A Narnian 8th Birthday and a Visit to Gihosha

Feeding the Grey Parrots at Club du Lac Tanganyika with Paul and Gwendolyn's family.

As I look at the hour I realize the urgency of getting at least something down for this week as we start a new adventure at 7 am tomorrow morning.  Yes, the first of two vacations begins in the morning when our family and the family of Rebecca’s brother Paul jet off together to Kenya for a week of safari and beach.

If you read the last entry you will know that I ended with their arrival, so for the last 8 days or so we have been hosting them here.  Despite the fact that life is a bit hectic at the end of the academic year--especially this year with so many of our friends leaving, we are actually really delighted to have them with us. 

Miriam joining Oren's soccer team for a game.

Although their kids are each slightly older than their counterparts, they play together very well, and have enjoyed participating in the activities that our kids have been doing.

Paul and Gwendolyn last Wednesday in the afternoon.  This is a trip that has been in the planning since we got here, practically.  It was decided that they would come close to our final year when their kids were old enough to enjoy it, and it seems hard to believe we have reached that time. 

We began last week by taking them sight seeing around Bujumbua a bit.  We started with some lake front restaurant like Cercle Nautique and Bora Bora.  They enjoyed tasting some of the local fare, especially the bottles of pop we get here—coke, Fanta (orange and lemon), with the taste of real cane sugar!!

The kids liked the pool and the beaches, but enjoyed our house as well where they have been incessantly jumping on the trampoline. 

Friday, Rebecca took everyone to the zoo.  I thought the cousins would be a bit squeamish but was surprised to hear that they had bought not one but two guinea pigs--one to feed to the leopard and the other a crocodile.  It is really amazing to an American that this is a petting zoo since you are welcome to pet absolutely anything.  The chimpanzee (Kita) enjoyed being fed peeled peanuts right into her mouth.  A French herpetologist was visiting and took out the Gaboon viper and let everyone touch it.  All in all it was quite an experience for the Americans, but they seemed to be into it.

The weekend was busy with social events including our last yoga class for the year.  (I actually videoed it and was going to offer it as a free work-out class to anyone interested.)   It was a bit sad because we are saying good-bye to a very good couple from the UN who we will miss very much.  They have hosted us regularly at their house which has a beautifully picturesque porch and garden.

Teri_Lynn as well as our other Salter Janelle were both there.  (Teri-Lynn from upcountry) as well as Jennifer Price and Melody.  That was 4 MCCers besides Rebecca and I.

Melody was down from upcountry because her sister was arriving in town, and Teri-Lynn had just finished teaching classes for the year.  All the guests has meant our house is quite full and Jennifer had to absorb the surplus at her place where Janelle has been living since her visa refusal in Rwanda.

yoga crew

After yoga, Rebecca and I went with our family to our Danish friends the Spanner’s house for another brunch.  This was a final good-bye party for them.  We brought the kids and Paul and Gwendolyn along as well.

The food was exquisite at their party with many European offerings.  It was a big gathering with many friends.  It was probably a bit awkward for Rebecca’s brother’s family but they were gracious and the kids seemed to be able to join in games pretty well with the other children.

In the late afternoon-evening we went to the beach and then to Ubuntu restaurant for dinner.  It was a very full day.

Naja's brunch

Sunday we went to church where the sermon was quite prophetic, in challenging the church not to follow, but lead on issues of justice in the country.  The pastor has some poignant examples of where the church has failed to do so, and it was hard medicine to swallow as a listener.  I did feel challenged to do better in as much as I can.

We spent the entire afternoon at home preparing for Oren’s Birthday Party, which was to take place on Monday.  Preparations were done by all and involved getting costumes made (It was a Narnia themed party), building a piniata, making a cake, plan games, writing out a treasure hunt, etc.

In the evening we had our last small group for the summer.  It was great to have everyone here who is still around.  We had a very good discussion about the message and a meaningful prayer time as many of us will not see each other for several months.  Others are still uncertain about what the future holds for the next half of the year.

