Démissionné--Ask Not for Whom the Drum Beats

Nestor, one of the 10th graders at Hope School this year, leading the drum corps and bidding us farewell.

With less than 2 weeks, (13 days) left before our departure from Burundi, we are definitely in the final countdown.  Strangely I am finding the task of chronicling these final days challenging to the point of onerous.  Why after writing almost weekly for 6 year can I hardly stand to finish?

Maybe there is just too much to say, or maybe I don’t feel like I can capture in language the feelings surrounding this final push.  Or perhaps it is simply because we seem to have things to do from early morning until late in the evening.

I am being unhelpful in sitting to write at this moment.  Rebecca is doing most of the triage of personal belongings and we have 8 suitcases sitting in a guestroom that are being filled slowly.  Putting 6 year of stuff into 8 suitcases will be tough.  Most of the furniture and larger items belong to MCC or the landlord, but there are so many things the kids made, or that were acquired.  Not to mention gifts and a year’s supply of Burundian coffee.

I am enjoying my last evening in our rocking chair which has been in our bedroom the past six years and where I composed many a blog on a late Sunday evening.

Rebecca was sorting kids school and artwork this evening and David and Oren each get a suitcase to fill themselves with things they want to keep.

The biggest challenge for us is that we have to get everything of ours and MCC’s out of this house as it will not be rented beyond our departure.  We were hoping to find some friends who might want to take it but failed to do so, much to the disappointment to the landlord as well.

We are at home this week and have only one more trip out of town planned before our departure.  We were, however, out of town most of the past week for some final visits to partners and for a formal presentation of the new Reps. to our partners in Rwanda.

School ended last Friday, and the kids went everyday but the last.  We packed our bags the night before and headed upcountry to the Grand Seminaire in Burasira, and for a visit to the Hope School.  It was the last day of classes for them on Friday, but the biggest celebration was reserved for us.  Innocent, the leader of our partner organization who has become a friend over the years, had organized a farewell ceremony for us.

Oren on first visit in 2008

We arrived at 10 am to find the drum corps already set up ready to play for us.  They did a very nice set of dances, songs, and speeches.  Rebecca and I both spoke along with a half dozen others. 

It was hard to take in all the times we had been here in the past and appreciate the finality.  I remember our first visit within a week of our arrival and Oren standing amidst the Batwa children, looking almost at home.

Our kids were not nearly into all the speeches and songs this time around.  But after several hours of introductions, we went into one of the classrooms with the teachers and the Batwa elders and had a meal together. 

Salvatore (an elder) and wife

We received many gifts, some local fabrics, some batwa woven mats, and some paintings and woodcuts done for us.  The woodcut had a picture of Burundi and two people caring a building on their heads.  It was custom made for us and represented the many years we supported the Hope School.  (I have to say the image of being weighed down under a building for 6 years was strangely apropos to how it has begun to feel toward the end.) 

We also received a painting with a photo of us on one of our first visits.  There were many more speeches and expressing of appreciation.   The teachers and the Batwa elders were very warm in their expressions of gratitude. 

Speeches were followed by a lavish feast each of us received a plate of fried a half dozen fried plaintain bananas piled high with spaghetti topped with some brown sauce and a large hunk of meat on a bone.  It was more than I could eat, but I was glad to see that the children outside were given food as well.

We drank the traditional ceremonial fantas and coca-colas.  After some final words we made our way back to the seminary in the late afternoon.

Leaving the seminary is at least as difficult as saying good bye to the school.  The kids always loved to stay the night there.  We went and visited the farm and the kids fed the cows and pigs.  We took a short hike around the grounds.  We remembered days gone by of Jodi living here, and then Teri-Lynn last year. 

We planned to stay the night and asked the sister for the old rooms on the second floor of the guesthouse where we used to stay.  Soeur Anesée was thrilled to see us all and we left her a shawl for cold nights.  The evening was perfectly clear and we had a fantastic view of Scorpio directly overhead in the inky night sky.  (Something you can only see in the Southern Hemisphere.)

