It has come to my attention that there
are a lot more ex-pats, especially anglophone ex-pats in the country
than there were when we moved here. It is evident in nearly every
sphere, at the Ecole Belge, church, the beach, and most recently at
our quarterly folk dance which we held last Saturday. We have an
email list that we use to send out invitations about a week ahead
and in the past we have hosted between 30 and 50 adults and children.
This past week, though we had closer to 80! What was even more
interesting was how many of them we did not even know. I think this
event gets around by word of mouth and it seems to be a good place
for newcomers to meet folks who have been around for a while.
It was, as always a great time, and it
is a small offering we enjoy making several times a year to those who
enjoy it. I am not sure the majority even had a chance to do some of
the dances (with the exception of 'Cotton-eyed Joe' which the young
girls and Jennifer Price did about 8 times during the evening). But
we did have several other favorites including 'Dashing White
Sargent', the Hora, and a square dance set for which we made squares in both the
living and dining rooms. We finished off with the 'Virginia Reel'
which again we had to make two lines, one in the living room and one
in the dining room. Actually for me the dancing highlight was
watching David join into the marathon set of Cotton-Eyed Joe and
really try to dance it with Jennifer and the girls. I don't think I
have enough bandwidth to upload the video I made but it was hilarious
enough to be on 'Burundi's Funniest Home Videos'!
The dancing was followed by a pot-luck
in which just about everything was eaten including a delicious
Birthday cake for Nani (one of Astrid and Travis' daughters). It was
good to catch up with everyone and find out who is 'still here'. I
would say that fewer have left than newcomers that have arrived. We
also had several members of our Burundi MCC team down for the event
including Saffy, our new service worker who will be based in
Bujumbura, Yolanda from Gitega, and Teri-Lynn our SALTer who is
teaching up at the Hope School in Nyangungu.
Actually Saturday began with a yoga
class that I taught at Stephen and Laura's house, some friends from
the Ecole Belge. There were about a dozen folks there as well. We
had brunch after the class then Rebecca, Teri-Lynn and the kids and I
went back home and began getting ready for the party. We have it pretty much down
to a science and can have the living room and dining room cleared and
furniture set up outdoors in about an hour. Food takes a bit longer
but is usually prepared in advance.
Breakdown is also pretty quick. Since
most of the guests are families everyone is usually gone by 8:30 pm.
Bt 10pm we have usually finished cleaning up and restoring everything
back to normal. Since Yolanda and Teri-Lynn were staying with us
over the weekend it went even faster.
Sunday was the third week in which we
went to the beach following church. Swimming in the lake seems to be
the preference of the children these days, particularly when it is a
bit choppy. Eating out also gives us a much needed break from
cleaning the kitchen. We got home in time for small group at 4pm and
were very pleased to welcome a new member, Natasha, a Burundian who
has been living out of the country for many years and has just
emigrated from Canada with her daughter.
We had an interesting discussion about
forgiveness modeled by Joseph in the Old Testament when he was reconcilled to his brothers. I had not heard the sermon because I
was helping with Sunday School (David is apparently acting out a bit
in class), but Rebecca did hear it and gave us a synopsis. The topic
was, does Christian forgiveness replace the need for State Justice?
(In short, our answer was No.)
The weekend was a restful cap on a
fairly busy week. Much of it fell into our routine of office hours
in the morning and splitting the parenting and work in the
afternoons, but there were some exceptions. Keeping up my perfect
record of traveling every week (which will continue indefinitely) I
spent Wednesday in Gitega. The occasion was to take Saffy, our new
volunteer to meet the partner she is seconded to. She will be
working with an organization called UCEDD. This is the partner that
runs the Hope School for the Batwa. Saffy will be working with them
for the next 3 months to do a new action plan for the Hope School and
help them with some other efforts to bring awareness of it to other
donors.
I should add at this point that we
continued to be without our car all last week and while we did have a
small rental, I chose to go by taxi with Saffy to Gitega. Although
the route is somewhat treacherous, it is the normal way most folks
travel including most of our other service workers. It is always a
humbling experience to be crammed into the backseat of a fairly
compact car with 4 others, no seat belts and a trunk (hatchback)
stuffed with various merchandise heading up the mountain.
