Shooting the Rapids

David, completely beat after returning home from Kigali.



If I was going to characterize these last 2 weeks as rapids on a river I would say they are number 4 at least, and we are paddling down them in a kayak using every ounce of strength and focus to keep from being capsized.  Even taking a moment to try to write this at 4 in the morning feels like snatching a brief gasp of air before being pulled back into the raging flume.

I don't exactly know how we ended such a busy year with such a tremendous flurry of activity, but that is exactly what has happened.

I am calling this year end for several reasons even though it is July. One is that we did in fact arrive in July of 2008 so the 18th, our day of departure for homeleave marks the official end of our 4th year and beginning of our 5th year here. But also it feels like Rebecca and I have generally used the time back in the US to review and evaluate our priorities and set new goals and ways of working in the coming year.

We went into last year knowing this would probably be our hardest year, but it is surprising how relentless the work seems to be especially at the very end.

For me this has been because of the extensive amount of travel upcountry and into Rwanda that has been necessary. I will go out and back from Bujumbura every single week in July until we leave on the 18th. Driving upcountry at all is treacherous and takes a toll mentally and physically. We do try to limit our visits to partners to twice a month. But we have had to forgo that limit this month.

This cascade of travel began last Sunday when our family left after church to spend a week in Rwanda. We had several reasons to be gone this long, one reason was to see partners, but the second was to meet our area director Mark Sprunger in Kigali as he was flying in late Sunday night. The day we left was actually Burundi Independence day (50th).  We had some concerns that we would have difficulty traveling because of closed roads,  butthe main activities were actually planned for Monday so we missed most of the problems of traffic jams and closed routes due to parades, etc. by leaving on Sunday.

We had seen quite a bit of preparations for parades with soldiers marching in the Ciy. For those of you who have missed the opportunity to see parades in small third world countries, they do not resemble Macy's Day much, but feature mostly marching brigades of armed soldiers, military equipment, armored vehicles, helicopters, etc. This year was Burundi's 50th anniversary so it was a big one. One nice thing to see was the extent to which the city streets were cleaned up, curbs were white washed, statues and monuments were repainted, flags were hanging on every street light. It was quite an improvement.

I believe I mentioned in last weeks blog that was posted from Kigali, when we got there, that Mark arrived about 3 in the morning on Monday and I got him at the airport. Interestingly, Rwanda was also celebrating its 50th anniversary of Independence, and Monday was a holiday so we were not really able to do any work. We did do some shopping for things we can't get easily in Burundi and then spent the rest of the day meeting with Mark and briefing him on what we would be doing with him during the week.

We actually had two main activities, one was to visit a refugee camp where our partner the Friends Church is intervening, and the other was to participate in a 3 day strategic planning meeting for an annual event called the Great Lakes Initiative, sponsored by Duke University that we participate in every year. With the kids with us in Rwanda we again used our divide and conquer strategy with me leading the refugee camp visit and Rebecca taking the work responsibility for the GLI meeting.

On Tuesday Mark and I, along with 2 of our partners from the Friends Church made a 3 hour trip to Kigeme refugee camp in Southern Rwanda. This is not the same refugee camp I had visited several week ago in Northern Rwanda but is connected. The previously mentioned camp was in Northern Rwanda right across the border from Goma. That was in fact a transit camp for new arrivals, but the one in Southern Rwanda is a place where the Congolese refugees arriving from Goma will ultimately be brought for long term care and protection.

Perhaps many readers have heard about the uptick in recent months of violence and instability in Eastern DRC with the defection of a tutsi militia called the CNDP from the Congolese army now calling themselves M-23, who have destabilized the region. At this point they have effectively routed the army, many of whom have fled to Uganda and have moved in as close as 10 miles from the city Goma.

There are more than 13,000 refugees that have come over to Rwanda in the past 2 months, most Kinyarwand speaking Congolese who feel threatened by the Congolese army themselves. They are being relocated south to the new camp little by little and during our visit there were about 5000 there already, and arriving at a rate of about 500 per day by UNHCR truck. (loaded more like cargo than people as we saw several passing us on the road.)

I have to say, in our visit to the newly set up camp, things looked quite neat and orderly. There were thousands of UNHCR tents in neat lines, with latrines every few hundred meters, health stations, etc. I am sure by the time there are 13,000 living here for several years it will not look so good, but it is clear the UNHCR is trying to be well prepared.

Generally all work done by other NGO's in the camp is coordinated by the UNHCR according to the capacities of the actor. Some deal with health, sanitation, maternal care, child care, schooling, etc. The Friends Church will be providing conflict resolution training and trauma healing workshops as these are quite necessary in a crowded camp with traumatized people.

Mark, myself and our 2 colleagues from the Friends Church met with the Rwandese local authorities and UNHCR reps at the camp and discussed our partner's intervention. We also took a tour of the camp and interviewed several refugees. One family invited me into their tent. It was actually one of the newer UN tents that looked kind of like some kind of white polar exploration tent. It was fairly roomy until you consider that it sleeps a family of 8 and all living and cooking supplies. It was pretty much bare except for a couple of cooking pots and a mattress. It is hard to believe this will probably be their home for many years.

It is an odd thing to see this 'tent city'. All the orderly white tents make it seem like some kind of gigantic scout jamboree. Some of the refugees who had been business people have already set small booths selling various things, others have their sewing machines out making clothes. It is difficult to imagine that this will become a town with schools, a governing body health facilities, counseling, some income generating activities, etc. It is even harder to imagine oneself in this situation when one sees it.

There are at least 2000 children even at this early point. Many followed us around and asked us for things like balls or other things to play with. At this point, nothing like that has been provided, hopefully Save the Children will be setting up its activities soon as they will be providing things for kids to do here.