We had roast rabbit for dinner and after a good night’s sleep, enjoyed the homemade bread, honey, guava jam, omelettes and Burundian coffee with fresh cows milk.  No food at the seminary comes from more than a few hundred meters away. 

We said good bye for the last time and took our leave, and headed on to Kigali.  We arrived in the early evening and found Mark and Angela Sprunger (our area reps.) who have been living at the Amani guest house.  The Stoner-Eby’s arrived later.  We had dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant with our SALTER Julia and the rest of the gang.  The World Cup was on so it added to the festivities of the evening.  The World Cup is religion here in Africa.

The next morning was Sunday and I took the Stoner-Eby’s to the Kinyarwanda service at the Friends Church.  (the church we partner with.)  I thought it would be a good introduction to the 3-4 hour service experience.  It did not disappoint in longevity.  Rebecca stayed home with the kids as David had been sick with tonsillitis for several days and Oren and Luke did not want to go either.

We got back home midday and began having meetings after a short visit to a park. 

Sunday evening was special because it was Oren’s real Birthday.  He wanted to celebrate it as a family at Meze Fresh, one of the best Burrito places in the world, right in Kigali!  We gave him a little metal teapot he wanted so he could have tea in the morning.  He was very happy to get it.  It was also a day to celebrate because he read his first chapter book (150 pgs) all by himself!  (It was Stink and the super galactic Jawbreaker).

Beginning Monday, the time with partners was fairly intense as we had a very full schedule and I took the Stoner-Ebys for interviews with partners all day on Monday then we had a big meeting of all the partners together to discuss program issues on Tuesday morning.

At this meeting, which as on July 1^st, I took the opportunity to officially acknowledge the handover of our position to the new Reps.

Yes we are now ‘démissionné.  French for decommissioned.  It was a significant moment and from that point in the meeting the Stoner-Ebys took over the chairmanship of the meeting.

It is a strange feeling to be done with the official part of our job, although this is primarily to give us extra time to pack up and move everything out of our house.

We drove home the next day (Wednesday). 

From that point forward we really feel the end is upon us.  We have done errands like getting the dogs rabies shots, we are having last meetings with friends who are still in town.  I cleared out my desk at the office.

Sunday was church and I managed to get a cool picture with 3 generations of MCC Reps, as the Hieberts have moved back to Burundi to work with the Mennonite Brethren Mission Network.  I think I can really appreciate how they were feeling at the end as they handed the program over to us.  I am sorry they were not back sooner in our term.  Their kids will start at the Ecole Belge this fall.

We were invited to lunch at the home of our Ethiopian small group friends.  That was followed by our second to last small group at their house.

Today we began titling the cars over to Scott Stoner-Eby, and his has proved to be a complicated process now.  For expats and others here in Burundi, there is a new step now in buying or selling a vehicle.  You have to get a tax ID number and a financial attestation.  This adds an interesting new set of worm tunnels in the already Kafka-esque process of titling a vehicle to get mired in. 

This past week penultimate yoga with
Patrick and Yolanda visiting among others.

I should be able to finish the process in a few days and many many trips.   It was funny.  At one point 20 of us were lined up in front of a desk occupied by no one.  I had no hope that they would even arrive as it was the last hour of the day.  But we all stayed and waited nonetheless until we had to go home.  The humor in this was that I found I was not even impatient.  I am now, finally, used to this.  I may have finally acquired the much-coveted Burundian patience that allows one to suffer all things, and bear with all delays.

The days ahead are pretty mapped out.  We have a luncheon with our house staff tomorrow.  Our last day in the house is Saturday.  We will have yoga (last one) then get a truck and move up to Samuel and Sabine’s house (some German missionaries) so we can finish cleaning.

We go up to Kigali again the following Wednesday through Friday then fly out of Burundi on Sunday July 20^th right after church.

I don’t know if there will be another entry from Burundi, but will add some thoughts when we get to Switzerland for some professional debriefing.