A Mad Tea Party and an Enormous Family

.…Lundi…Mardi…Mercredi…Jeudi…Vendredi…Samedi…Dimanche. As I was walking down the hall past Oren’s room I heard the sound of someone reciting the days of the week in French. I knew the voice to be Oren's, only what I heard was not the accent of an American child reciting the words, it was the sound of a French or Belgian child with a perfect French accent saying the days of the week. It is an interesting breakthrough for 2 reasons. First, it is a series of words that I have never practiced with him in French, and second, it is a capacity he has in French that he does not yet have in English. That is, he cannot recite the days of the week in English at this point, to my knowledge. Apparently he learned it at school as part of a chasing game not unlike duck, duck, goose.

Oren has made more than one thing this week worthy of note in this blog, but I will save that for later.
(The photo is of him at his swimming lesson. He and some friends are doing that this month.)

It was a very full week with both Grandparents here, Thanksgiving, and a lot of networking with partners and other NGOs around election preparations.

But I have to also say that several of my work days were spent in a kind of fruitless effort to get our DSL (high speed internet connection) working. There is a book by Franz Kafka called “The Castle” that captures the experience perfectly, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know what a French-colonized African bureaucracy is like. In the book, a young man of some status is charged to deliver a letter to the occupant of a castle in a neighboring town. When he tries to do so, he finds it is not a straightforward matter. Despite his relative lack of interest in the task, he becomes more and more intrigued by the complexity of steps, and small successes and setbacks he experiences along the way. He eventually finds himself obsessed with succeeding in the task against a seemingly obdurate and infinitely complex bureaucracy.

My experience with the phone company has been quite similar to this, especially in the way that small steps forward tend to reveal even more steps that always seem to draw me nearer but never to my goal. Three weeks ago, after 6 months of waiting, we were permitted to pay for our DSL service. We celebrated this major victory of patience. Once I did pay, I went back and proudly presented my receipt to the customer service agent which we had 'befriended' because of our many prior visits. She told me that ‘activation’ would happen in the next 2 days. We waited the normal 2 weeks before I returned to find out what was wrong. Instead of going to our normal ‘friend’ though, I sought out someone in the internet department deep in the bowels of the building. There, in a tiny office, I met a very friendly man who told me that for activation, all I needed was a ‘dsl router’. I could go out and buy one, then bring it to him and he would configure it and I could take it home to use.

I was excited about the prospect of being in control of finishing this and after a 2 day search of every computer store in town, I found such a router. I was excite to go back to get this finished and virtually ran to the building and back to the office where I met this man. When I got there, I was surprised that I had a very hard time refinding the internet office. When I did, I went in and there were two different men in there. (They seemed to know nothing about my ‘helpful friend’ who was there 2 days ago.) I showed them the router and told them what I wanted. They looked at me utterly perplexed, then went into a large account book to look up something. They asked for my name and phone number. After about 10 minutes of looking they told me that our account did not exist according to their records and that not only did they not have any evidence that we had a dsl account, but that we did not even have a phone, according to them! They could do nothing for me and said I needed to start again.

I was sent back to my friend at customer service. She spent about 30 minutes on the phone talking to various technicians, then told me that there was a ‘technical problem’ with our line and that it would be resolved Monday and we could proceed with our activation. That is where we are now, I will let you know if this actually ever completes. At this point we have paid our original installment a month ago and now we are receiving a bill for the second month of our still unactivated DSL service. I don’t want to pay, but I know that if I don’t they will a good reason not to continue to make steps toward completion.


That was a long aside, but I am a big fan of Franz Kafka. But that was not the only surreal encounter we had this week of an early 20th century ‘modernist’ variety. The second one involved my parents this past Monday.

There is an eccentric elderly woman who lives here, she is a Russian pediatrician who used to have a clinic in town, which was closed (because of corruption) many years ago and its equipment sold by a govt. official who seized it. Why she remains, is unclear. She seems to be hoping for some sort of justice to eventually emerge. (Apparently she is waiting for a judgment at an ongoing trial—10 years—to get some money back. Just to keep in the theme of Kafka.)

She invited my parents and our family to ‘tea’ Monday evening. We got there around 5 to find that ‘tea’ was a 4 course meal, but not one like I have ever seen before. The food was odd, old mangoes and bananas, popcorn, something that resembled a stack of pancakes, all cooked on charcoal by her. She had no housestaff, no furniture except a table and chairs, no gardener, no electricity, no running water, and lived in the very large house that had once been the clinic.

We stayed for several hours and as the sun went down the house became pitch black and we gathered around a single candle. Conversation was awkward and difficult as she spoke no English and limited French, and my parent spoke no French. Rebecca and I translate as best we could. Nonetheless the doctor remained charming and gracious throughout, saying with her hospitality that she was a person of limited means, but with a great heart.

