Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Survival Tips: What to Expect When You Hit Someone With Your Car


Testing--A picture of Noel, one of our dogs, using the new camera I bought today.



I skipped a week of blogging.  Something I almost never do.  It is a discipline that I really don’t enjoy doing as much as I enjoy being awed by the sheer volume of writing I have done since being here.

I did not skip it because we were overwhelmed by work.  It was a very busy 2 weeks, but the real reason was a loss that hit me harder than I expected.  Not a loss of life, although there have been several deaths of children of some families we know that have hit close to home.   But the loss that shut me down last week was the theft of my camera. 

Theft has been a continuous problem here, but it has been on the increase in our organization in the past several months.  The theft we experience is rarely if ever, violent crime.  Although that is a problem in the poorer quarters it rarely touches expatriates.

But the type of theft we most often experience is a kind of slow bleeding.  Sadly it is usually done by someone who works at the house in small increments.  I have had to help at least one service worker get rid of several house staff, but it seems that money disappears from nearly everyone here, a little at a time.

I suppose it is understandable as prices continue to rise bit by bit, as the currency devalues and salaries remain the same.  I don’t think that theft is a good or sustainable coping strategy, but it seems to be one that is common here to make up the difference.

I think being robbed bit by bit by people you know or trust has a long term effect of weakening one's resolve.  Anger and a sense of betrayal eventually give way to a kind of emotional fatigue.  The masaai tribe likes to take some blood from the neck vein in a cow to mix with its milk.  They do not kill the cow but do receive nourishment from both the blood and the milk.  Ingenious perhaps, but I think I know how the cow feels.

I don’t want to be overly morose, that was last weekend so I have recovered somewhat.  It seems to be a fact of life here and we have generally learned to be diligent and not leave things out that might be temptations.  The camera had been used and was in the car in our driveway with the gate locked when it disappeared.  The likelihood of an inside job is very high.  But I have no way of knowing for sure.

Felix with Rwandese partner Antoine in Kigali
The past week was spent in Rwanda from Monday to Thursday.  It was a trip that was fairly routine as far as being a monthly visit, and it was an opportunity to be in touch and do some worker care for our three Rwanda volunteers.

Felix went with me and we also met all of our partners to sign our yearly contracts with them for upcoming projects since April is the beginning of our fiscal year.   We also met with our Rwanda advisors to discuss aspects of our program including the ongoing challenge of getting long-term visas for our volunteers.  Rwandan immigration has gotten a lot tougher since the M-23 rebel problems in Eastern DRC.  I don’t know if there is a direct connection, but there does seem to be a higher degree of scrutiny of foreigners in the country.

I did not go on any field visits, out of town that is.  Actually I did visit one field, a model field demonstating low tillage conservation agriculture techniques that Mat Gates our service worker has cultivated near his house.  It seems to be doing well and he had some corn already growing out.  We have not started the full-blown conservation agriculture project, still waiting for final approval of the grant, and our partners are chomping at the bit to begin.  Part of my job this week was to tell them to be patient.

The only thing that did not go well was a momentary panic attack when I went to my car and found my briefcase with computer missing after a lunch meeting with our volunteer Alyssa.  I nearly fainted and weakly called Matt to tell him send Felix.  When Matt answered he also asked if I wanted my briefcase and computer which I had left at his house.  I was relieved but surprised at how close to the edge I am after all of the aforementioned thefts.

In field with Antoine and
Alyssa our SALTer
On the way back to Bujumbura on Thursday, Felix and I swung by Burasira (an hour and a half off the main road) to pick up Teri-Lynn, our SALTer working at the Hope School.  There was flooding in her area and she had no water or electricity and wanted a few days R and R in Bujumbura.

I took the opportunity to get some video of her teaching that I will try to post on the Hope School Facebook page soon.  The library is well underway and is just missing part of the tile roof.  I was told that this would not be finished until rainy season was over as the tiles are being made out of clay on-site and right now it is too rainy to let them dry properly.

We arrived in Bujumbura Thursday evening.  It was great to be home with Rebecca and the kids.  Friday morning it was great to swim.  I went to work in the morning but spent the time preparing a sermon which I was asked to preach on Sunday.  Fortunately on the drive home I had had a clear well-ordered inspiration of what I would say. 

Friday afternoon was ballet which had not happened the past 2 weeks because of school holidays.  It was fun to be back and the kids were all there.  We are getting close to a little recital we will do in the first week of June.  They seem to be excited about this.

Library construction.
Teri-Lynn came to the older girls and the adult class.  It is always nice to have a dancer come to class and I think it did inspire the girls and even the adults as I was able to use her in a few cases to give an idea of what the aesthetic is supposed to look like on a trained body.  (There are not a lot of trained classical dancers here.)

Friday evening our family went to Ubuntu and had pizza with Rosel and Isaac Froese some friends of ours who had been here several years ago, as well as Tim and Jeanette.  The kids love to go there at any time.  Probably our favorite restaurant in Bujumbura, still.

Saturday was yoga and a meeting at church which directly followed.  Oren was invited to a knight birthday party of a German friend from school in the afternoon.  He got to make a shield mounted on wood, as well as roast bread on a stick.  Rebecca and I went as well as we are friends of the parents who work with GIZ, the German development agency.

