School Days--Tag-teaming Homework and Extracurriculars

The kids dressed and ready for school, saying goodbye to Bella, our retriever.


Once again, rainy season announced itself very suddenly at 7:02 pm this past Sunday in Bujumbura.  It arrived in the form  of a powerful storm with winds like I have never seen here.  It lasted about an hour and blew everything off of our back porch including a table and some chairs.  Many people in the neighborhood lost tiles off their roofs.  Our friends the Millers told us they watched in shock as their trampoline blew across the lawn and over the wall into the neighbor's yard.  (I am glad our trampoline is set up in the garage.)

The rainy season is always a welcome change, despite its often violent arrival.  The air gets cooler and clearer.  It is also the time when the mangoes on our trees begin to ripen.  I would say we have a medium size crop on the two trees in the front this year.

It has been nice to enjoy our homestead all of this past week.  Since our return from Kigali last Friday, we have been here.  To have a 5 day work week in Bujumbura seems like a luxury.  Since it was the first week of school as well, the sense of normalcy was even more satisfying.

We are fully 'back in the flow' of things here.  It is the mid-year reporting period so we are extremely busy on the computers and will be for the next two weeks.  But are now quite used to the ebb and flow of our job here.

I feel like we are not making this year as hard on ourselves with regard to extra-curricular activities just yet.  We did send Oren to tennis one day last week which he loved. We have decided, with him to let him do that and not to continue karate, which took up most of his afternoons on Tuesday and Thursday last year.  (I have to admit that he did seem uniquely un-gifted at karate despite his commitment to it for 2 years.)  Neither my dance class nor soccer has started up again.  I think when it does we will all be at the Ecole Belge on Friday afternoons.  Hopefully David will be able to play as well.

The Ecole Belge certainly looked different upon the return to school last week, and there was, one night last week, a meeting with the administration to explain the changes.  Tighter security is what is immediately evident.  The walls are now all about 10 feet high with razor wire on top.   The gateway entrances are reinforced and there are concrete barriers behind them.  All the windows of the classrooms now have reinforced metal bars on them.  There is also a public address megaphone mounted in every classroom.

This was apparently all a gift from the US embassy.  It is probably prudent given some vague concerns last year about possible Al Shabaab attacks in Bujumbura.  But it does make the school look quite a bit more like a prison.

Jodi and Jennifer were yoga participants this week.

It is interesting to note the increased number of American kids that are now attending this school.  I remember when Oren was the only American kid in the school in our second and third year.  They are still the smallest minority there, but we have seen the numbers grow steadily, and I wonder what it might look like in 10 years.  The general number of students has also been growing at a rapid rate and the primary school is at least 3 times bigger than it was from our first year here.

Both the kids seem very comfortable and integrated at this point.  Oren has already had friends over for lunch several times in the past 10 days.  He also began the school year (1st week) with a fairly complicated 3 sentence dictation.  ( A big jump from last year's 10 vocal. words.)  I am impressed to see him do it quite well as we practice it.  He writes very neatly in cursive now and is required to do his written work with a cartridge pen.  (These are things I will miss when he is back in the American system next year.)

You all in North America might find it hard to believe that we have to be concerned about 'screen time' here.  But in this information age, our kids can get access to online games even here.  Fortunately we don't have any Wii's or Playstations to contend with.  But at this point they are not allowed to play on the computer or ipod without permission.  (Satellite TV is also available here, but we do not have it.)

The weekend was good.  We did yoga on Saturday morning on our porch and were joined by Jennifer and Jodi Mikalachki (who you might remember worked for us.)  She is still working in the country and it was good to see her again.

In the afternoon we went to Cercle Hippique (better known as the horse place.)  The horses continue to look as decrepid as the aging stables, but riding lessons are still offered and watched some people taking a lesson.  Oren and David both took a short ride on horses themselves, something they love to do.

On the way home we stopped at a newish Indian restaurant in the Asian Quarter called Koh-i-noor.  Oren loved the brightly lit interior, which to him seemed very 'clean and American."  (It seemed more in the Dubai style to me.)  But was quite new looking.  The food was very, very good, and it turns out the chef used to work at Khana Kazana.  It is nice to know there is still as good Indian restaurant in Bujumbura.

We went to church on Sunday and played family games in the afternoon before small group.  Small group remains an important part of our lives and it is good to see most of the same people are continuing to be a part even after we left off over the summer.  Currently our members include JJ and Courtney who are from the US working with World Relief, Tim and Jeanette, our South African missionary friends, Genet and Malcomo from Ethiopia working with Catholic Relief Services, Philip and Ester, from Kenya working with Food for the Hungry, Goretti and her daughters, she is Burundian and teaches at a secondary school, Aloysius, also Burundian but emmigrating to Canada soon.  We continue to appreciate the opportunity to share and pray together in this cross-cultural group.  I am always amazed at how much I am blessed from listening to, and praying with others in this group.

The new week has already begun at it promises to be challenging.  Rebecca is upcountry right now as part of a team of Protestant Church leaders (most denominations represented) to begin to find common ground to work together and to find the church's role in the long awaited 'transitional justice' process.  This remains a great challenge in Burundi as many see the need to address old wounds, long unhealed, to bring closure and justice to those who suffered through atrocities in the long years of civil war.  But to unearth these things, and to try to find a way to bring reconcilliation rather than reinforcing a recurring cycle of vengeance is a profound challenge.

There are some visionary church leaders here who see that the church can play a significant role in making this possible.  Perhaps a role which may surpass the capacity of the State.  For Rebecca, this work is exciting and somewhat intimidating, but MCC has a strategic priority of promoting the establishments of just relationships.

My role in this is in the background.  It would be great to be working side-by-side all the time, but practically speaking, one of us must parent while the other works.  At the end of the week it will be my turn to work, returning to Rwanda and visiting partners upcountry.  For now, I am enjoying the time being with the kids and helping Oren ace his dictée today.  (He did it at home 5 times, I think he is ready.)

Jérôme entre en troisième année.  Il a des crayons de couleurs.  Son papa lui demande de prendre soin de ses affaires.