Still, it was all a bit creepy and I was looking forward to the end of the encounter, but Oren and David were not complaining so we stayed a bit longer. Then the doctor asked us if we liked to tango? She took an old lantern flashlight that had a small cassette player in it and turned it on. The sound of WWII cabaret sounding tango music wafted out of a tiny speaker and she invited Rebecca to dance with her. She got us all up to dance to this winsome, eerie, music for about half an hour. We swayed slowly in couples, kind of like waltzing, in total darkness in an empty house that had not been dusted for years, I felt as if we were in a WWII movie, making the best of life during a blackout in an air raid. It was a scene that could not have been directed better by Francis Ford Coppola. Eventually Oren started to complain and we made our excuses and went home, not before inviting her to our house for Thanksgiving the following Thursday. It was an evening I will not soon forget, and I don’t think my parents will either. I am aware the line between eccentricity and madness is fine, and I am not sure which side of it we were that evening.

Tuesday was an important work day as we gathered together all of our Burundian partners to discuss strategic planning next year around the elections. I have mentioned before that next year is a critical year for the country as the elections are happening. As most of our partners are involved in peace and reconciliation work, planning for interventions and conflict prevention even at this stage is crucial. We are trying to mobilize some of them to be election monitors, and do some training in educating their communities on the electoral process. It was a good meeting, facilitated by Zachee and our partners were all planning to be part of many activities related to keeping peace during the elections. We ended with lunch for everyone at our house, for which Marcelline, with Enoch’s help, prepared an enormous African meal that was very tasty.

As part of this as well, Rebecca and I have been networking with other Christian NGOs including the American Friends Service Committee and World Relief. It is good to connect with them. Often it seems like everyone is out here doing their own thing.

I was very impressed with World Relief’s efforts in that they, in collaboration with World Vision, have gathered all the leaders of every denomination in the country to meet together and discuss the role of the church in maintaining peace during the campaign. They have formed a committee of leaders from these churches who have agreed to cooperate.

Among the things they have counseled is the necessity of all pastors of all churches to be politically neutral!! That is, a pastor is not to bring his personal political preferences for a particular candidate into the church. (He should still vote confidentially of course.) This seems like good advice for our country as well, but here, where differences of opinion have often led to murder and massacres, it is essential. Your party and candidate are not worth killing for, or stirring up old ethnic rivalries, suspicion, and paranoia to win.

The other work related activity we did was to look for a house for our new service workers that are arriving this week! Our search has not been terribly fruitful, although we have seen a lot of interesting houses here--most out of the range of our budget. Prayers for this search would be helpful.


The week was not all work and no play though. We had several major social events. The biggest one was Thanksgiving dinner. Although we did not have a turkey, we did buy some rotisserie chickens, garnished with stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and other ‘fixins’ (cranberry sauce conspicuously absent) and did our best to create an American Thanksgiving meal. We invited Onesphore and his kids over, and Zenon (another partner in charge of Intervarsity in Burundi) with his wife and kids, as well as Zachee and Tim (Bridget was out of town) and the Russian doctor of course.

It was a nice event to share and we told the story of the American Thanksgiving tradition, complete with pilgrims and Indians. They enjoyed hearing about it and said they would find us a turkey for next year.

Friday, my mom and dad, and Rebecca and David and I picked up Oren from school, ate lunch, and headed up to Ijenda. I have written about this place before. It is where we had our team retreat and has the feel of being in Switzerland. We wanted my parents to see some parts of Burundi other than Bujumbura. It was raining when we arrived and quite cold. I was glad we had counseled them to bring warm clothes. We did have some good fellowship together and sat around a very nice fire in the dinning area to tell stories of Christmas when my parents were young to Oren.

Oren said one interesting thing that evening: Rebecca asked him if he enjoyed being up here with his whole family? He answered, “This isn’t my whole family, where is Timmy, and papa and mama Tim, and Robyn and Yolanda and Brandon and Ruth and Krystan and Jodi? I want to come here with my ENORMOUS FAMILY!

Saturday morning was gorgeous and we did a nice hike in the hills. Oren did quite well and actually walked the whole way! For most of the hike we were alone and only picked up a few curious children in the last 15 minutes. We headed back to Buj around noon, stopping for tea at another lodge on a colonial tea plantation. We finished just as it began to pour again and made our way back down the mountain in a torrential downpour. (We were glad to be dry in the car though.)

We got back to Buj and spent the rest of Saturday resting at home until evening. Since it was my Dad’s last night, we took them out to Khana Kazana, the Indian restaurant. We had a fabulous meal. I always marvel at the fact that we can get such good Indian food here.

Sunday morning we went to church then took Dad directly to the airport. He should be in Baltimore soon. I think that David got the most out of his visit as grandpa and him spent a lot of time together playing and watching Baby Einstein videos while Rebecca and I were at work. The time really seemed to go too fast though and we miss him already.

On Sunday afternoon we went to the English fellowship where Rebecca preached on a rainy afternoon, to a small group. She is leading off the advent series. It is hard believe we are getting close to Christmas, especially since we do not have any change of season here.

I did find an old Christmas tree in our garage and hosed it off yesterday. It needs some work, but I think we will get it to be able to stand up today and decorate before Grammy leaves tomorrow.

Personal note: Happy belated Birthday Jonathan, we thought of you while we ate at Khanna Kazana on Saturday. We would have called but don’t have your Nashville # memorized.

Grandpa Henry's Arrival

David enjoying a precious box of Cheerios he found in Grandpa’s suitcase. Also note that he received his first haircut this week!


