Family self portrait taken on our trip to Ijenda.
I see the Easter post continuing to hang on my site and I
want to move on. There are definitely
times that I feel more inspired and full of creative enthusiasm to see our
daily experiences here through the prism of narrative. Maybe the fact that we have had a relatively
quiet time post Easter had not given me much to write about.
It is true that this season is normally associated on our
work calendar with some travel to some country in our MCC region (Central West
Africa). In the past this has included
Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and the Congo (DRC).
But since we had a sub-regional meeting a couple weeks ago, these
meetings have been moved to the fall.
Not having to travel is a welcome change, quite frankly and
with the kids off from school for two weeks, we have decided to spend some time
at home doing some projects like painting the porch. Rebecca and I have switched off going to work
in the mornings while the other has watched the kids, but on Thurday we took a
couple of comp. days to spend some time in the cooler climate upcountry in the
town of Ijenda. This is a place we have
been on several occasions and I have dubbed it the Switzerland of Africa with
its rolling pastures and cool weather.
It is a great place to get away because of the spectacular views and the
possibility of hiking into the hills without attracting a large crowd of
on-lookers who follow you around.
We went up on Thursday afternoon and arrived just before
dinner. There is a nice little guest
house up there called Ciella lodge with a restaurant. One nice thing about it is the large circular
fireplace in the restaurant. It is
always amazing to me how inviting a warm fire is in this hill climate. The rainy season can add a clamminess to the
feeling of cold, but it also clears the dust out of the air and makes for
spectacular panoramic views from the high hill where the Ciela lodge is
located.
The first evening, after checking in, we found that there
would be one issue, which was the lack of food on the menu. In fact I found it a bit amusing that the
server even brought me the large multi-page menu and let me go through a series
of orders: Do you have the potage?
No. Do you have grilled chicken? No, no
chicken at all. How about fish? No, no fish.
What do you have then? Beef
brochettes. Can we get French fries with
that? No, we only have banana
fries.
“OK, then we will have that.” And we did.
As I said, the atmosphere and the chance to play some games with the
kids like Carcisonne by the warm fire made it worth it.
The next day we went for a hike. It ended up being about 4 hours and we packed
a small lunch along the way. I was
impressed that both of the boys did well in walking and no one asked to be
carried. In fact, it was really amazing
to see how much they loved to be up there.
They had been there before, but now they have a real memory of the place
and a longing to go back and repeat things they have done there. Hiking included many stops along the way to
try to scale the ‘cliff’ between the edge of the road and the place it is
carved out of the side of the hill.
There are also several embankments for them to climb down and some
hilltop views that they like.
We arrived at our lunch destination after about 2 hours of
hiking. I was quite stunned to see that
it was such a clear day that I could actually see all the way back to Lake
Tanganyika and the mountains of Congo on the other side. It would have been about 40 miles away. After about a half hour of lunch, we headed
back. We were lucky it did not rain
until we actually got back to the hotel.
That evening the food problem was a bit worse. I call the problem the mzungu dilemma. This happens when a local staff person feels very
disempowered (probably because of a bad experience before) and finds himself
trying to promise something he thinks mzungu clients want, while knowing that it is
impossible. We try to avoid this by
being clear about what is available and really trying to help the person feel that they can be open and honest with us, but it rarely works.
In this case, we ordered dinner early, at 4:30, to be ready
at 6:30. We asked what they had and they
said still only brochettes and fries, but that the ‘patron’ was coming with
more stuff. We ordered the brochettes
and fries but said if the patron arrived with some vegetables we would like
some spinach too. (That was our fatal
error.)
When we arrived in the restaurant at 6:30, nothing seemed to be ready, not
even the fire. We waited a full hour and
then someone started making the fire. We
also heard the car of the patron pulling up.
By 8:30pm, after playing many games with the kids at the table, Rebecca
went back to the kitchen to see what was happening. When she went back the staff immediately
rushed out with our brochettes and fries (no veggies).
