Kita the chimp, one of the featured attractions at Musee Vivante.
A hodgepodge of highlights to share from the past two weeks:
Rebecca contributed last week on her participation in a prayer retreat at Buta a week ago Friday. I was home with the kids those days, but now I find myself alone again, back in Kigali where I am working on various things, but primarily the very slow and challenging task of registering an International NGO in Rwanda. I won't go into detail here as it is really not interesting to talk about.
As a short aside, I may not have mentioned often enough that my interest in cross-cultural work is probably rooted in my own experience as a cross cultural kid. My father is a doctor in the public health/infectious disease sector, who like his father before him, spent many years working overseas when I was young. I grew up in South Asia, and spent many years of my youth feeling a bit out of place in my own culture.
I bring this up because my father is celebrating his 80th Birthday this week. And, I skyped him last week while he was on a trip to AFGHANISTAN to help ministry of health officials understand how to define health care priorities for their country. For anyone who feels like they can never live up to their parent's standards, you can imagine how I feel. Will I have the heart to continue to do this work into my 80s in places like Afghanistan? I guess time will tell. Anyway, I want to say Happy 80th Birthday Dr. W.H. Mosley/ Dad, I am very proud of you and the example you have given to me of what it means to live out your faith as a Christian, and a Scientist.
Most of the highlights this week were on the weekends. We went fishing about a week ago, Saturday, and found that our fishing peer was surrounded by hippos. We moved down about 20 meters away from them, as they were hanging out in a marina called Cercle Nautique, minding their own business, and we fished for quite a while. We did not catch anything but did lose about a dozen worms as the fish would easily nibble them off the hook. Finally a local fisherman came up to me and told me the secret to success was to use a very tiny #12 hook which was small enough to snag them. Sure enough, when I tried one I was able to catch one of the small fish that were eating our worms. The locals love to eat them, but it seemed really small to me and I threw it back.
Jeanette brought her daughter Isabel to the place as well and Isabel and David played near the water while Oren and I walked around for a better look at some of the hippos who had moved a bit further away by then. They were quite frisky and active in the water and I got some good pictures of them. Here is one with his jaw fully unhinged. It certainly does remind me of how terrifying these animals can be and why they are the #1 killers of humans in the animal kingdom.
 |
| Hope school boys playing after school. |
The kids did well in school during the week and I only had one trip out of town last week to visit the Hope School. The occasion was to attend the official opening of the library up there. I have posted some pictures in the past, but the building is done, the books are in, and Dr. Robin Wilde, the head of the Foundation for Hope in Africa was able to be there for several hours for an official opening ceremony.
I did feel a bit like a proud parent because The Foundation who supported the construction of the library was a connection I had made through this blog. I cautiously recommended work with our partner and this is the third building project they have done at the school. So often construction projects go way over budget and are never realized. This was just the opposite. The partner was able to do so much more with the project funds than expected. The building looks fabulous and includes a library, a small room for a science lab, another small classroom potentially for computer training, and a small office. The building made a very good impression on Pastor Wilde and two colleagues from a neighboring church who came to evaluate the project. I think that there will be future support for work at the school, and I remain very dedicated to the work that our partner is doing there.
I also taught a lot of ballet the past 2 weeks. I share the course with another teacher, she teaches Wednesdays and I teach Fridays. Last week I taught both classes because of several Fridays I will have to miss this month. I am actually quite pleased by the large groups in the first and second levels. The kids seem really excited to be doing dance, and were quite well behaved despite the fact that I had close to 20 in the younger kids class. A lot of new faces in both groups, I do not know if I will continue to teach ballet once I leave Burundi, so I am really going to try to make this last year something special.
Friday's are actually a really fun day to teach because there is are a lot of other activities going on at the school outside the studio. Oren plays soccer, David hangs out with Isabel while Jeanette, Rebecca, and many other mom's chat and hang out as well. It is kind of like a big social hour for everyone.
This past Friday after ballet I had some special bonding time with Oren at a french movie that was being shown at the school. We did this last year once as well, so for Oren it is ritual. The movie was called EPIC and was dubbed into French. It was pretty good and I downloaded it later on iTunes so we could see it in English, its original language.
Oren loved the idea of going to a movie that was not on a TV or a computer screen. It was projected on a yellow wall and the sounds system stunk, and the power went out 3 times, and it started late, but, truth be told, it was a really fun evening with Oren. Rebecca and David went out to a movie at a friend's house as well that evening. Sometimes it is good to do things separately with the kids because when they are together Sibling Rivalry is the only game in town.
One thing the kids do do together during the week is take tennis lessons on Monday and Wednesday after school. Oren has shown far more aptitude at this than karate! David likes it too. Burundi actually has an excellent women's tennis team and coaches here are very competent, good teachers. Keeping the kids active during the after school hours is important and since they spend most of the day behind the walls of our house, organized sports seems to be the best outlet here. Rebecca can also enjoy some time with other mom's when they are at practice. The Guillebaud's (long time missionaries from UK) bring their kids as well, so Rebecca and Lizzie are often there together.