Monday, the kids started their last week of school.  While they were there, we continued to get ready for the party planned for that afternoon.  There was also a fair amount of office work that needed to be done as our vacation has been rapidly approaching. 

We picked up the kids after school and by 3pm Oren’s friends started to arrive for his 8^th Birthday party.  (This is actually about a week early because we will not be here on the actual day.) 

The preparations paid off!  We started off with a costume parade and I was impressed by what the kids wore.  David and Oren who had had the most time for preparation were probably the most elaborately dressed with David as Tumnus the Faun, (complete with little leather pants and a goat hair goatee!)

Oren was a minotaur and he finally got to wear his helmet and wield his sword and battle axe.  He also had a goat skin covering on his chest and back to make him look more bovine. 

He really enjoyed leading the parade.  There were several Princess Lucies and Susans and little Grace Guillbaud was a fetching White Witch.  There were also an Edmond and Peter, two Aslands  (Isabel Van Aarde was one of them.).  We were missing Reepicheep (We needed you Samuel Miller!) 

After the parade we played 2 rounds of musical thrones to find the true High Kings and Queens of Narnia.  There were so many kids (22), we did an older and younger group. 

After that we played a kind of bowling game where the kids had to knock down enemy Telmarine soldiers.  It was a good math game as they had to multiply their scores after 2 turns.

The treasure hunt was next and there were two paths for two teams, one francophone one Anglophone to find the missing Birthday presents and party favors which had been captured by a Telmarine raiding party.  Both groups really got into following the clues.

When they were found Oren opened the presents and was thrilled to find several lego sets and even a small microscope.  This was followed by Bithday cake.  Rebecca had cleverly designed a cake in the shape of a hill with Asland on top standing beside the broken stone tablet.  (made of white chocolate.)  Here is a picture of what it looked like. 

We all enjoyed cake and other snacks.  It was great to see all the kids again, especially because some will not be here next year with us. 

The party ended with a piniata.  I also made this in the shape of the stone tablet and put a seam in it to split down the middle when hit from the top.  It did prove to be quite tough though and every kid got a shot at smashing it before it finally broke open.

We felt good about the party when it was over and Oren really seemed happy with it.  He really has a lot of friends, mzungus and Burundians, boys and girls.  We actually could not possibly have invited them all.

piniata

As we looked over the wrecked house shortly afterwards, we did have the feeling that we had had one social event too many, but this is one you cannot pass by.  Birthday parties mean so much to Oren and he loves the preparation as much as the party itself. 

Fortunately we had a lot of help cleaning up as Teri-Lynn was still here as well as Paul and Gwendolyn.  We had a quiet evening that night after clean up.

Tuesday we planned to head upcountry to take Paul and Gwendolyn on a sight-seeing tour of some tourist attraction as well as some of our work projects.  We were actually nine in the car when we started out since Teri-Lynn hitched a ride up with us to Burasira. 

We stopped outside Gitega at the town Gihosha.  It is the place where drums are made for traditional Burundian drumming.  We had a tour and heard the story about how the King of Burundi had sought refuge there.

After hearing the story, we were treated to a show by one of the finest traditional drum corps in Burundi.  It was an awesome show, about half an hour long.  I got some of the best photos of drummers I have ever had.

We left in the late afternoon and continued on to Burasira where we were staying the night at the Grand Seminaire near the Hope School.

I was stunned to see that they have actually paved the road all the way there (coming from the Ngozi side.)  The changes in infrastructure in the area make it all seem far less remote.

Teri-Lynn showed us here house and joined us for supper at the Seminary where we stayed the night.

We woke up to find it quite cool in the morning.  We had a nice breakfast (homemade bread and guava jam and avocados) then headed up the school.

Classes are currently not in session but we took Paul and Gwendolyn’s family up through the Batwa quarter and to the school where we met Beatrice the coordinator of education.

There were some kids hanging around kicking around a soccer ball made of old plastic bags.  Miriam and Gabriel joined in the game while Rebecca did an interview of a couple of the kids for an MCC report.

It is always amazing, in talking to the kids, just to find out how poor they are.  Really buying something like a bar of soap is often completely out of reach for some of their families.