I am aware that while I began doing this blog for personal reasons, and committed to doing it weekly as a spiritual discipline (of sorts), I have now found that there are many who are awaiting to hear the news of this next installment, especially because they know this is a particularly interesting week.

Well you need not be in suspense any longer. Grandpa Henry arrived today safe and sound after spending a week at a conference in neighboring Uganda. We went to the airport at 8:30 am, and our timing was such that he was walking out the door of the terminal as we pulled up. This was just as well, as security remains extremely tight and the closest we are allowed to be to the terminal building is by our car in the parking lot.

Dad was very, very tired, having not slept the entire night before. We were on our way to church so we took him with us, but only stayed for about half of the service before returning home to let him sleep. (He was introduced and brought greetings from Valley Baptist Church to our church.) Many remembered him from his previous visit here in March.

Oren and David were very happy to see him and were thrilled about all of the ‘goodies” he brought. (Many have been stashed away by us for Christmas.)


This was the culmination of quite a busy week though, and I want to try to note some of the highlights. Apologies for the brevity of each day as I recount, but again, I am waiting until late Sunday evening which means I want to finish it quickly.

On Monday, we began our weekly routine well with both Rebecca and I going swimming before work while Grammy watched David. Work went fairly routinely--we are very focused on helping our partners think strategically about ways they might be involved in sensitizing people for a non-violent election.

After school, however, four of Oren’s friends came home with him to play at his house. (Two sisters and a brother as well as Timmy.) I was in charge of refereeing the group until my Kirundi lesson at 3:30. It was not too bad, but it was a challenge keeping all five engaged at the same time.

Speaking of Kirundi, I have reached new levels of frustration with trying to remember all of the vocabulary. One problem is that often they have many words for relationships that we express in a single word. For example: the word father is ‘Data’, if it is my father, ‘So’ if it is your father, and ‘Se’ if it is his father. The same is true for mother, but the words are Mata, Nyoko, and Nyina. The word is different based on whether the subject is 1st 2nd or 3rd person.

There is really no single word for brother or sister. But there is a word for a boy’s older brother, or a girl’s older sister: ‘mukuru’ and the younger sibling of the same sex is ‘murumu. A boy’s sister or a girl’s brother is a completely different word though. Birth order seems to be much more important than gender.

I suspected that the different ways of expressing these relationships that we use the same word for in English was due to the role played by older siblings in relationship to younger. When I asked Zachee, he confirmed by suspicion and told me that there is an expectation that older siblings play a parental role (especially with regard to financial responsibility) for younger ones.

I would have had, for example, as the oldest brother, some or all the responsibility of paying for schooling (or college ) of my two younger brothers if I was Burundian.

As a westerner, it is really hard to get a good grasp on the economy of an extended family structure. I admit that I like the idea of the nuclear family, in which parents are the primary providers of financial support for children, and older children are not expected to have parental roles over younger ones (especially financial). I am trying to imagine, as a young Burundian, trying to get married and start my own family, how challenging it would be to realize that I already had 4-6 children (in terms of younger siblings), that I am expected to take care of. This does not include, of course, financial obligations to my parents either.

I suppose it is a cultural bias, but the idea of a family system in which a child is not normally financially responsible for his/her parents and siblings sounds quite liberating.

Enough about Kirundi---but as I have said before, knowing the language can tell one a lot about social relations in a culture. I only wish I was getting better at using it conversationally.

Tuesday I spent preparing for Wednesday. I was invited to do a lecture on transformational leadership as part of a conference organized by one of our partners, Harvest for Christ. Fortunately my Dad sent me some material to draw together a lecture, especially some things from the book “The Fifth Discipline” by P.M. Senge.

I felt I did a good talk tailored to the Burundian context and I hope it might have been inspiring to the young leaders who were there. Most of them were heading one of their own NGOs. I was worried that I would have trouble filling an hour and a half, but in fact I went over to almost 2 hours. This was not so great for Yolanda (SALTer) who was also presenting right after me on how to do strategic planning.

From what I saw she was a really good teacher and kept their interest even though some of the material is a bit dry and even hard to translate cross-culturally.

Thursday I taught ballet as usual in the evening, and I am realizing more and more the necessity of having a teachers assistant. I don’t know if I am losing my touch, or if I am forgetting how unruly a group of 25 little girls can be.

I did miss out on a fun outing/play date for Oren, Rebecca, Grandmother, and his friend Zack Johnson. They went to Cercle Hippique. I have talked about this place before, but it is one of these vestiges of the colonial era. An old European style riding club. While it is very run down, it still has very impressive majestic old stables and riding grounds as well as a nice restaurant where you can get something to drink.

Oren, Rebecca, and Grammy met Zack his brother Micah and Mother Joy there. They enjoyed playing and David was positively fascinated with the horses, which he had seen on a Baby Einstein video, but never in real life.

Oren admired the horses then went up to one of the groomsmen and told him that he wanted to ride one. Later, as Rebecca and the kids were about to leave, two of the men led a saddled horse up to Oren and asked if he wanted to mount. He accepted without hesitation and apparently had an expression of immense pride swelling up when they put him on the horse and gave him a very smart-looking helmet to wear!

