A Devastating Loss

Oren, David and Mommy at the pool at Club du Lac this weekend.

Too many days without an update and this will not even be a good one.  I am writing in a bit of a raw emotional state this evening because of a devastating event that happened today.  Fortunately is was not a death, but Rebecca and I did lose, in a theft two Mac computers.  They happened to be together in a briefcase which was by my feet in the front seat of the car.  We dropped the kids off at school and in the 5 minutes we were in the building with the car parked just outside the gate, a thief got in and grabbed the briefcase.  Although I am in the habit of locking, there is usually a momentary chaotic blur of children in the street and cars passing can be a distraction.  The scene is quite busy and I am amazed that someone would be so gutsy as to grab something out of a car there under the noses of security guards, chauffeurs, and arriving parents, but they did.  Definitely not a random event, but something well planned and professional.

It is a devastating loss because replacing 2 expensive personal laptops is out of the question.  The fact that Rebecca just returned from Kigali last weekend with one of them freshly repaired with a new hard drive makes it even more painful.  While I do not want to be overly materialistic, I will say we loved to work on these computers, they made our jobs much easier with a quick, easy to search mail program.  We also had many things for the kids, photos, and movies on them.  Fortunately our work is backed up on Dropbox (a cloud program) and we have another hard drive back up in the US, but our back up drive here has failed as well after being mishandled in the process of reinstalling some stuff on the previously broken Mac. 

We spent the day trying to track down the computers.  We have let school officials and the security company they use know.  But we are also getting the word out through a network of informal connections that there is a reward for their return.  I think there is some chance of this because the power cords were not with the computers and those cost over $150 here.  There is also no support for Mac here, so selling them back might prove to be the best option for a thief.  We will see what happens but for now I am feeling very sick, nauseous with a massive headache.  I delayed going up to Kigali this morning which was my plan before this all transpired.

I will go up tomorrow although not to Kigali but to Cyangugu on the border to Bukavu, DRC.  Our partners are going to meet with some MCC DRC partners to discuss some collaboration on a refugee project.  I don’t what will happen, I do sense that with the ongoing rebellion in Eastern DRC in which Rwanda is implicated, there is a lot of tension between Rwandese and Congolese.  I think especially that Rwandese partners have some paranoia that there may be some government repercussions for collaborating in such projects.  Anyway, we will sit together Wednesday and discuss the possibility of this, but I am not entirely optimistic.

Rebecca was in Rwanda last week while I took care of the kids.   She came home after 4 days thoroughly exhausted.  Apparently meetings were challenging and even a bit tense.  Some of this is because we have new personnel that are still finding their niche, and we are working towards some new directions for our program.  I think partners are nervous and jockeying for position hoping to get something good out of the new  work here or at least some assurance that they will not be excluded.  

Backing up a bit, Oren was invited to two Birthday parties this past week.  Zack Guillebaud’s was first and Oren and David were excited to get to go to Musee Vivant, the zoo, for the party.  Zack’s Dad Simon has a reputation for going into the crocodile cages and he did not disappoint on this day.  He got them to jump up and lunge at him several times.  We also arrived in time for feeding time at the snake cages.  Very sadly though, the chimp had died the week before of malaria. 

The kids also played some competitive games for prizes and there was a cake in a play area near the zoo.  I think our kids had a lot of fun.

The second Birthday was on Monday afternoon last week for Sam Miller.  Sam is in Oren’s class and Oren went home with him and several other boys after school.  They stayed until about 4 then David and I went to get him.  The Miller’s have just moved into their new house, the former house of Travis and Astrid.  It is a house that is familiar to Oren and David. 

It was good to be the one staying home all week with the kids.  I enjoyed swimming every day and doing things with the kids.  Among the good habits I have added to my daily routine is walking the dogs.  The kids really like to do this too, although the two dogs are really too big for either of the kids to handle.  Oren is OK  at holding Bella though.  Dance has been going well on Fridays and it continues to be a nice change of pace from the normal routine of the week.

Rebecca got back on Thursday and it was very good to see her after she was gone for 4 days.  As I said she was exhausted when she came home.  We did have a nice relaxing weekend with our morning yoga exercise class followed by a singing rehearsal of some Christmas music. We are preparing a few things for our Christmas folk dance and "offering of the arts" party on the 23^rd of December.  We had about 4 people join us (including 2 service workers) to learn some songs.  Yolanda and Melody were also in town over the weekend.  Yolanda headed out for a short vacation and Melody spent the weekend at our house, returning to Gitega today.

Among the interesting and challenging questions at work has been a request from MCC for those of us in the Great Lakes region to think of an advocacy position regarding Eastern Congo, that can be shared with our constituents. MCC also does to advocacy at the UN and in DC and Ottawa, so there is interest in finding a position for MCC around the issues of the region.  We have been doing a lot of research and inquiry and it is hard to reach a consensus.  The issue has become pressing because of the activity of M-23 rebels and the recent UN report that they are being supported by Rwanda.  (Rwanda denies this.)  There is some question about whether there should be advocacy for economic sanctions against Rwanda to pressure them to abandon their support of this group. 

Feelings in the International community are mixed here; Rwanda is seen as a very positive model of progressive development and low corruption.  Still, like its neighbors, it seems to be taking advantage of the power vacuum in Eastern Congo to exploit resources like gold and coltan.  In talking to our advisors in Rwanda, we have been told that resources are not at the base of the conflict and there is a lot of ethnic tension.  Our advisors are in favor of a regional solution that does not involve US or other nation’s sanctions, but rather theri support in brokering talks.  One thing that is becoming clear to me is just how complex the situation is and how much it resists a simple reductionist explanation.  The role of countries like the US are particularly hard to understand in this as their influence is ambiguous at best.  Although ‘conflict minerals’ do exist in the region, for instance, it is not clear to what extent they are at the root, the cause of the conflict or whether they simple exacerbate the ethnic tension and lawlessness there by making it possible for rebel groups who control the region to have access to some money to continue to propagate their regimes.  I am putting a map created by BBC that shows some of the groups operating in the region.  As can be seen, M-23 is just one of many.  In my opinion it seems like more of a feudal system of fiefdoms that exploit and terrorize peasants to keep them fed and armed in exchange for some protection.

I am not sure I have more to say right now.  I am hoping to have some good news to report in the future about recovering the computers.  Pictures are also a bit sparse because they are harder to get up on the web without our macs.  The other constant that has been relentless the past 2 weeks is rain.  It has rained almost steadily for days now.  Usually rains come hard for part of the day, but that has not been the case recently.  It seems particularly hard when we are going to drop off or pick up the kids from school.  I guess this is why they call it the rainy season.

Despite all, we are doing our best to get into the Holiday spirit.  We have enjoyed celebrating the Sundays in advent and Rebecca and I have been doing a fast during the weekdays of advent, eating only after 5 pm in the evening.  I am feeling a bit depleted these days, but humbled as well.  Looking forward to a nice break between Christmas and New Years.