you with young kids know having time as a couple is rare, and I would say has been a more challenging part of our work than living in Burundi.)

So we will leave at 6am Friday morning.  Please pray for a renewing time for us and that our kids will be  OK with the grandparents.

Homeleave #4: Baltimore Highlights

Independence Day Celebration in Baltimore.



We have just completed one month of our homeleave and while I have posted a couple times since arriving here I want to try to a brief synopsis of some of things we have done here with some photos as well as give some impressions of what seems different now that we have lived outside the country for 3 years.

Since Baltimore is the home of Rebecca and my parents it is a place we have visited frequently over the years, even before moving to Burundi so there are things we like to do here, and Oren in particular has favorite activities which we have done on outings over the past 4 weeks.

Actually tonight is the July 4th, American Independence Day and we went out to a place near Baltimore called Oregon Ridge to watch fireworks with accompanying music by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.    It was interesting to realize how little Oren knows about his identity as an American at 6.  Rebecca showed him the American flag and explained that it was the flag of our country, and that July 4th was our country's Birthday.

The kids loved to be out in the evening and played on a large playground in the park prior to sunset then watched the fireworks afterward.  I was struck by what an anomaly this would be in Burundi.  Any explosion in or around the city can cause fear or panic and a sustained volley would almost certainly be mistaken for rebel groups firing mortar shots from the hills into the city.  We do here the pops of firearms and grenades almost nightly there still, the result of criminal activity we are told.  So it is quite a contrast to stretch out and enjoy the the thundering report of exploding fireworks and 'oooh' and 'ahhhh' under the brilliant colors of flaming debris.

An American public playground

It seems important to share these American cultural traditions with our children, moreso since we are not here and their exposure to their cultural heritage is not experienced in any regular way.
Prior to this however, we have made efforts to get the most out of our time here with visits to other typically American things.  It is amazing, though how some of the more mundane activities are the most appreciated.  Going to a playground at a park or school is a daily event.  It is something I took so much for granted here before we left, but now it is something I cherish as a special opportunity to play with our kids.  I can't say there are no playgrounds whatsoever in Burundi, I think there are 2 or 3, but none are engineered with the safety requirement of playgrounds here.  Even more, it is great to be able to go to a place where there is no wall and where your children playing in one place for more than 10 minutes does not attract an enormous crowd.  We are so anonymous here, it is, I admit, such such a relief not to be stared at so much in public.

Besides the daily playground visits though, we have gone on the following outings:

1) Railroad Museum-- Baltimore has an amazing historic railroad museum with many old steam locomotives and other cars, all resting in an enormous old round-house.  Oren is a train enthusiast and he and David, with their cousins Miriam and Gabriel and Grandma Jean went to the museum and had a marvelous time.  Oren particularly likes the engines where he can go into the cab and pretend to drive the train.

2) Baltimore Zoo-- My parents went with us to the Baltimore Zoo it was a lot of fun to go with the kids as they have only been to one once or twice in their life.  They loved to see the animals in cages although I don't know if they were too impressed with the zebra, giraffes, rhinos and lions, which they have seen in the wild very near to where they live.  There were slides and a zoo train.  David was most enamored by the farm animals like donkeys and goats because he could pet them.  He definitely seems far more comfortable on a farm than in a city in my opinion.

3) Orioles Baseball Game-- We did get to see the Orioles beat the Cincinnati Reds last week.  We went with Rebecca's family (her brother's family and their parents).  Oren did not really understand the game although he did let me explain it to him somewhat.  We were in the upper deck so the distance did not help in terms of keeping the kids engaged.  They did make it through the 7th inning before we had to go home.  It was a fun day all-in-all.

4)  Oren's 6th Birthday!-- This was a big event that we celebrated last Thursday.  He invited his cousins and their parents as well as all of his grandparents.  Oren is in a robot phase right now and wanted more than anything, some kind of robot for his Birthday.  We were able to find him one that teaches some reading and math skills.  He also wanted a robot Birthday cake and wanted to make it himself.   His Grandmother baked a brownie cake that we cut up in the shape of a robot and Oren iced and decorated it using his new toy robot as a model.  It was a very good likeness and the family really appreciated his efforts.  He also received many other gifts to take back with him to Burundi including a baseball glove, snorkel and mask, tennis racquet, basketball, as well as a bike to use here.  (He learned to ride it this week.)  He also got some badly needed underwear and t-shirts.  The kids played together most of the day and had a treasure hunt to find the presents after dinner.

5) Washington D.C.--  Oren is just getting old enough to really appreciate something like a visit to the Smithsonian museum of Natural History.  It was something I loved to do as a child as well.  We went as a family with Rebecca's mom.  We decided to add an element of adventure by taking the kids there by train from Penn Station in Baltimore.  Oren loved the double-decker passenger cars and the whole train trip.  We even had to take the metro (subway) once we arrived in D.C.  That was also a special treat for him.  Of course it meant that by the time we arrived it felt like we had done quite a bit.  Still, the children loved the museum where we saw an imax 3d movie and saw many animal and aquatic exhibits.  Their favorite place was the insect exhibit which featured all live animals and the kids got to hold live caterpillars, stick bugs, and even a Madagascar hissing cockroach.  (As if a non-hissing cockroach is not dreadful enough.)  David probably liked this best because he will happily pick up just about anything and has even caught a turtle, a frog, and crayfish on his own around our house.

6) Church-- We have been going to different churches since being back, we were at my parent's church for a presentation, but went to the North Baltimore Mennonite Church the past 2 weeks.  This past Sunday Rebecca preached from Matthew on the parable of the weeds.  I won't tell about it in detail, but there is a link here to a recording of it:  http://sermon.net/enbmc

Other activities we have done include berry picking--bluberries, rasberries, strawberries, black caps, thus far, with Grandma Jean, trips to the barber, the private airport where their grandpa has use of a Cessna airplane, several trips to the library where the kids have checked out many books and played reading games in their media center.  Again something that we have nothing like in Burundi!

News from Burundi has generally been good from our colleagues.  We have heard that the books that were sent this past Feb. have all arrived and the ones for Burundi have all reached their destinations.  The Hope School is grateful to receive so many.  I hope to take some photos when we get there.

I got some interesting news from my dad of all people.  He had to go to a conference in Nairobi and passed through Bujumbura.  On the way home he was on the flight with Zachee, Bridget and Timmy who were leaving Burundi for good (temporarily).  They talked a bit in the Brussels airport.  We are hoping to see them on a visit to Niagara Falls we have planned in late July.  It is a small world.

It is good to feel like I miss Bujumbura, even as I have been enjoying daily the experience of walking down clean paved sidewalks, going into air-conditioned houses, being anonymous, not being asked for money constantly.  But, maybe because of that, I do feel like being here feels like a Club-Med vacation even just walking in the neighborhood.  I don't know if I really ever want to get used to this again.  In many ways I enjoy feeling like it is a special treat rather than an entitlement.

This week we will be visiting my brothers and cousins in various parts of the midwest.  We leave for Kansas City on Thursday.  If there are any friends in Burundi reading this, we are thinking about you and miss you all.  More in a couple weeks.