As we have now entered our fifth year here in Burundi, I am becoming more and more aware of the subtle and not so subtle ways that culture shock begins to give way to familiarity and even preference. I say this watching Oren heap red beans on his rice then add additional layers of shredded cabbage, avocado, tomato and mayonnaise. He likes it all mixed together in a big glop. I can’t imagine many American kids eating that.
In other ways though, besides developing a taste for high
starch food, I see how we change. For Rebecca and I, it is really clear that
our body thermometers are very different.
I never thought I would ever say I could live quite comfortably without
warm water, but that has happened over the years of living in this perpetually
warm climate. We do have a hot water
heater connected to our shower and tub, but I must say, that though I dip in
the tub at least once a day, I cannot even remember the last time I ever turned
on the hot water tap. Taking cold baths
and showers just feels better.
Airconditioning is also something we do not have nor does it seem even
slightly needful. Refrigerated drinking
water and especially ice, actually sound unpleasant compared to a nice long
draw of room temperature drinking water.
I am not bragging about any of this, these aren’t things or
habits I’ve made any effort to acquire.
It is just interesting how sacrifices and hardships do eventually become
preferences over time.
This is all a propos to nothing that happened in the week
but as I am aware that friends and family at home are experiencing a fairly
drastic change in season back home, I wanted to say something about the more
subtle changes we experience here.
Actually we are entering a time of abundant fruit
harvest. Our mango and avocado trees are
full of fruit. Bananas, pineapples, and
passion fruit is plentiful and cheap everywhere these days. Flowers are in bloom in the garden. In fact I took some photos of the beautiful
amaryllis growing in our front yard. (That is amaryllis by the big clay pot.)
I am happy to say I was home for much of the week, but I did
start out with a trip upcountry Tuesday morning. For the second week in a row I was on my way
to the Hope School for the Batwa. This
time I had Saffy accompanying me, and in fact the plan was to leave her there
for the rest of the week so she could do some work with the partner. She was not planning to work at the school
per se, but rather do a field visit of some of the projects they have in the
area. UCEDD does not just sponsor the
Hope School, but also has other projects including 96 women’s groups in the
vicinity.
Safffy was going to be doing some interviews in the area,
but along with all of this, there was to be a kind of welcome ceremony for
Teri-Lynn and her as they are both working with UCEDD. The ceremony was to take place at the Hope School
on Wednesday morning and the kids, (according to Teri-Lynn had been rehearsing
all week.)
We arrived in Burasira at Terry-Lynn’s house in the late
afternoon. Innocent and Beatrice arrived
to meet us down there. Innocent had made
an arrangement in the earl evening to have Saffy meet several of the women’s
groups in a nearby village and interview them.
Since Terry-Lynn and I did not have anything else to do, we tagged
along.
We drove about 10 minutes down the road and met a large
group of women in a small building in the middle of a small village. It was fascinating to hear the women talk
about how empowered they felt working together in ‘savings groups’. This is a kind of activity where members
contribute a very small weekly fee and then the money is loaned to people in
the group and paid back with interest.
One step below microfinance, but unlike the latter, does not have any
donor input as far as money. The women
had been so successful in raising money that they were actually in the process
of building a small nursery school with the surplus money that had been saved
collectively.
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| Saffy doing interviews. |
We spent about an hour talking to them before heading back
to the house for dinner. I stayed the
night at the seminary.
The next morning after breakfast we went up to the school
and participated in a big official welcoming ceremony where the students played
traditional drums, danced, recited poetry and each of us gave speeches. We
finished off with a Fanta and goat briochettes.
It was an enjoyable event.
I had to get back to Bujumbura after the celebration and
left about noon to get home by 4pm.
David, I should add here, had stayed home from school Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday, but he seemed all better by the time I got home. I
should also add that we did end up taking him to the doctor (Joel Miller) over at
the new clinic by Hope Africa University.
We did not have to wait long to see him and he did confirm that the
cause of the fever was probably a sinus infection. It was great to leave after only paying the
consultation fee of about FBU2000 ($1.50).
The same visit in the US would have been closer to $250. (but
don’t get me started on our country’s deep cultural commitment to overpay for
healthcare.)
The rest of the week was fairly normal as far as our
routine, but we had a lot of MCCers, both service workers and other pass
through our home over the weekend.
The onslaught began on Friday with the arrival back in
Bujumbura of Terri-Lynn who was down for a wedding of one of the teachers. She
was followed shortly later by Yolanda who was also down for the weekend for
various reasons.
