Stay At Home Dad and Goodbye to Grandparents

Kids from Hope School displaying soccer balls they received from friends in the US via Jean Sack.


I am counting down the days to Rebecca's return (one left).  I am writing this evening playing the stay-at-home-dad for the 8th and final day, while Rebecca is at a conference in Kampala.  Actually I should be pretty good at this as this is the third year that this conference has happened in January.  As co-representatives there are times when we need to divide our work rather than share it.  Although there was some temptation to take the kids out of school and go to Kampala as a family, the reality is that this is usually the most unpleasant option with kids feeling neglected, out of their routine, and us dividing our time between family and work responsibility.  We fail at both when we try to do such things together and do much better keeping the kids in their routine with one parent while the other can give her (or his) full time to work.

Rebecca will write next week about the details of the GLI conference.  It is becoming a very powerful venue for regional church leaders from Catholic and Protestant churches to come together and reflect on the role of the church in bringing reconciliation and redemption to the Great Lakes region.

For me, the week is more or less normal, but a bit more stressful without team parenting.  I still take the kids to school in the morning and then follow my morning routine with swimming and devotional followed by 3.5 hours at work.  When I pick the kids up for lunch at noon, I discontinue working for the rest of the day and play with the kids.  There are some extra-curricular activities, like tennis and reading club they go to, but most of the time they are with me.

It is fortunate that I have always been the one that is in charge for the morning routine.  (I am the morning person).  So I am used to being up early to make breakfast, feed the dogs, prepare breakfast, and snacks and get the kids ready for school.  I am less practiced with the afternoon activities, but at least we have never been late for school.

The kids have been more cooperative than usual, like I think they realize they have an unfair advantage with two of them and one of me.  They have been playing better with each other and have been fighting less.  We have also managed to wean them off of screen time over the Christmas break and they spend many an hour in the afternoon coloring, of all things.  (Are they still going to like coloring when we get back to the US?)

The only change in routine worthy of noting was the temporary closing of our pool in Kinanira III.  They were changing the water which gave me the opportunity to find some other options.  There is a great pool at the Star Hotel in Kigobe  (the last place I would have looked for a pool.)  Also, Entente Sportive, the pool that was closed last year for a month of renovation that took a year and a half is scheduled to open tomorrow evening.  It still has its 3 and 5 meter platform, but for some reason the owner saw fit to divide its majestic 33 meter length into a 10 and 23 meter pool.   (No one consulted me, but I would have told him that was a dreadfully bad idea.)  Anyway, that should suffice for my Bujumbura pool PSA. Club du Lac T is always great of course, and the US embassy has a very big pool as well, but you have to be in the diplomatic or official corps to use it as far as I can tell.  Too bad.

Actually this is the second week of normal routine with the kids having gone back to school after vacation last Monday.  Rebecca and I got a full day of work in on Monday as Grandma Jean watched them in the afternoon and even gave us a date night that evening.  The kids spent the time with her taking down the Christmas decorations and putting them in a suitcase for the grandparents to take back to the US.  Some of the heavier toys were packed up as well.  It is strange to see this process beginning so early.  But you have to take advantage of transcontinental sherpas when they are visiting.  We do not get to take anything more back than we can fit into 2 suitcases each when we leave.

Papa Dave and Grandma Jean were still with us last week until Thursday, and Rebecca took the opportunity to take them up to the Hope School in Mutaho overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Hope School is one of MCC's longterm partner projects.  We have placed service workers and SALTers there in the past.  Jean Sack has also been there on at least 4 past visits and it was those visits that really inspired her (a professional librarian) to start a book campaign to get books to Burundi when she realized how impoverished schools here were for educational materials.  If you have followed this blog you are probably aware of the book drive and container of books and other pedagogical materials that arrived here in the past few years.

Her visit was especially meaningful, not only because it will be the last one during our term as MCC reps. but because her passion for books for the Hope School inspired another donor, The Foundation for Hope in Africa, to give a grant to build a library at the school which was completed this fall.