He looked like a diminutive heir-apparent of the British Monarchy with his shy grin and two accompanying horse groomsmen.

Friday was a busy workday, divided between multiple meetings and visiting potential houses for new workers that are coming to join in a couple weeks. We have not found what we are looking for at this point.

We treated ourselves to an episode of “The #1 Ladies Detective Agency” that night as my mom had brought it with her from the US. (Gift from Grandma Jean). Since we do not have television here it is nice to watch. (Not to confuse anyone, there is TV here, cable and satellite with anything you could want, but we choose not to have it.)

Saturday was a great day! It was our turn to host the bi-weekly potluck that we do with our Greman, Danish, and American missionary friends. We had decided to have a folk dance as part of it. (…in the tradition of the former tenants of the house, Val and Charles Carr.)

We moved all the furniture out of the living room and put it on the verandah. This turns the spacious living room into a veritable ballroom. Rebecca and I rehearsed some dances to teach. We had invited about 30 people over, 15 adults and 15 kids. It was a very big event.

I am happy to say it went really well, and we are hoping to do it again. We had quite a mix of age groups from young children to young adults (SALTers) and several families, including Astrud and Travis, Thomas and Naja, and Zachee and Bridget. There were some other from the women’s Bible study that Rebecca attends as well.

Between the trampoline, dvds, folk dancing, etc. I think we managed to have something for everyone. People really did like the dancing and we made dancing the “Virginia Reel” a prerequisite for anyone wanting to eat dinner.

That is about all I can say right now. I will mention that electricity has been better now that the rainy season has refilled some of the rivers and we are getting more hydro-electric. Many say that our power problems are over. But, the electricity just went off again here about 10 minutes ago, so I am glad we have our solar battery well charged.

Next week…DSL, we hope…

Grammy is Here

I mentioned last week that we were anticipating the eminent arrival of Grammy and my mom arrived on time last Monday morning. We went to pick her up at the airport and were a bit surprised to find that the airport itself is currently not open to the public. You have to wait for arriving passengers in the parking lot outside the airport.

This is because of, of all things, a recent terrorist alert for Burundi that is being taken very seriously. For those who do not know, the Burundian army is active as Africa Union peace keepers in Somalia and is trained by the US for this work. There has been heavy fighting between African Union troops and al Shabaab, an Islamic extremist group in Somalia.

About a week ago, al Shabaab issued a warning against Uganda and Burundi that a terrorist attack was eminent. This is disturbing, especially since this is the last thing that a country coming out of 14 years of civil war needs. It is so impoverished, so underdeveloped, so traumatized by violence. In fact, I am not sure what kind of psychological impact such a threat can really make here. It seems like most people are just numb and life is going on pretty much as usual.

We did wait for my mom and, despite the heightened security, were able to talk the police into letting us go in the building to use the restroom, and even to go in and meet my mom when we were sure the flight actually arrived. (Carrying a baby helps.)

Mom looked really great, not like she had been traveling for 2 days at all! Oren was in school when she arrived, but we had David with us at the airport. David seemed happy to have another person to carry him around.

Oren was also thrilled to see her and she gave him connect-the-dot and color-by-number books, which are his two favorite activities these days. She also had cheerios for both of the boys, a huge treat here!

She was loaded down as well with other items we asked her to bring, as well as some things for our volunteers (who had family send stuff to our house to take out here.) That is truthfully one of the great things about having visitors come from other places. They can bring things we cannot get here.

The rest of the week has been fairly routine. We had our friend Simon as well as Onesphore and his kids over for dinner on Monday. It was good to be able to support Onesphore, whose wife Innocente just left for a two-year residency in France to complete her medical training. It is hard, but really the only way for a person to get a medical degree here. We are going to try to help him set up Skype so he can call her, and so her two young kids can see her.

We had the SALTers over for dinner Wednesday, and my mom enjoyed meeting them, having been in contact with several of their parents. And on Friday evening, we had a great visit with Zachee, Bridget and Tim.

Saturday we had a meeting with our advisory board, or at least attempted to have one. One of our Burundi advisors was unable to attend, and our advisor from Rwanda, who was flying in that day was prevented from arriving because of a plane crash at the Rwanda airport the day before. Nonetheless we did discuss the changing Burundi context with those were present, especially concerning the up-coming elections in 2010. We are planning to have our partners try to do some collaborative work around election sensitization in the coming year.

We did take mom to church this Sunday and to the beach in the afternoon. She has enjoyed doing these things and has busied herself with taking care of David in the mornings the whole week so Rebecca and I could do some extra work.

One of the big ways she is helping in this is to get David to eat more. We took him for vaccinations last Tuesday and the pediatrician said he was underweight for his age (5th %). So he needs to gain some weight. Mom has been good about getting him to eat more mashed up food and more protein. Granted, he does not look unhealthy and is very energetic, but we are trying to fatten him up a bit.

This is a short entry, but it is late. We are enjoying the lights provided by our now well-working solar-charged battery (hooray!!), but I am falling asleep and Rebecca wants to try to give me a haircut before bed.