Teri-Lynn with one of her kindergartners

This year the 10^th grade has one Batwa girl in it, a major feat in itself considering that girls are not encouraged to go beyond 6^th grade.  They had taken their national tests but the results were not in.  I know success is unlikely but I am praying that she might be able to continue with her studies.

We left letters from pen-pals and picked up some others and headed back down to Bujumbura after lunch.  We were one person lighter as Teri-Lynn stayed up in Burasira.  It is quite interesting to see her more at ease after teaching for a year here.  Kids at the school love her, especially the little ones.  She even finished an English language curriculum for every level from M1 through 7^th grade.  Quite a feat for one year.

We arrived back in Bujumbura in the early evening on Wednesday.  Oren and David had their last day of school on Thursday.  They were content to go and say good bye.  Rebecca and I also said some final good byes to friends (The Spanners and Hoffmans) during the day.  We have known both of these families most of the past 5 years.

Now we are completing our monthly financial report and packing into the wee hours.  I will write again in about 9 days, after our Kenya vacation.

Sustaining Hope

Mama Gogol, one of the beneficiary farmers of our food security projects.

Sometimes I am compelled to invite those who follow this blog regularly behind the scenes into the work we do here.  While some readers are all too familiar with the world of development, there are definitely some of you that might have a hard time picturing what we really do with ourselves much of time.  Looking back over the past several months, we certainly seem busy, and also appear to have had a heavy social calendar, but it does not give a really good picture of how we spend our work hours.

For many who knew us when we left our home and jobs in the US 5 years ago to take an assignment with MCC as ‘missionaries’ with a  Christian humanitarian aid organization, I can imagine a certain image of what we would be doing that we probably projected ourselves.  That is, a kind of compassion-driven flinging-of-oneself-off-the-cliff-of-reality into the abyss of abject poverty.  A place peopled with orphans, widows, and vacant-eyed, forgotten, Africans clamoring to be touched by the bright torch of our loving faith.  Our salaries would largely be paid in smiles from those who received our hugs, and who's tears we wiped away, as we meet their small needs for the basics: shoes, soap, small change, and candies pressed into the eagerly outstretched hands of hungry children.  

Probably overstated, but the point is I do not think there is a sense of much of what I would call a left brained rationality to the work we do.  Ultimately it  is a heart thing. 

While I do want to affirm the importance of being resolved in one’s heart about the step to work overseas in this field, I would want to change the image of this work to bring hope as entirely an activity of the heart--hugging, affirming, impulsively giving stuff away, or even Evangelization. 

The first thing one realizes after spending more than a few months in a place, is that, in fact, there are very few ‘forgotten’ people.  The very rich and very poor live here in highly complex social relations, and it is often these very relations that are keeping them in their difficult situations, but taking them out, would often be worse.  One realizes quickly the struggle against poverty is more about justice than compassion.  It is not atypical to go through a phase of anger as one butts up against what I call the obduracy of poverty.   Even those most negatively impacted by it seem completely ensconced by their own rational choices.

 I think it is important to work in such a context long enough to move beyond naïve pity, anger, despair, and into a mindset that prepares one for the long hard slog into the world of ‘development’.  I feel that getting to this place is not an abandonment of faith but rather a deeper affirmation of it.  This is the real road to Calvary.  It is far different than being willing to throw oneself off the cliff and burn-out after a few months.

PMEL.  That is an acronym too familiar to those of us who work in development projects.  It stands for Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning.  It is the backbone of all the work that Rebecca and I do here, be it in providing humanitarian aid, peacebuilding, education, or development. It is definitely more of a head thing than a heart thing!

The idea is that if we want to have an impact we have to think small, not big.  We are no longer here to save the world, we are here to help say: 22 rural savings groups to learn an improved agricultural techniques in order to improve their crop yields by 20% per year over a 3 year period. 

This may sound a bit pedantic, but following-up, understanding the reasons for success and failure, helps us plan better the next time, or be able to replicate good results in a future project.  Changes are not measured in lives transformed but in how many meals per day a family is eating as a result of the work, or how much shorter the ‘hunger-gap’ is between harvest seasons. 