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| The Breakfast Club |
Yolanda and Terri-Lynn stayed with us Friday night and
joined us for Saturday morning yoga. We
had a really big group that morning with about 15 comprising the Breakfast Club
thereafter. (Jennifer Price also came
over for breakfast.) This eclectic group
is becoming more and more interesting with members from the UN, GIZ, the
Belgian Development Agency, the Ecole Belge, service workers, and others from
various missions and NGOs represented.
It is becoming a very enjoyable weekly social event where we probably
share enough food to undo any benefit of all the exercise we did in the hour
priorJ
After breakfast, Gopar Tapkida arrived from Nigeria. He is our regional peace officer and is here
for 2 weeks to teach at the Great Lakes Peacebuilding Institute here in
Gitega. It was very good to catch up
with him and to introduce him to our many new service workers. In the afternoon Rebecca and Terri-Lynn went together to the wedding of the teacher. (I got to stay home with the kids.) They reported that there was a deafening downpour right in the middle of it. They saw Jodi there as well. Gopar stayed the night with us and we had a
small MCC Burundi gathering of service workers to meet him for dinner.
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| Doug, Gopar, Terri-Lynn at church. |
On Sunday we went to church with Terri-Lynn and Gopar. On the way we had a very interesting
discussion about the church in Nigeria.
As we were driving past some policemen standing by the road. Gopar lamented allowed that in Abuja these
days, with the terrorist activities and attacks on churches by Boko Haram, he
has to pass through 3 security checkpoints at the entrance to his church. The first looks under the car for bombs. The second searches all contents of the car
and trunk. The 3rd search is
a body search, and no bags whatsoever can be brought into the church. He went on to say that the church now spends
about $20,000 per year on security.
Rebecca shook her head and asked him how that was affecting
attendance. To our shock Gopar replied that
all of this has actually led to significant RISE in attendance!! He said that the more Christians are targeted
the more they feel that if they are going to die, they would rather die in
church.
I was really stunned to hear this. Imagine that!
Persecution leading to a rise in faithfulness. But isn’t that what we hear about in the
Bible. Although I was with the kids in
Sunday school, apparently the sermon by our pastor was very much in the same
vein. He used the passage in John where
Jesus returns to his disciples and says “Peace, be with you.” How he calmed their fears as he stood among
them and told them to go out and continue his work--confident, but expecting hardship and sacrifice. I know that “God does not give us a spirit of
fear”, but I am really amazed to hear such a testimony of courage in a place where
Christians are persecuted today.
Our small group that afternoon echoed many of the same
sentiments with several offering personal testimonies of overcoming fear
through trust in God.
I need to add here that among the people I did see at church
this week was Doug Hiebert! (For those
of you who have followed this blog from the beginning you may recognize his
name as one of the former MCC reps. He
was back in town with a mission team from his home church near Toronto. It was really interesting catching up with
him.)
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| Yolanda, Oscar, Gopar |
Gopar left our house mid-afternoon when he was picked up to
go to Gitega by one of our partners.
Oscar also took Yolanda back up to Gitega as well. She will be helping with some translating at
GLPI this year.
Sunday evening was difficult after small group for work
reasons. After a relaxing weekend,
Rebecca and I realized we had to finish our monthly financial report that
night, especially since she was heading up to Kigali in the morning for 4
days. (After making 3 trips upcountry 3
weeks in a row, she agreed to make a trip in my place.)
We were up very late to finish the work, and then she had to
leave the house about 6 am the next morning.
Fortunately she was taking a bus so hopefully she slept.
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| Terri-Lynn, Michael Sharp |
I was left with getting the kids off to school today. Terri-Lynn goes back upcountry tomorrow, but
another person, Michael Sharp who is MCC Congo’s service worker in Bukavu came
down. He was on his way up to Gitega to
do the Great Lakes Peacebuilding Institute as well. He had lunch with us and then I put him in a
taxi at the bottom of the hill and sent him upcountry to Gitega.
The rest of Monday was fairly calm. I worked on homework with Oren, played marbles
with the kids, had family tea time (without mommy) and dinner. They went to bed without complaining or missing
Rebecca too much. Tomorrow I send
Terri-Lynn and Safi back upcountry to the Hope School. I feel a bit like some kind of transport
dispatcher coordinating all of these rides.
But it is nice to be the one staying home for a change.
Expect a report from Rebecca next week.
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