Sunday was church and I felt the sermon went very well.  I was preaching on stewardship and made the point that stewardship is not ownership and requires that we:

  1. Know the will of the owner
  2. Be willing to submit to his will
  3. Do his will in the right way
I actually used the passage of the bad tenants in Matthew 21 to make my point.  I won’t recount it all here, but the last part, doing the right thing in the right way has particular relevance here where I experience, especially among Christians, a tendency to use any means to justify moral ends.

This happens often with situations involving money which is given for one purpose and used for a different one, which may seem ‘higher’ or more urgent than what the giver intended.  Accomplishing good ends in the wrong way is just as bad as doing the wrong thing.

I gave the Biblical example of Saul lighting a sacrificial offering when it was clearly not his job.  Ultimately Samuel complained that “ To obey is better than sacrifice.” 

I talked about the freedom one can find in voluntary submission, rather than coerced obedience by describing my own experience in learning classical ballet where submission to a ballet master led to an experience of physical and artistic freedom I never could have accomplished on my own.

Forced submission makes one a slave, and is a gospel preached by slave masters, but voluntary submission leads to a freedom we could never obtain in our own power.


I will leave it at that.  It seemed to be well received and after church we went to Club du Lac for lunch.  On the way home we tried to drop Teri-Lynn back on a bus to go upcountry but there were no more seats so she came back home with us.  She participated in our small group which was a bit of an odd gathering with only a few regulars.  Nonetheless it was nice to meet together after a two week hiatus.  The discussion was lively as well.

On Sunday our service worker in Gitega, Melody, also came down and stayed with us as she and I were going to have a meeting with partners on Monday morning.  It was an advisory committee meeting on the Peacebuilding Institute that is run by the partner she is seconded to.  It seemed to go well and among other things, she unveiled the website she had created for it.  (Great Lakes Peacebuilding Institute.)

The meeting lasted most of the day and Rebecca and I even had dinner with one of our Rwanda partners who had come down for it. 

I did start the blog afterwards but fell asleep before I could finish it.  The sermon on Sunday had lifted my spirits considerably and I felt the rhythm of disappointment and joy is not so out of balance that I want to run away or curl up in a shell for too long.

Today is Tuesday and started with a very refreshing swim after missing most of last week.  The morning was routine for a change and at lunch I actually met an expat. who was selling a camera and had advertised it on a Bujumbura professionals site.  I bought it from her so I once again can make photos.  (Sorry for the dirth this week.)

In the afternoon I went back to work and to pay some bills but got caught in a terrible rainstorm on the way home.  I am always wary of accidents on days like this and was driving cautiously when the young woman darted out from between 2 stopped cars on the other side of the road and without so much as glancing, ran right into my path.  I slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, hitting her as the car came to a full halt.

This is like a worst nighmare here and there are many horror stories of drivers being dragged out of cars and beaten to death after hitting a pedestrian.  I always dreaded the thought of what I would do in such a situation.  Would I get out?  Drive off and look for a police officer? 

Surprisingly, I seem to have an auto-pilot that kicks in in such emergencies, maybe it is from EMT training.  I immediately stopped and jumped out without thinking about what would happen to me.  The woman was conscious and seemed shocked, lying on the ground but not obviously injured seriously as she was moving around.  I went to help her up and get her into the car to take her to the hospital.

I had almost succeeded when 3 other guys ran up to help as well.  One was yelling ‘sister’, ‘sister’!  They got into the car with us after helping her in and I sped off to the nearest hospital.  (Bumerec for any Burundi expat readers.)

We helped her in and we were taken immediately to a room and she was seen by a doctor who ordered  some X-rays.  Her brother talked to me outside in the lobby while we waited.  He said that they were coming back from church and she had crossed after them.  He said she was his big sister.  He said they were all University students.

After a while we got the x-ray results.  I paid for all care which came to under $15 for an ER visit, Xray and some painkillers.  The doctor said there were no serious injuries and she would be fine. 

We were all relieved and I offered to file a police report, but they were all against it.  When we went out to the parking lot the young woman’s mother arrived and the girl went into the car in which her mother came.  The brother talked to me a bit privately and I knew he would want a bit of money for helping.  He also asked for some money to replace her shoe which had been destroyed.  I was happy to oblige and gave him another $30 in francs.  He walked away with his friends and I went to say good-bye to the girl and her mother.  I told them that I had given her brother something for her to replace her shoes.  Her mother and her looked at each other perplexed and she said:  “That guy was not my brother, those 3 guys that jumped in the  car with us were total strangers to me.”

I did give the young woman my business card, but she seemed to be OK.  I left feeling the way I seem to feel a lot here---Ambivalent.---Relieved that I had been spared something worse; I cannot imagine having to live with the guilt of killing someone by hitting them in a car.  But on the other hand, I was a victim as well.  At a time of feeling very vulnerable and trying my best to do the right thing, someone had come along and extracted, once again, a bit of blood from my carotid artery.

I talked to my colleague Felix about it afterward.  He said that it was extremely common in a bad accident that there will be among first responders a fair number of thieves who take advantage of the opportunity to help victims to be able to steal their things.

I think I will be ready for a little cultural recess by summer.  Hopefully things will be less hairy between now and then.

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