Saturday was also a highlight with another what has now become a monthly visit to the zoo (Musee Vivante). Oren brought his buddy Sam Miller with him and they spent over 2 hours looking at the animals. The zoo does not have much, but what it does have are extremely carnivorous. Crocodiles, a leopard, many deadly (local snakes) --boomschlangs, mambas, cobras, gaboon vipers. David did hold a green banana tree snake, the only non-venomous one of the lot. The kids did get a guinea pig to feed to a crocodile, but the carnage was even worst as we apparently arrived at feeding time and all the snake cages had 4 or 5 small birds in them. We saw a half dozen get swallowed whole in a matter of 10 minutes. Oren, David and Sam seemed to enjoy that and tried to talk me into getting another guinea pig to feed the leopard. I am really not into this "Circle of Life" stuff as much as them and declined.
 |
| David scheming to outsmart Kita and grab the bottle. |
The most amusing part for me was watching them play around the cage of Kita the chimp. We had brought her some mangoes that she really liked and some peanuts as well that she really likes you to put directly into her mouth. She loves little kids and plays a kind of keep-away game with them. She dangles a bottle just outside the cage and waits for someone to grab it, then flips it a foot or so to the right or left, or pulls it back in the cage. She had Oren, David, and Sam trying to grab it for about half an hour. I said at one point to Oren "You'll never get it, she is a chimpanzee, she is at least twice as smart as you." Oren took up the challenge and tried twice as hard for another 10 minutes, to no avail. (I was kidding him when I said it, but in the end I realize I might have been right.)
I do have to say, that she is such a clever chimp, it is a bit scary that she is in a cage. She seems almost like a person in her personality. I am sad for her, and I don't think animals belong in cages, but it is fascinating to see our kids interacting with her in a way they never could in a setting where laws and regulations don't allow such casual human--animal interaction. I will miss our little zoo when we leave.
I should not neglect to mention the past two Sundays. The first one was special because the Ethiopian family in our small group invited our group over to their house for a traditional Ethiopian meal. If you have never had Ethiopian food you do not know what you are missing. It is so good, and they made it even better than I have had at any restaurant, complete with coffee ceremony at the end where they roasted and ground their own beans. I tried the coffee in the very traditional way which is like an espresso with a bit of melted butter and salt in it. Very unusual but not bad after a rich meal.
 |
| our 'not so' small group about to enjoy an Ethiopian feast. |
This past Sunday was unusual as well because Rebecca and I were asked to share a sermon to give some testimonial about our work with MCC. Our church has been doing a series of sermons based on a study of the letter of James. Following from his admonition that "Faith without works is dead." there have been different people sharing about their work and how it is oriented by their faith. The week before we had a member of the church sharing his experience of being a refugee and then starting an organization that assists refugees.
Rebecca and I shared about our work at MCC. I began with a reflection on what it is like to be an administrator and evaluate the impact of our work. I used the passage John 9:1-25, the healing of a man born blind from birth, because it is one of the only instances of a good follow-up after a miraculous healing. I pointed out that there seems to be no one who is happy about the event from the confused disciples, the skeptical neighbors, the enraged pharisees, and the embarrassed parents. He is ultimately excommunicated from his church and community-- yet seeks Jesus out in gratitude for his transformation. I talked about the ways in which we meet a surprising amount of opposition and obstacles in development work by those who are actually beneficiaries of the status-quo as it is. Fighting poverty always becomes, eventually, a justice issue.
I ended by pointing out that we can infer at least one anonymous group present that is supporting Jesus' healing work, and those are the people who must have led and accompanied the man to the pool of Siloam to wash his eyes, since Jesus did not go with him there. These people, who I described as having a 'pool ministry'- a ministry of quietly assisting and accompanying those in the process of transformation are always present, but rarely known by name.
I described MCC's role in our country as an organization with such a 'pool ministry'. We don't lead, but we follow and support local partners in the work they are doing.
Rebecca followed with several testimonials, most notably her personal work at bringing together church leaders in Protestant and Catholic churches to sit together and talk about issues of transitional justice and the formation of the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission--issues where there would be no doctrinal division. (She joked that it is far easier to get tutsis and hutus to sit together in Burundi than Catholics and Protestants.) "Our work" she said, "is not to lead, or make policy. I am just bringing all the different leaders to the pool (the meeting room) where they can wash their eyes and be able to see, exchange ideas. and heal the country."
The sermon was well received, although asking both Rebecca and I to speak meant that the service went quite long. (We are both pretty long winded).
I am leaving Rwanda today and heading back to Bujumbura via Gitega where I will check in with the Great Lakes Peacebuilding Institute, a one month workshop we support. Michael Sharp, an MCCer from Bukavu in DRC is teaching this week, and Melody our service worker is there as well as the logistical coordinator. Patrick, the new guy in Bukavu is attending also. I will spend the night there tonight then back to Buja on Thursday. I will be glad to be back home again.
No comments:
Post a Comment