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.