We were baffled at first that this all took 4 hours (2 hours
late) for something that they had already made.
My theory is that we created a mzungu dilemma for the server when he was
unable to decide whether a timely arrival of dinner or vegetables were more
important. He ultimately decided we
would want the vegetables, so he waited for the patron to arrive from Bujumbura, after which they
began preparing veggies. Rebecca’s
appearance in the kitchen made him realize he had misjudged and they ran out
with the food.
It was a disappointing meal to say the least as the food was
cold and late, and still did not include everything we wanted. What made it sadder though is that recurring
problem we have of getting people to just tell us what, among less than
favorable options we have to choose from.
Instead, I know that they were hustling and stressing out to arrive at
this unsatisfactory outcome. On the side of lessons learned, I would say that as development workers we probably do the same thing when we do not involve beneficiaries in the planning, execution and evaluation of a project we are 'doing for them'.
Despite this meal, though, the hotel itself, the garden
surrounding it, and the place really made it worth staying. The kids really added to the pleasure of
being there by their sheer delight at being able to play in the garden. Admitedly, their computer game infatuation
is getting a bit intense in Bujumbura.
Without the computer though they spent many hours out doors playing
make-believe. Their favorite game was
building a nest on top of a stack of rocks where they pretended to be various
things from T-rexs to eagles to Minotaurs.
(Oren’s current infatuation is Minotaurs—from The Chronicles on
Narnia.) He can often be heard snorting
around the house and swinging his head around like it has horns.
Other activities included board and card games, especially
Carcisone, and water coloring which they love to do. Generally they also got along better with
each other than they do in Bujumbura.
We left on Saturday morning and headed back to Bujumbura
under great protest from the children who wanted to stay another day. (Rebecca and I considered it but dreaded the
thought of ordering another meal there.)
We did some cursory exploration of other venues up there but concluded
that Ciella Lodge is far and away the best place to be when one goes up to
visit.
We continued to work on painting the porch as a family on
Saturday afternoon then Rebecca took the kids to the ‘zoo’ in the afternoon so
I could work a little more quickly on the painting. We fell asleep watching Prince Caspian early
in the evening.
Sunday was a nice day, Simon Guillebaud was preaching the
last in a series on the Holy Spirit and challenged us with the question of
whether we really come ready to ‘encounter God’ at church on Sunday morning. It was followed by communion.
I don’t know how ready I was to encounter God but it was the
first Sunday in I don’t know how many months that Rebecca and I were able to
stay in the service while both kids went down to Sunday school to their respective
classes. It was wonderfully refreshing
to be able to be an adult in church once in a while.
Sunday afternoon was a continuation of the painting but we
were looking forward to dinner which we shared with our Danish friends Thomas
and Naja. Oren and David love to go over
to their house to play with Elias and Aviaja as well as their dogs and many toy
safari animals.
The adults talked quite a while after dinner while the kids
watched a movie (Prince Caspian). We
returned home late, but since Monday was still part of the kids’ Spring break.
Monday I went to work in the morning while Oren spent much
of the day working on a homemade chess set based on the Chronicles of Narnia
characters. The king was Asland, a
minotaur was the Queen, Giants were bishops, centaurs were knights and griffins
were the rooks. The pawns were
dwarves. He even made and colored his
own chess board. He does enjoy playing chess has is good enough to even beat me on occasion.
Tuesday it was nice to go swimming again and we tag teamed
work. I did take Oren to karate. He is getting close to his yellow belt and I
did not want him to miss too much during the break.
Teri-Lynn, our SALTer also came back from a week in Rwanda where she visited the other two SALTers.
We will take her back up to the Hope School on Thursday and enjoy
another family time up country at an old haunt that the children love—the Burasira
seminary.
It has been nice to have some extra time as a family, but it
will also be good to be back in the routine with school and work. There is always so much to do and so little
time in the office.
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