We plan, we implement, then we watch, we record, we adapt, and we plan again.  Little by little we hope to see some measurable progress.  Many of the project ‘seeds we sow’ we will not be around long enough to reap.  Change can happen over a decade, and may not be a steady path upward, but rather truncated over time.

Cassien showing a contour line to Mike.

I am writing this because I spent much of last week on a field visit evaluating the project of one our partners.  The partner is one of our high capacity ones and implements a large food security project based on the input of ‘food for work’.  The premise is that in the communities where they are intervening there are many people who are so poor that they eat a meal or less per day.  To improve their situation, our partner has created a program where they are invited to work---a day of work provides a kilo of rice and a kilo of beans, and is enough to feed a family of 6 for one day.  This is offered every day for the duration of the project (3 years).  The project provides enough food to feed several hundred workers per day from a pool of about 800.

The payment in food provides some short-term food security, but the goal of longer term food security is related to the projects upon which they work.  Most of it is watershed management.  Burundi is built on hills and low soil fertility because of run-off is a huge problem leading to very low yields.  The food-for-work crews planted trees on high lands, built 40 kilometers of contour lines this year to trap water and soil, and slow erosion, and rehabilitated roads leading to markets.

Our group visiting beneficiaries in Mabanda
recent returnees from Tanzania.

The work is impressive, particularly the contour lines.  For those who have not seen them, they are like a terrace only not as extreme.  They are a series of low trenches that follow the contours of the hill.  Above them grasses and trees are planted.  They trap the topsoil that runs off In the rain and it is put back on the field above.  They usually do about 15 lines of 250 meters coming down the hills.

The improvement of watershed management allows for better yields and contributes to longer term food security.  So this project uses a short term food relief input to improve longer term food security.

It is not exactly Jesus feeding the 5000, but it is a more sustainable way to address the problem of people not being able to grow enough to eat on a regular basis.

Mike and Matt puzzling over the cause of very poor
maize yield from a recent harvest.

A group of about 12 of us went out for3 days last week to see several of these Help Channel projects.  The main VIPs were two people from Winnipeg: Mike Salomans who works for the Canadian Food Grains Bank (CFGB), and Vurayayi Pugeni from MCC.  Our Help Channel project is funded through CFGB and MCC Canada to the tune of 1.5 million dollars.  So there is definite interest in checking up on the success of this project.

Along with Mike, Pugeni, and I were Matt Gates, our agronomist from Rwanda, Jennifer Price our service worker with Help Channel, Michael Sharp, from Bukavu, one of our advisors named Pacifique, as well as the heads of Help Channel and some support staff.

Matt and Michael tagged along because they wanted to have an idea of what Help Channel was doing, but also because they have their own CFGB funded projects and wanted a chance for some on- on-one time with the visitors.

a contour line planted with grasses and
agroforestry trees.

The trip was fascinating.  We spent days in the fields, evaluating improvement in the soil, the depth and proper maintenance of contour lines, harvest yields, as well as talking to some of the beneficiaries of the project about their sense of improvement in life.

Overwhelmingly we were impressed by what we saw and received much acclaim from those who have been benefitting from the work.

In the evenings we stayed in different guest houses each night, but generally sat and met late into the evening brainstorming, hammering out new proposals, and playing Carcisonne (which Michael really liked to play.)  We returned via the lake coming up from the Southern tip of Burundi back to Bujumbura on Thursday.  Friday was a full day of meetings before our guests left on Saturday.

If I could sum up a field visit in a single adjective, it would have to be 'gritty'.  Long hours in Land Cruisers on dusty roads, then standing in fields in hot sun, sweating, only to come back to a guest house room with no running or cold water gives a pretty accurate picture of the experience.  (Actually on the first night the place we stayed did have hot running water, but I have never seen that before upcountry.)

Rebecca and Felix waiting
outside the bride's house.

I felt the visit went very well but was quite exhausted after the ordeal.  It was nice to have a somewhat quiet weekend as everyone had left by Saturday, but we were truly Burundian in the number of social events we had planned on Saturday.

