The Rites of December

1. A sticker activity coloring book
2. A book that shows information about leopards
3. A book that shows information about dinosaurs
4. A space almanac
5. A photo of Teddy (who is at Gramma Jean’s house)
6. A photo of the kind of pine tree that can be a Christmas tree
7. A lego set – of the crocodile boat?
8. A big bag of gumdrops
9. A bag of marshmallows
10. A photo of Grammy’s Christmas tree with the decorations on it
11. A photo of a squirrel
12. A photo of a gingerbread house
13. A photo of my bike that is at Grammy’s house
14. A plastic animal hawk
15. A beautiful bracelet 

Oren began making his Christmas list right after Thanksgiving.  It is interesting that for as far back as I can remember, Oren never believed in Santa Claus, but this has never deterred him from the ritual of writing his annual Christmas list.  Actually this year, I would have to insist that “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” in the form of his Grandma Jean who will be coming out with Papa Dave in a couple weeks from Baltimore to share Christmas with us. 

Actually I find Oren’s Christmas list refreshing in that it seems relatively untainted by things he might have seen on television or at the houses of friends.  We are blessed to be in a plae that is so ‘non-commercial’ during this season, so the kids are not exposed to a lot of things to covet this month.

The down side is, that without a change of season, there is really no way to get into the Christmas spirit without making a real effort by way of home décor to change the atmosphere.  The contrast, between here and home with regard to weather is striking.  While winter storms blanketed the US on Thanksgiving, we were attending a dinner with some other Americans where the main kids’ activity was playing on a slip and slide outdoors. 

Thanksgiving is probably a good place to start the recollections of the past 10 days as so as much has happened since then.  As I had mentioned in the previous entry, we had plans to have two Thanksgiving dinners this year.  The one on Thursday was at our house with and Ethiopian family and some Burundian friends from our small group. 

Although we did not have a turkey, we did get some rotisserie chicken and made stuffing and all the other fixin’s.  Rebecca made her awesome faux cranberry relish out of Japanese plums that are readily available here.  (recipe here)

Our guests really appreciated partaking of an American Thanksgiving, which they had all heard about, but had never been invited to one.  I did my best to recount the origins of the Holiday with some caveats about our historical treatment of Indians.  But I did have a new appreciation, through their eyes, of a national holiday dedicated to giving thanks.  This does not exist in Ethiopia or Burundi.

That was Thursday, but on Saturday we had another feast, this time with some other Americans and various other Anglophone families from the Ecole Belge.  It was at JJ and Courtney’s house (Naja and Thomas’ old house).  The featured dish at this party was an entire lamb roasted on a spit.  I think it was one of the tastiest Thanksgiving meats I have ever had.  Many people contributed the rest of the meal, including an array of pumpkin pies.  There we about 50 people in attendance including kids, and we played a big game of volleyball, and visited well into the evening.  The kids enjoyed running around outside in the dark playing various games of tag and hide and seek.  Seeing the kids running around in the dark reminded me so much of childhood with cousins and friends at family gatherings.  They had a great time together.  I again felt the now familiar pang of seeing the milestone of another ‘last’ come and go.   I will miss the warm-weather makeshift Thanksgivings we have here with friends, local and ex-pat.  Such celebrations have given me a deeper appreciations of these traditions that I have long taken for granted back home.

kid's table

The day after our first Thanksgiving also marked what had become the beginning of our Christmas season at the house.  Creating a change in season is a very intentional act of decorating here, and at this point, Oren is the one who leads the crusade to get it started and completed.  We agreed to put up the Christmas tree on Friday evening after ballet.  We are lucky to have a tree inherited from former service workers that is life size.  We also have collected, over the years, a suitcase full of Christmas paraphernalia.  It is all we can do to keep Oren from getting it out during the rest of the year.

So the big night arrived and Oren and David opened the suitcase while I put lights on the tree.  This is an important ritual for them and the duties were already agreed upon between them.  David would take the ornaments out of the suitcase and hand them to Oren, who in turn would hang them on the tree.  They carried out the solemn ceremony for well over an hour while Rebecca and I hung lights, stockings, set up Advent candles and other Christmas decorations around the room.  By the end of the evening we turned out the lights, and listened to Christmas carols and admiring the tree.  It really transforms the room and gives the feel of Christmas.

We had a nice family day on Sunday which was good because I left for Kigali on Monday after school.  It has been great to have two straight weeks at home, but visits to Rwaanda with our two SALTers and multiple projects is complex now and needs a visit at least once per month. 