A Soujourn in "Switzerland"

MCC Team on retreat in Igenda in the Burundian Interior. David is in the backpack on Zachee. (If you click on the photos they will enlarge.)


I am beginning to realize that while the best things in life may not be free, they are definitely paid for through federal, state, and municipal taxes. Anyone who does not believe me should live here, where there are no taxes, but we do enjoy irregular water and electricity, no road repair, no garbage collection, no sewage system, no well trained police force, no street lights, no park land, no good schools, no libraries, museums, etc. Also, forced community labor every week to do public service projects (like laying pipe or cleaning the public beach) is not my idea of fun.

You might gather from this that we are still having problems with our utilities. I won’t go too much into detail, but suffice it to say we continue to struggle with shortages of electricity and water to mention a few of the problems.

On the good side, our mango trees are giving us about 8-9 mangoes a day. David can happily eat a whole one himself, as can Oren.

This has been a really interesting week. I wish I did not feel so completely exhausted, so I fear I will need to proof this tomorrow and repost it to be sure I have not left anything out.

The week started in Rwanda where I posted the blog last week. We had a brief but good visit with Ruth and Krystan and several of our partners. We also picked up Ruth and Krystan as well as Misha, a friend of theirs who was visiting from Canada, and took them with us back to Bujumbura. There we joined Jodi at our house (we had brought her down the Friday before from Burasira). We were all gathering so we could head up-country to a small town called Ijenda for our annual team retreat.

Oren was off from school for mid-term break, so on Wednesday afternoon, we loaded 2 landcruisers with our supplies and our team including the 3 SALTers and headed up the mountains (the southern route) to Ijenda which is about an hour away. Zachee drove his car with Bridget and Timmy in it, and things went well for the first 10 minutes of the ascent, but then Zachee’s car overheated. We filled the radiator with water and continued on, only to have it overheat again after another 10 minutes. We tried to make the best plan possible and decided to send Zachee back down the mountain alone in his car to get it repaired while the rest of us piled into the remaining two cars.

We got to our guest house, which is actually above the town, and waited to hear from Zachee. He eventually phoned, close to dusk, to see if someone could come down and drive him up, but with the problem of roads closing after 6, we did not think it was possible to get down and back in time. Fortunately he was able to take a local bus and got to us in time for dinner.

I need to try to describe the area around Ijenda to you. In a word, I would say “Switzerland”. Honestly this is a route we rarely take, and have not spent a lot of time in this area, but it is unbelievably beautiful—and cold! We had to have a large fire in the fireplace each night while we ate dinner, and we wore warm underwear and blankets to sleep at night. It is hard to believe it is so close to Bujumbura in terms of driving distance.

We began the retreat with worship Wednesday night after dinner. On Thursday we began with worship then did some discussion with the group about MCC team values. In the afternoon we took a hike.

This is the first time I have gone on a hike in Burundi. The deterrent in the past has been a wariness about going on such an outing with the family and dragging several hundred curious children in our train as we walk along. This has been my experience with walking in the past, and Burundi is so densely populated that I have never seen any part of the country that does not have people all over the place.

But this was different. We hiked up several high ridges that overlooked miles of beautiful farmland and rolling hills. We hiked as a team for several hours, and only met one shy shepherd and one woman who greeted us politely and went on her way. It was really amazing and I am hoping it is something we can come up and do again sometime. I tried to photograph the view, but it is hard to capture.

I think the hike was one of the highpoints of the retreat, but we all contributed to it. Brandon played music, as well as Rebecca, all of us took a turn leading a devotional, I led a yoga-stretch class after the hike, as well as a prayer meditation based on a Kairos prison ministry team-building spiritual exercise I learned. (It involved stones, for those who are reading this from Kairos.) Yolanda and Robyn led a prayer devotional, as did Zachee. Ruth, Krystan and Micha prepared some games and a book-binding workshop! This was very cool and many of us left with a very nice hard back, fabric covered journal to keep notes in. Oren and Timmy were very excited about doing bookbinding and I have a picture of them here gluing the fabric on the covers. (The hard part of the process is sewing the pages into the covers. That part of the project may happen some other month. For four-year olds, they did really well.)

On Friday we had worship time and continued with our values discussion and made a plan for some activities to help us on our weaknesses next year. We had lunch at a nearby tea plantation before returning to the hotel. That night we had the opportunity for some group affirmation, then we packed up and went back to Bujumbura Saturday morning.

All in all the retreat was very good, and I felt we made a really good connection as a team. It seems amazing to me that we were a group of 14 including spouses and children. We are really getting to be a big group. Add to that the fact that we will be getting another family of 4 joining us in December to work at Help Channel.

Rebecca and I are feeling good about the growth of the team at this time. It really seems that human resources are far more effective in helping our partners than the financial support we provide.



We were actually in a bit of rush to get back to Bujumbura because most of us were going to a wedding that day. Yes, the wedding day of our good friends Jean Claude and Francine had arrived. All of us have become friends of theirs, even the SALTers who are fairly new here. Francine is even Brandon and Robyn’s French teacher right now.