Rebecca went as our representative to a dowry party for Felix, our program assistant, in the early afternoon.  She has some pictures of her waiting with the grooms family to enter the bride’s house.   She was not even able to stay the whole time as we also had a good-bye party to attend in the evening for our German friends the Hoffman’s.  It was a nice party and Rebecca and I were asked to provide some folk dances for people to do together as a sign of our communal bonds. 

a skit at the party at Hoffman's

The kids went with us and it was a late night, but we did enjoy ourselves there.
Sunday was mercifully normal but we spent most of the afternoon helping Oren study for his comprehensive finals which were to continue up to Wednesday.

Monday was another travel day for me as I headed up to Kigali again.  I am currently in the process of registering MCC officially with the Rwandese government and I had to do quite a few meetings with govt. officials and hire someone temporarily to help us move the process along. 

I stayed with Matt Gates and we did some work on a CFGB proposal as well.  I took the bus up and without a car, did most of my traveling by taxi-moto.  I did fly back on Wednesday though in order to be home on time for a very special event…

THE ARRIVAL OF REBECCA’S BROTHER’S FAMILY!!!  Yes Paul, Gwendolyn, Miriam, and Gabriel arrived in the afternoon, just ahead of me.  Here is a picture of our families at Cercle Nautique today.  More on them later as we will be vacationing with them in Kenya in the near future.

Same Ol’ Bujumbura 2 Step, and Other Dances

No, not a modern dance, just the little girls climbing the walls waiting for the beginning of their dance recital for their parents.

I want to give a short update about the very blessed weekend we had as we are starting into a new set of events tomorrow.  There were two special end of year activities involving dance that were hosted by Rebecca and I.  The first happened this past Friday and was the final ballet recital for the girls I have been teaching over the past year.

I have heard parenthood changes a man, but I still marvel at the sense of patience I have developed in teaching a weekly ballet class to two groups of children:  One from kids 4-7 and the second from 8-14.  I never considered myself a kids' teacher when I was dancing professionally.  Truth be told I think I saw it as kind of a cop out.  Not true anymore, I have enjoyed watching the slow but steady progress of these kids improve in the form, and on Friday both groups did extremely well when they performed for their parents and friends.

Fortunately the logistics went relatively well, although when I arrived an hour early I did find that the lock on the door to the studio, which has worked perfectly the whole year, was broken the day before and the key was unusable.  I spent 15 mortified minutes trying to track down a custodian who could help me but happily did succeed in finding someone with a key to the second door and was able to get in and set up. 

Everyone was on time and no one was sick.  The little girls did 4 dances along with some barre exercises.  The big girls did about 6 dances including a modified version of the little swan pas de six from Swan Lake.  They were stellar.  I have quite a few good pictures of them but here are a few.

Friday evening our service workers Melody and Teri-Lynn arrived from upcountry.  They were down for the weekend to join us in our Offering of the Arts and Folk Dance Party.   This is the second time Rebecca and I have hosted such an event.  We do try to have 2 to 3 folk dances per year, but this past Christmas we also invited people to bring something else to share—visual art, poetry, songs, music, dance, etc. It was a great success.  This time we invited a huge number of people and anticipated a very large turn out as this is also another opportunity to see some friends who are leaving town for good.

Preparing for this event meant moving everything out of the living room so we could use it for dancing.  We also set up the porch as a kind of performance space with an area for singing or playing music and chairs arranged to allow everyone to see.  There was also a potluck planned afterwards so we arranged the dining room as a kind of buffet area.  It is quite a transformation of the house, but we are getting pretty good at it.

Guests began arriving at 4 and we were a very large group by 5.  We began with some musical offerings by children before giving the adults a chance.  Simon Guillebaud contributed an excellent storytelling done almost entirely in Spoonerisms.  Fortunately most of the audience was Anglophones because it was hilarious but probably incomprehensible to a non-English speaker. 