We did not make great time primarily
because there were about 8 police checks on the way. Usually cabs
are stopped at all of these while non-commercial vehicles are not. I
don't know if this is for heightened security because of some recent
threats to security, or just a chance to shake the drivers down for a
'fanta'. But we did stop frequently and at one we waited for about 15
minutes.
We did eventually get to Gitega and met
Innocent and Beatrice along with the Honorable Alfred, a Batwa
parliamentarian who is also their legal rep. We had a very
productive exchange outlining Saffy's duties and where she would be
based. After talking for several hours we had some lunch and then
got in a cab to head back down the mountain. This one was less
crowded because Alfred had hired one for himself and we rode along.
It started to rain as we headed out of
Gitega in the late afternoon. That is never good news if one is
headed down the mountain, but a daily reality of rainy season.
Accidents are frequent on this road but it seems like the rain is the
underlying cause of many of the really bad ones. Our driver did not
drive insanely fast but I did feel like he was going faster than was
safe for a slick road. We had gone most of the way down though
before we came to a line of cars ahead of us as far as we could see
just over the plain of Bujumbura. We knew there was an accident
ahead and by the number of cars waiting, we expected a big one. The
wait delayed us about an hour and the reason was evident when we got
to the sight of the wreck.
Apparently a large truck heading down
hill carrying a container lost its brakes in the rain and was
speeding out of control. He hit one taxi and slammed it into the
embankment. Next he hit another taxi and pushed it backwards until
it slammed into another container truck coming up the hill. All 3
vehicles went off the road just inches away from the cliff. The 2
trucks were on their side on top of each other and the taxi and
several bicycles were crushed underneath the whole mess. I do not
know how many perished in the wreck. Yolanda and Jennifer Price, who
were in a bus coming down the mountain from Kigali at the same time
but a bit ahead of us, apparently took several of the injured to the
hospital on the way down when they got through.
The scene was a sobering reminder of
the danger of driving here. I think it is actually more dangerous to
drive up the hill than down, especially in the rain. This is because
going down, you can control your speed, but going up, you cannot
control the recklessness of the other drivers coming down. Many will
happily pass on blind curves, or have a mechanical failure like the
container truck. I will think twice about driving up in the rain.
Rainy season, though, does have its
benefits and it is great to enjoy the cooler air and the settling of
dust. Our mango trees are full of fruit this year and I
am hoping that we get to eat some before it is all stolen. (It seems
that everyone steals mangoes—especially school kids.) We don't
want to be greedy but we do want to have at least a crack at the best
mangoes that come off of the tree to the left of the house which are
exceptionally good mangoes.
Oren had a good week as well, going to
karate at the French School Tuesday and Thursday. It rained both
days he was there so David got a bit wet waiting for him in the
playground. Oren went to karate quite willingly and even said on
Tuesday “You know, I'm really beginning to like karate.” I was
surprised to hear that since he did not seem to be doing it by choice
the entire last year.
It was good to finally get our car back
on Friday. It actually took about 2 weeks of repair on what seems
likely to have been caused by putting contaminated gas into the fuel
tank. Apparently the whole fuel system was gummed up and several
pumps, spark plugs and other things had to be replaced and the whole
system flushed several times. It was an expensive repair and I
really want to go back to Kigali and complain to the gas station, but
there is little recourse in terms of recuperating the cost
since it would be almost impossible to prove and there really is no
well functioning 'consumer protection bureau' here.
We loved having our car back over the
weekend and returning the rental. The only small annoyance was that
I failed to do it all in a single trip and in fact had to make several
trips to each place for various reasons. It ended up taking 4 hours
to return the rental and pick-up our car. I am used to this now, but
do marvel at how efficient things like rental car returns and store
check-outs are in my own country in general. Here everything takes 3 to 4 times as
long. (Don't even get me started on waiting for a check at a
restaurant)
This coming week I have another trip up
to Gitega and the Hope School. I do like to visit the latter and
should only be gone overnight. I will be dropping Teri-Lynn and
Saffy off up there. Saffy is going to do some research and hopefully
give Teri-Lynn some company for a few days.
Just about finished all of our
reporting for the mid-year period only a day after the deadline so we
are feeling pretty good.
Bonus Video: David, the ladies man trying to do Cotton-Eyed Joe with the big girls.
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