This was a wonderful synergy of efforts as the 8000 books that Jean Sack had furnished had been primarily stored in book shelves stuffed into a small supply room, virtually inaccessible to teachers and students.

To see the books in a library with solar power to boot was certainly a well received tribute for her efforts several years ago.  We have also advertised for a one year SALT position of a librarian assistant to help better organize the books and get them better circulated in classrooms and used as resources.  It is easy to see the challenges and how much more that needs to be done, but it is also important to look at what was accomplished.

I think Jean is regarded by our partner and others at the school as a local hero and they brought up several more suitcases of French books and other supplies they had brought from many who donated before their trip.  Included in the gifts were 50 new soccer balls and several hundred pinpal letters!  (The soccer ball donation was inspired from the visit of Rebecca's brother's family last spring who saw the school and played soccer there with some kids using a wad of bags wrapped up with twine as a ball.  Cousin Miriam's soccer team contributed many of these balls after she shared her experience with them.)

Although I was not on the visit (I stayed with the kids because they were in school), I did receive a great report about the visit.  Even at the Grande Seminaire where they stayed overnight, they were welcomed warmly by the nuns and priests who have also met Jean in the past.  Many gifts were bestowed on her as well, most notably some gigantic avocados from the seminary trees, that were, no exaggeration, as big as my head!  I think they should get some kind of world record.  As a result we have had avocado in just about everything and I did find out this week, that if you are out of mayonnaise, mashed avocado makes a perfect substitute in tuna salad.  (The kids really liked it.)

Dave and Jean left last Thursday and then we had one night as a family before Rebecca left last Friday morning.  We did a swim together, prayed together and then I took Rebecca to the airport.  The rest of the day was a bit of a challenge as I had to teach ballet, 2 classes, with both kids in tow.  It is especially hard because David's best friend Isabel, the daughter of Tim and Jeanette is no longer here.  So she was not in class and her mom was not around to help.

I made arrangements for David to go home with some other friends during the second hour, but found him fast asleep in the corner of the room by the end of the first class.  Oren has been doing the older kids class which has been nice to have him participate.  Sadly he is the only boy, but does like to jump, and especially likes to try to do tour en l'air.  (He usually lands on his butt.)

The weekend was good.  After yoga I took the kids to Pinnacle 19 on the beach all day where we swam, fished, and David was very happy to play with Avril the baby chimp who was also very excited to see him.  We saw Lulu the older chimp out of her cage as well on the grounds but she was limping terribly and when I asked the owner what happened she told me someone shot her in the night about 2 weeks before.  I don't know if she will fully recover but it was very sad to see that.

Sunday we went to church as usual.  I did go down and help with the Sunday School though.  We had a small cell group in the evening and I made sure things were prepared for school the next morning.

Monday turned out to be the hardest day of the week as several members of our staff (or their families were sick) and basically no one showed up for work.  This would not have been terrible if there was not a guest, a photographer from one of our back donors (CFGB) arriving that evening.  I did my best to get things ready in the house including dinner and the guest room.  Fortunately she arrived in the evening (I sent a taxi for her) and was taken by our partner upcountry the next morning meaning I did not really have any extensive hosting responsibilities.  By Tuesday our staff was back and Marcelline cleaned a mountain of dirty dishes.  By comparison, the rest of the week seemed easy.

Through the week the kids have been very good and many friends have offered to be there for us during the week.  On Tuesday our Ethiopian friends invited us over for dinner.  We took them up on the offer and enjoyed Ethiopian food (and a ton of appetizers and desserts)  We did get home late for a school night, but at least there were no dishes.

Rebecca has been checking in all week and despite being the stay at home parent, I did get a lot of work done in the mornings while the kids were at school.  The week is over now, and I do feel some sense of pride that I can give Rebecca this opportunity to be fully available for this conference.  Expect an update from her on that next week.