The height of the musical offerings was an early music quartet that Rebecca has been singing with a when they can schedule a meeting together.  It is comprised of a tenor and soprano from the UN, Rebecca is the alto and the bass is one of teachers at the Ecole Belge.  They sung 3 very beautiful works acapella.  It was a real treat to hear Rebecca singing early music again for me.
Jodi Mikalachki was in attendance as well and she did two spirited Kirundi wedding songs. 

After the singing we moved into the ‘ballroom’ where Teri-Lynn Jordan, our SALTer performed a dance that I had set on her.  It was a solo to the music “Gracias a la Vida”.  I collaged some text from her blog read by her to give an impression of her time in Burundi working in a rural school--the joys and challenges.  Although we only had 2 rehearsals, she danced it fabulously and it was very much appreciated by those in attendance.  I will try to post a copy of it on this blog later.

There were several visual art contributions, Oren’s minotaur head and battleax, some Lego dioramas, and a wall hanging by Melody, one of our service workers.

After the dance by Teri-Lynn we began the folk dancing.  I added several more line dances this time as they seem to be very appreciated by the kids.  We did the ever popular Cotton Eyed Joe, but also added some soul with the Same Ol’ 2 Step and the Zydeco Slide.  We ended with a very lively square dance that went surprisingly well as it was a somewhat complicated figure.

By that time people were hungry so we moved on to dinner.  There was plenty of food and we enjoyed talking together into the evening.  The party ended fairly early as we had started in the afternoon and by 8pm everyone had left.  Clean up took about an hour with the help of Jodi, who hung around a bit, as well asTeri-Lynn, and Melody. 

Jodi helping with clean-up afterwards.

It was nice to sit around afterwards and reflect on the pleasure one receives from putting a lot creative effort into something and seeing it realized.  I know from my experience as a performing artist, that if one does not create an opportunity for performance, creative projects rarely come to fruition.  It was so worth it to put time and energy into singing, choreographing, designing, rehearsing, to be able to bring it all together and enjoy the results.

It is also such a pleasure to bring our community together to interact in interesting ways.  We are a diverse group of ex-pats here, serving in so many different ways.  It is very special to come together and interact in creative and supportive ways outside of our specific callings here.

As if that was not enough, Sunday was also a very special day.  It began at church where Emmanuel Ndikumana, the founder of our church and a prophetic voice in Burundi gave a profoundly challenging message about how we can be the church here--meaningfully engaged politically, but embracing our members, tutsi, and hutu, who may find themselves on opposite sides of many issues in this context.  This especially includes some of the recent transitional justice attempts which may reopen old wounds.

Recently a land redistribution commission,  CNTB which claims to be working to return lands stolen during the 1972 massacre of Hutus has made some very controversial decisions and there has been some rioting as a result in Bujumbura.  The two sides of the issue tend to divide along ethic lines.

Emmanuel used 1 Kings 18: 1-16 brilliantly to make his point.  In the passage we see two prophets, Elijah who has been in exile living in poverty--a man wanted by the state, meeting Obadiah who has been  a trusted steward in the government of the murderous King Ahab.  Both are described as having taken huge risks to serve God in their own domains.  But from outward appearances they would seem to be completely at odds with each other.  Perhaps one might accuse Obadiah of being a lackey, but that is clearly not the case as he used his position to secretly protect many prophets who were being massacred.

Emmanuel noted that in his opinion, God does put Christians on both sides of an issue because His purposes are always greater than ours.  For Emmanuel, the church is the place where Obadiah and Elijah can come and meet together, and be supported in the work they are doing.

It was an enlightened message and well received.  I think it would be an important lesson for many of our politically divided churches in the US.  We ended with communion which was very appropriate.

older girls 'backstage at the ballet'

After church we went out as family to Bora Bora, a beach club we have never gone to, and enjoyed time with the kids, who were feeling a bit neglected.  It was a very nice afternoon.

Oren has had it particularly hard the past week because he is in the midst of revising for his comprehensive year end exams.  I am amazed at seeing this task that he has before him as a second grader.  We in the US are so used to continuous evaluation in our schools that I do not think, as a student, I took a comprehensive test until AP chemistry in 12^th grade.