The wedding was definitely the place ‘to be seen’ that day, as there were many people I knew from the NGO and missionary community. Among the surprise guests were SIMON Guillebaud, and DOUG Hiebert. If you have read past blogs you should know who Simon “Crocodile Dundee” Guillebaud is. His wife Lizzie had their new baby in the UK recently (a boy, Josiah) and he was here for a short visit to promote a video series he did based on his book, among other things. I will be posting a web link in a future week to this video series, but the book is called For What It’s Worth. I think it will be an excellent series to do in a Sunday School class. Simon will be spending several years with his family in South Carolina before returning to Burundi. (If you hear someone with a British accent in SC, it is probably him.)

Doug Hiebert was the former MCC Rep here (with his wife Deanna). He was actually on a trip to Congo related to work and was in Eastern Congo this week. He took a bus down to Buja just in time for the wedding. It was very interesting to see him, although his schedule was so tight we did not get much of a chance to talk. Now that I have been in this job for a year, I would love to have an opportunity to talk with him again. We did talk briefly at the wedding and he told me, as I imagined, that the whole experience was a bit surreal. This Sunday at church Doug led worship and Simon preached. It was a great service to be at.

I enjoyed being at the wedding, and it was a beautiful ceremony followed by a well-attended reception that featured traditional Burundian drummers. The group of a dozen young men pounded on the huge drums, just two feet away from us, while others took turns leaping, waggling their heads, posturing and dancing before Claude and Francine, before spinning back into the drum circle. It was LOUD and powerful. Oren and David lasted as long as they could, then I took them home with Rebecca and returned to the dinner. I was home at about 10:30 pm.

Among the traditions I find unusual connected to a Burundian wedding (at least one in the Christian context), is the practice of announcing the wedding weekly during church for several weeks prior to the ceremony. Each week they announce the date and time of the event as well the rejoinder that “if anyone knows any reason why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace.” In our country, if that question is asked at all, it is very briefly at the ceremony. Here they take the inquest seriously and I have no doubt that weddings have been stopped based on the information obtained from such an inquiry. It does grate a bit, as a westerner, but with the rate of divorce so high in our own country, even among Christians, I wonder if this process might save a lot of heartache down the road, despite its intimidating affect.

It is late, and we have a big day tomorrow. Grammy is coming in the morning. Rebecca and I are already heaving a sigh of relief at the prospect of having some help with the kids for a month. And it will be so special to share our life here with her!

Bonus photo: A frog we caught on our hike in the mountains.

A Fall Birthday in the Land of Perpetual Summer

Photos this week are from David's 1st Birthday Party. Here he is enjoying his cake.


I am writing this blog from the Africa New Life Guesthouse in Kigali. We drove here right after church and arrived about 5pm. It is a quick visit, just 2 days, but necessary as it is the only opportunity we will have to come the entire month of November. One thing I am really noticing is the toll that these trips are taking on my back. I was never one to complain about back pain, but the driving requirements here in a truck-like vehicle on rough roads is really changing that. Nonetheless we got here without incident.

We had dinner with Ruth and Krystan who updated on the what is happening here with our partner, as well as their own encounter with Don (the ‘unexpected visitor’ who came to do photography work with Jodi and the kids at the Batwa school in Burundi.) Don then came to Kigali and Jodi had given him Ruth and Krystan’s number. He had not yet called them, but had gone into a coffeeshop. He was having trouble using his phone in Rwanda and went up to another mzungu and asked him if he knew what numbers needed to be entered to use and international phone in the country. The mzungu (who happened to be Krystan) looked at the number Don wanted to call and saw that it was his number! So that is how Don connected with them. They had an interesting visit before Don headed off to Tanzania,

Back to our own week. I will say that probably one reason my back is so sore is that this is my second trip upcountry in one week. On Wednesday I drove up to check in on the final day of the Great Lakes Peace Initiative (GLPS). I made this trip alone as Oren was in school this week. The conference was interesting and I learned a lot even in the few hours I was there. Bridget (Zachee’s wife) was facilitating and was doing a unit on conflict analysis. At one point in the lecture, the question came up whether or not poverty was an instigating cause of conflict. After much debate the conclusion was no. Poverty in itself is not a direct source of conflict, although other conditions that may cause poverty may also create conflict.

I have been reading a book by the author of the term ‘conflict transformation’ and I took the opportunity to finish it while in Gitega. Lederach (the author) argues that in his experience, the root cause of conflict is almost always ‘identity’. I was quite surprised by this, but he made a good case for this and showed how the ‘flashpoint’ of a conflict may not reveal this and may need to be ‘resolved’, but real transformation requires some capacity to address this root issue, or other similar types of conflict continue to erupt periodically.

This could certainly be said to be true of Burundi, and the Great Lakes Region where identity is a huge issue. I have been especially keen on the extent to which displacement is a big factor in this. This region has millions of displaced people, and the problem is that such people (refugees) do not have, often, any hope of going back, and no hope of being accepted and assimilated in the place they are. This was demonstrated poignantly to me when I talked ot a young ‘Rwandese’ woman there. She was ‘banyamulenge’ a group of Rwandese that fledthe country in the 19th century and have been living for over 100 years in Congo. But even though her grandfather was born in Congo and every generation since then, she is not considered Congolese. She is seen as Congolese as Rwandese and since there is tension between those countries, she has been persecuted in Congo, many of her family killed and forced to flee back to Rwanda….Of course in Rwanda, though the banyamulenge were accepted back, they are not considered to be real Rwandese and do not have status of citizens.