We returned to Kigali the same day which meant about 6 hours of driving. Actually we had a bit of unexpected car trouble in Kigali when we got back in rush hour and had to ascend a very long steep hill in creeping traffic. My transmission started to overheat so we had to pull over to let it cool before we could get back to our hotel. Not a major problem but delayed our return until about 8pm.

On Wednesday we had a plan to move to a different guest house in another part of town where the GLI strategic planning meeting was taking place. Although it was a bit inconvenient, it was well worth the effort as we were being hosted by GLI who paid for our room and board.

We settled in at the new place, a guest house owned by an NGO called ALARM that does work training Christian pastors in leadership and community development. There were about 4 people who had arrived from Duke including Father Emmanuel Katongole (who I have written about in previous blogs). There were also other stakeholders from Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania. Meeting began on Wednesday evening and there were morning and afternoon sessions on Thursday and Friday.

There was a great deal of discussion about the mission, vision, and support of the Initiative in the years to come and who would be taking on responsibilities for its continuation. It has been perceived as a valuable convening point for Christian leaders of influence in the region from Sudan to DRC. It is based on the idea that as leaders are transformed individually, they will transform their communities. It has been a forum for lament (regret) as well as renewal. One of the challenges is that while this work seems extremely valuable, its impact is hard to measure in any kind of metric way. This makes support from NGOs somewhat difficult as measurable results are often a criterion for support. Among the discussion topics was how one might be able to measure impact through follow-up with past alumni.

I, of couse, was getting all of this second hand as I was on child care duty. The property at the guest house was quite big so we did some exploring, played frisbee, did water colors, and watched movies while Rebecca and Mark were in the meeting on Thursday.

On Friday, we went to a playground in the morning. I would say it was almost an amusement park, near the center of town. It had several rides including a choo-choo train and a merry-go-round. The most impressive feature, though, was a gigantic bouncy kingdom. It was 60 feet long and 40 feet wide and had numerous thing on it including a castle with a bridge, tunnel, and many other features. It was the highlight of the park and the kids played on it quite a bit.

Friday evening the meetings ended and we headed back to Bujumbura with Mark on Saturday morning. We were back on Saturday afternoon and had a quite dinner at home. It was honestly a huge relief to be back. There were several reasons for this, one is that Kigali was really cold, especially in the mornings. I should note that although it is the dry season here, the weather is actually colder this time of year because Rwanda and Burundi are south of the equator and this is our winter. By cold I mean it is in the low 60s in the morning, but that feels cold to us. I know that there are heat waves in the US at this time of year, so it might be hard to imagine us freezing over here in what probably feels like air-conditioning there, but we are pretty acclimatized to the mid 80s temperature that is normal here during the day most of the year.

The other problem is that we have all been sick in one way of another, mainly colds and sinus infections, although David has also had a bout of diarrhea. It is better to be sick at home then traveling where do not have our medicines and other conveniences on hand.

Sunday morning was back to work again as instead of going to our church with Rebecca and the boys, I took Mark to one of the emerging Mennonite Churches in town. (Mennonite Bretheren) as the pastor there has been begging me to come and see how they are doing for quite some time. Although MCC has no formal obligation or relationship to the church, I do go from time to time as a courtesy. Also it was a chance for Mark to see what was going on there.

Interestingly, the Tanzanian Ambassador to Burundi was also there as he is Mennonite and goes from time to time. One reason I am a bit uncomfortable about going is that it does reinforce a somewhat misguided desire by the pastor to court mzungus and reinforces their belief that until a church has some kind of official 'white' backing an presence it is not really legitimate. It is hard to break this mentality, especially when it is coming from an African who is explaining it to you in all sincerity and treating you like a guest of honor. We try to explain that the church is legitimate because it is a gathering of the community for worship here and does not need to have any mzungu stamp of approval or support to be vital and a place where God is present. Unfortunately there needs to be a lot undoing of neo-colonial evangelical ideology before many Christians here (especially pastors) will accept this.

On Sunday afternoon we had the arrival of our next set of visitors. Ruth Clemens, MCC director of International programs for the USA. She came with her husband Jonathan and 15 yo daughter Hannah. Mark and I met them at the airport and brought them to our house. (Oren and David graciously gave up their room and new bunk bed.) It was great to see them since they also happen to be members of our home church in Baltimore, but also opened the next chapter of responsibility for showing her the work in our program as this will probably be her only visit during our time here as reps.

We began on Sunday evening by inviting our team members from Burundi to meet her for dinner. We prepared a big spaghetti meal and put 2 tables together in our dining room. We were 12 together with Felix, Jennifer, Janelle and Yolanda joining us. It was a very pleasant evening as we do like to get together with our team. We all went to bed early though shortly after it was over as we have been feeling more and more exhausted after each day.

Monday almost felt like a routine in that Rebecca and I got up early and took the kids to summer school. (it is being offered at the Ecole Belge to kids who are hanging around for the summer.) We even went swimming after dropping them off. But the routine ended there as we began our meetings with Ruth and introductions to partners.

I took Ruth and Mark to Help Channel while Rebecca took Jonathan and Hannah for a tour of the Central Market. At noon we picked up the kids and went home for lunch, then Me, Mark, Felix, Ruth, Jonathan, and Hannah headed upcountry to Gitega while Rebecca stayed home with the kids. I am writing this blog in Gitega early Tuesday morning but will post it on Wednesday evening when we return as there is no internet here. I will talk about the events this week in my next post, the last, in Burundi before we leave.

I do have one more trip next week to Rwanda before we go to pick up the SALTers, so please pray for us to be able to keep up the decent 'through the whitewater rapids' to the end of the run without tipping over. Either way, I will let you know.