Here in the Belgian system, nothing he has done up to now--all his dictées, homework assignments, etc. count for anything if he cannot perform well on these tests.  Math seems fine but grammar is a real challenge.  We have had to, at times, force him to sit down and do many pages of revision to prepare.  Hopefully he will be able to do it when it matters.  In the long run, I guess it will in some way prepare him for College.

 Bonus Videos:  

1) Singing group:

 2) Teri-Lynn's dance:

A Farewell to Alyssa and a Spring Fete

D-diddy, the new fresh prince of Bujumbura, bustin a move before performing at the Ecole Belge Spring Fete.

Sometimes it is hard to make time to sit down and write down everything that goes on in the week.  Right now I am listening to the kids doing battle with ‘mommy’ about bed time.  They are in a tough phase of extreme sibling rivalry and most everything is cause for a fight.  Right now they are sobbing over whose bed-time story she reads first.

One thing that does not change in this context is the struggle of how to be a good parent.  There are many things our kids are not as exposed to here, particularly the incredible amount of marketing aimed at them through media.  Television, computers, etc.  But being exposed to poverty does not magically turn them into grateful, thoughtful, polite, beings, or remove any sense of entitlement when it comes to getting one’s share, (particularly compared to one’s brother.)

The fight has subsided now as they succumb to sleep, tomorrow is another day.  Actually I am in a sense grateful to be here to hear them.  I have not had a week at home for a long time, and will be out again for the next 2 weeks doing field visits upcountry.

This tends to be a busy time at work again as summer is that time when folks from the ‘home office’ can take off time to visit us in the field.  We have a big group coming to look at one of our food security projects in Burundi this Monday.

Last week I spent 4 days in Kigali.  You might remember from the last post that our 1 year volunteers, Alyssa and Janelle, were denied visas after being in Rwanda for 10 of their 11 month term.  They had a deadline to be out of the country by this past Thursday, so I went on Monday to help them sort out final details.

Leaving is a huge deal and I knew there would need to be several social events planned to say goodbye at their work places and in their host families.

I did prepare some things in the Rwandese tradition for this departure.  One was to get some huge baskets of fruits and vegetables to give the host families as a gift of appreciation.  I brought them up from Bujumbura.

I left Monday morning and gave Naja Spanner a ride up to Kigali with me as she was catching a flight from there to Denmark.  We got to Kigali in the early evening.  I stayed with Matt Gates and I went out to dinner at Zaffron, my favorite Indian restaurant with Matt and Alyssa.

Alyssa had some exciting news that despite her visa issues, she did manage to find a teaching job in Kigali this fall at an American School which has a much better connection to Immigration.  I think the thought of coming back has helped ameliorate the disappointment of having to leave a month early.  In preparation for coming back she had decided to return to Canada rather than finish her term in Burundi.

I spent Tuesday visiting partners and had a long discussion with the church about why, for the first time ever, they had failed to secure visas for volunteers.

The truth is, they were somewhat perplexed themselves as they never received a fully reasonable answer.  The claim was that the volunteers were not ‘qualified’ for the positions they were given.  This does not make a lot of sense when you consider a native English speaking teacher with a degree, teaching and ESL experience not being qualified to teach English to Rwandese street kids at a trade school.

We do have some suspicion that there may be an issue around nationality.  The two SALTers are Canadian and there is considerable tension between Rwanda and Canada for multiple reasons.  Canada has been critical of the government and there was also an extradition case involving a Rwandese genocider who emigrated to Canada and was not returned.  I don’t know all of the reasons but there is some feeling that the visas might have been rejected for political reasons.

There are other reasons we discussed that I think are too sensitive to publish in a public blog.

The upshot is that we do have some trepidation moving forward as we have another Canadian due to arrive next year and there is concern that we will have difficulty getting her visa as well.  We are taking some steps to try to give her a better chance, particularly starting the process earlier.