This is just one group, but a real problem. People who have no sense of place, home, are vulnerable, and often dangerous. Unlike the USA almost no country around here considers birth in a place to be a valid reason for citizenship. Many displaced people raise families in places where their children will never be citizens, but the children can never go home and feel like they belong in their ancestral homeland as they never grew up there. The woman I talked to (Lucie) told me that she considers herself and her children to be Congolese as they lived their whole lives there for 3 generations, but she will never be accepted as that.

The visit was good, and I felt it was important to show our support of this program by going and being a part of it for a day. I have to say, it is very inspiring to see so many individuals from Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, coming together who have such a passion for bringing peace to the region. Not surprisingly, all of them have a deep wound that has attracted them to this work. Also, seeing Bridget facilitate is great, she is such an intelligent, experienced peace worker in the region, who has become a very good teacher as well.

I got back on Thursday on time to teach my ballet class that afternoon. I brought Jodi back with me from Gitega as she needed to come down to Bujumbura for the weekend. It felt like a long day. Rebecca did well with the kids, although she was quite sick on Monday and Tuesday with the same illness I had that required the course of injectable antibiotics. It seems this is quite contagious as both kids and several of the SALTers got it as well.

I should also mention that we did get our solar power installed this week and it finally all works! I feel like we have this incredible luxury of power 24 hours per day now. Granted it takes a manual switch-over when the power goes off, but it still works well. Now all we need is a decent internet connection and we will be living the dream!

Friday was a particularly memorable day as it was David’s 1st birthday! We had Enoch teach Marcelline how to make a cake. Rebecca and Oren frosted it though. It was a great cake. We invited Zachee, Bridget and Tim, as well as the Brandon, Yolanda, and Robyn (the SALTers) and Jodi to his birthday party. It was a very nice evening or David and the Burundi MCC team. Timmy and Oren really enjoy playing together and I think Oren considers him to be his best friend at school.

Saturday was eerie only in the fact that Halloween is not celebrated in Burundi in any way whatsoever. No costume parties, trick or treat, pumpkin carving, etc. I never thought of myself as particularly fond of that day, but the absence of it makes me realize something is missing, and that thing is Autumn.

I aware of the perpetual summer in which I live when I swim in the morning. Swimming was something I used to do in Poughkeepsie, but there I was keenly aware of the change in season as I waited in the early morning hours of fall and winter for the door to be opened. Here there is no change, no bitter cold. I go to an outdoor pool and I swim, then take a cold shower, put on a short sleeved shirt, and never feel a bit cold. I can’t explain why, except that I have some kind of biological clock, but it jusr feels a bit weird.

We are making the best of it though, and we spent our Saturday at the pool with Jodi and the kids. Oren is loving the pool, and David loves to do anything Oren is doing.

Waiting for Solar Power

This is a tiny photo I took with my phone camera of Oren and David on the merry-go-round at Club du Lac Tanganyika.



I can’t believe another week just went by. I am definitely going to say less this week because I was very negligent about taking my camera with me, so consequently I don’t have a lot of photos to show. I confess I did forget it on a week when there were at least a few photo-ops that I missed. I will try to keep it closer at hand next week, which is also quite full.

One of the photo ops I definitely missed was Oren learning to dive. That is, jump head-first off the side of the pool. He has really been increasing in confidence at swimming in the pool. He loves to swim and goes in the shallow pool without water wings. Last week during a day when I had both kids, I convinced him that he should try jumping off the edge of the pool. He was very timid at first, but as he understood it better, he did so readily. I did not prompt him to go in headfirst, but he began trying it and seemed to feel OK about it. Yesterday while we were there he discovered he could do ‘cannonballs’ and get daddy soaking wet. He enjoyed doing that Saturday afternoon.

The week went pretty normally as far as our routine, interrupted only by Oren being sick on Monday and staying home from school, and a jour congé (holiday) on Wednesday. It was a day of memorial for the assassination of one of Burundi’s Presidents (There are several of these holidays in October.) We all took that day off and went swimming as a family in the morning at the place where Rebecca and I swim before work. It is called Entente Sportif and seems to be a colonial relic, dating back to the 60s at least, which although it is not kept up, has some charm to it in that appears to have been built at a time when Burundi was imagining a bold new future for itself. The pool itself is enormous, has two kids pools, lovely grounds and an enormous patio restaurant (now defunct) abutting one entire side of the pool. I can’t imagine such a facility being built at any time in the near future. I think the nation is still very traumatized by the intervening years of war and not nearly so optimistic. Ironically, the pool borders the former Presidential palace where the president whose memorial day we were celebrated was assassinated along with many dignitaries and members of his party. It does not appear that anything has been done to those grounds since that time either.

We did have one guest week. A Nigerian man named Gopar, the MCC regional peace officer, who had been teaching at the large peace training seminar (GLPS) taking place this month in Gitega. He stayed with us on Thursday and Friday after his teaching was done and I took him to the airport very late at night on Friday. We had an opportunity to brief him on the election situation here and talked about a strategy to coordinate the activities of our partners around election sensitization strategies. It is clear that much is at stake regarding these elections and whether Burundi will successfully be able to remain stable through the process.