Despite being away from family, I do enjoy seeing the work on the projects in Rwanda.  The conservation agriculture project is going well and we are beginning to see results of the improved technique.  There were also elections recently at the Friends Church (who we partner with_ and a new Legal Rep. was named.  Fortunately it is someone we know well, so we will continue to have good relationships with them after the transition.

Matt, Julia and Teresa were doing well and we went out for Ethiopian food on the Monday night I arrived.  I stayed with Matt while I was there, and had many meetings with partners in which service workers were involved.  It was good to see how valuable our SALTers have become in their work with our partners.

Although I spent most of my time in meetings, I had one interesting field visit to a trade school that we support (Mwana Nshuti) where the director had made an agreement with a local mechanic to teach auto mechanics in exchange for use of the partner's property to set up a repair shop.  I met some of the students apprenticing in the program and it seemed to be going very well.  

We continue to slog away at getting MCC registered as an independent NGO in the country and have made limited progress in getting all the necessary authorization.  We are hoping to complete this at the end of the month with some anticipation that Mark Sprunger and his wife Angela, the Area Rep. for Central West Africa will be able to move to Kigali in January.

I spent three days in Kigali and headed back to Burundi on Thursday.  I had a very full day planned as I went through Burasira to close down the MCC there where Jodi Mikalachki and Teri-Lynn Jordan had lived.  From there I was to continue on to Gitega to drop some of the stuff off from that house with our service worker Melody, then on to Bujumbura before it got too late in the evening. 

I got to Burasira about noon without incident crossing the border.  Jennifer Price and Felix met me there with a Prado they brought from Bujumbura so we could have at least 2 4X4s to take stuff back in.  We loaded the cars and stacked stuff on the roof rack, donated some stuff to our partner and paid out severance to the staff who were remaining—2 guards.  (Chartier and Lazarre greet you Teri-Lynn.) 

We had lunch at the Grand Seminaire then headed to Gitega in convoy.  We were praying against the odds that it would not rain (it is rainy season) because of the stuff on the roofs—especially a mattress.  We got to Gitega where we met Melody and Patrick (who was visiting from Bukavu).  They helped us unload stuff and we headed to Bujumbura about 5 pm.  I saw the storm approaching us and knew we were not going to avoid rain, or darkness.

Patrick, Melody, Jennifer in Gitega

I took it easy driving when the rain hit, and did feel a sense of peace and willingness to be patient.  This served me well as I started the descent down the mountain and came to the one small one lane detour (of about 30 ft) to find that a tractor trailer had gotten itself completely stuck there in the mud.  It could not go forward or backwards, which means the entire route was blocked going to Bujumbura, or coming up.

Cars started backing up, and I was the first in line.  It was 7pm then but I could see the problem was not going to be resolved soon.  I called Rebecca to let her know, then sat and waited for about 2 and a half hours.  Eventually some enterprising guys began digging around the truck against the mountain face and cleared out a space big enough for one car to pass every 5 minutes or so.  I got in line and agreed to pay a small ‘service fee’ and did get through.  I had to use my 4 wheel drive which unfortunately got jammed and I descended the rest of the way to Buja in 4 wheel, just about frying the transmission.  (The car went in for repairs the next morning.)

I was nonetheless, happy to be home before 11pm.  The kids were in bed already.  It was good to take them to school and go for a swim in the morning.  After ballet we went took the kids to a movie at a friends house (a new American family at the Ecole Belge) where they watched Monsters University.  It was a fun evening.

Saturday we had a big family day at the church which was really quite amusing.  It reminded me of a church gathering in the US from the 60s with potato sack and 3 legged races, water balloon toss, badminton, etc.  One notable difference was a race carrying a very large basket on ones head for several hundred meters.  It seems that all Burundians are experts at basket carrying and can run with one on their head quite easily.  It was great to watch this race.  Rebecca and some other Muzungu women tried and could barely cross the start line without knocking the basket off their heads.

It is Sunday.  We have had Patrick and Teresa here over the weekend for various reasons.  Patrick left today to return to Bukavu and Teresa will go back to Kigali tomorrow.  It will be nice to have our home to ourselves for a week or so before the arrival of the Grandparents.

Speaking of arriving Grandparents, here is David’s Christmas list.

1.          A toy bald eagle

2.          A T rex book

3.          A toy dinosaur

4.          A book with Noah’s ark

5.          A coloring book about birds and animals

6.           A pet turkey