The other big Tuesday event was a goodbye party for Alyssa thrown by Mwana Nshuti.  This is the trade school where Alyssa was teaching English.  It was a very nice event where we all sat in a room together and drank a Fanta.  There were speeches by the head of our partner organization, then a representative of the students, the teachers, me, and finally Alyssa.  There is a strict protocol for all of this and I am glad I understand it now.  We took many photos of her with her students. 

I did some shopping later in the day and enjoyed a dinner with Matt at Meze Fresh a Rwandese LA style burrito restaurant.  A great place to eat if you live in Kigali.

I visited the Rwandese Immigration office on Wednesday morning to discuss MCC’s desire to locate its Central West Africa regional office to Kigali.  Ths would effectively move our boss, Mark Sprunger from Abuja, Nigeria to Kigali.  It turns out that we will have to register MCC as an independent NGO in Rwanda.  Until now we have been under the Friends Church.  I am beginning this process now in hopes that Mark and his wife will be able to move her by the end of August.

Matt Gates and I spent much of our time together working on a food security proposal.  It is a grant that will come from the Canadian Food Grains Bank to support a Conservation Agriculture adoption program that will be implemented through our partners savings groups in Rwanda.

It may sound a bit dry but it is an exciting project for us and the reason we brought Matt to Rwanda.  Being together for a few days allowed us to really brainstorm on the proposal and I think it is quite strong.  We are hoping for approval before the end of this month.

I had several other meetings with the Friends Church and some of their missionaries to discuss the possibility of more collaboration between the Burundi and Rwanda Friends church on Wednesday as well.

On Wednesday evening we had a final goodbye dinner with both of our SALTers and their host families.  It was very nice with many of us making speeches which is always de rigeur here.

Alyssa, Teri-Lynn, Janelle at our house on Thursday.
Rebecca made a pumpkin pie.

Thursday morning we headed off to Bujumbura.  The ride was uneventful and I was glad we did not have trouble at the border as their temporary visas expired that day.

We picked up Teri-Lynn in Burasira on the way back to Buja.  When we arrived we also found Yolanda and Melody down here who were staying with Jennifer, so we had a pretty big gathering of service workers for meals on Thursday and Friday.

Friday was a big day in my kids ballet classes as they are preparing for their final showings this coming Friday.  The little girls are quite excited to be showing what they learned this year to their parents.

On Friday evening I rehearsed with Teri-Lynn who I am setting a dance on for an event we are hosting next week.  It is our Second Offering of the Arts and Folk dance this coming Saturday.  We should have some pretty nice offerings, including some early music from a quartet that Rebecca is part of, some dance, as well as other music and visual art works.  I think Oren will be showing off some of his Minotaur sketches.

Saturday was a really big day for the kids.  It was the Ecole Belge Spring Festival day which is a huge event with games, food, and a show for every class in the primary school.  There is a big stage set up and they had a theme this year of a trip around the world, with each class presenting a different country.

One of the challenges of watching this as an American parent is to see how Europeans do not seem to make a big distinction between what is appropriate for adults and kids.  Some of it was pretty sketchy as far as costumes for 6 year olds.

There were some very funny pieces as well, like the second grade representing Korea who did a great version of “Gangnam Style”.  David’s class was the USA and he was dressed as a hip hop dancer.   He really seemed to be into his costume and doing the dance.

Oren’s class was Egypt and he was dressed in a shirt and tie and seemed to be very proud of what he did as well.

We had a good time and are reminded again about how close we are getting to the end of the year.

Sunday was another big day as we put Alyssa on a plane in the evening.  She is returning to Canada.  There was a lot to do during the day as far as getting all paperwork related to MCC done, but we did complete it and bid her farewell.  Although she did leave a bit early, we did feel she did her term well and will look forward to seeing her in Kigali in the future when she takes her new job.

Janelle will stay with Jennifer here in Bujumbura and work at the Discovery School, run by our missionary friends the Johnsons. 

It is good to have a full week at home after all of the events of the past several weeks.  This will be short-lived though, as next week I head upcountry again for a big field visit to food security projects in Burundi.

Bonus Photo:  A lilac breasted roller on the telephone line on the way to Kigali.  Usually you only see these on safari, but there are quite a few who hang out near the Rwanda border.