The other interesting thing that has happened this week was the installation of a solar panel on our roof. We have been needing to address the problem of power outages I have been writing about ad nauseum. Many have turned to generators, but solar power is another option and Zachee had a panel and battery installed in house and is now able to supplement all of his power needs with it, even when they do not have electricity for 5 or 6 days. We had the same thing installed at our house, and it has unfortunately not begun to work yet because of some glitches in the system, but I am hopeful that they will be worked out by Monday. At this writing I am still in the dark.

It is interesting to find alternative energy like solar so readily available here. The whole set up cost us about $1000 for one panel, an inverter and a 200 hour battery and should be able to power our lights (not refrigerator) indefinitely. Coming from the US, where there is almost always power available from the grid, it is hard to imagine generating my own power in such an efficient way. Solar power always sounded so exotic to me, but here, it is a far better alternative to a noisy, expensive generator. (Hopefully it will be working properly in the next day or so.)

I have one last anecdote, a bit of good news that I want to think of as an act of God, but it could just be good luck. At church this morning, while we were sitting in the service, I needed to get something for David out of the baby backpack. I reached deep into the bottom and to my great surprise…pulled out my ipod!! We had thought this had been in the car during the break-in a couple weeks ago. I don’t know when it was put in the pack, but we were very glad to find that that was not among the items stolen at that time.

Next week is a travel week. I will be going up to Gitega for the closing ceremony of GLPS and then Rebecca and I will head to Rwanda on Sunday afternoon with the kids. We are also going to be doing a lot of work to get ready for a team retreat the week after next.

With that said, I am going to sign off early this week. We are having a lot of trouble with the internet as well, so hopefully it went up on time.

Oren and Timmy on the merry-go-round as well. I'll do better with photos next week, I promise.

Finding the Fruits of Consolation Amidst the Briars

A view of our vegetable garden growing in a planter outside our house. We are enjoying eating lettuce and cilantro from it regularly now, and are expecting to have tomatoes and basil in the weeks ahead as well.


How soon does yesterday become last year? It is amazing how the past seems to fade into the distant past so quickly these days. One thing I like about writing something down weekly is that it gives some distinction to what in retrospect seems to be a vague continuum of weeks and months. It is good to remember the things that happened-- not just the big unforgettable events, but the small, nearly unnoticed things that can tell us so much about ourselves.

Today was particularly satisfying because Rebecca and I led worship at the afternoon English Fellowship and then taught Sunday School together. We really make a good team in this, and we were asked to do it again next week because people were so inspired and blessed by it. I was able to borrow a djembe and Rebecca played guitar. I think what was most satisfying about it, is how infrequently we do things like that here, despite the fact that this was something we did almost weekly before we moved here.

I am trying not to report only the bad news, so it is good to remember the times we were blessed because we certainly had our share of small hardships this week.

On Monday, despite some improvement in my health over last weekend, I found that the soreness in my throat had really not gotten any better. I had gone to the doctor the Saturday before and he has prescribed some antibiotics that did not seem to be doing anything. I should describe the doctor here. Dr. Raafat is an Egyptian pediatrician who has a clinic at the nearby Rainbow Center. We take our kids there, but often go ourselves because he is always available and we can get diagnosed and treated quite quickly there.

He said in his Egyptian accent, “Vell, ve can vait or we can start you on injectable antibiotics.” I cringed. The word ‘injectable’ is never something I like to hear a doctor to say. But ‘injectable antibiotic’ makes me think of WW II battlefield amputations, and grown men screaming in pain. I was hoping he would opt to wait, and I even suggested getting a culture or something before beginning, but he seemed set on going ahead as soon as possible. “a course of 5 should do to begin and we can decide whether to continue after that.”

My fears about pain were completely borne out when he pulled out a large syringe with an enormous needle and began mixing some powder and liquid in a sterile bottle then filling the syringe with an enormous dose of what looked like a mucousy glop. I knew that a needle that large was only going to go in one place and the only choice I was given was which side I wanted for dose #1. I can say, this daily trip to the doctor was something I only looked forward to getting over with the past 5 days. By day 3 my buttocks was hurting far more than my throat, which I took to be a sign of improvement/ I am happy to report that I received my last dose this morning, and my throat seems fine. I should be able to sit down comfortably by this Wednesday as well.

Because of the illness, I was not able to swim this past week either. It was sad to miss it, but Rebecca and I actually needed a lot of extra work time this week because of work. In our yearly planning cycle it was the deadline week for submitting concept papers for new projects that may be supported by certain dedicated funds at MCC. We did manage to get 5 of our partners to turn proposals in, though this meant a tremendous amount of revision and interpreting by us. We actually worked late into the night on Friday to get the last ones in. We did feel some sense of accomplishment in completing these projects; now we just have to wait and see.

We also had another very short-term visitor on Thursday. Joseph Sibusiso, a man from Swaziland was in Gitega teaching at a peace conference sponsored by one of our partners. On his way back home, passing through Bujumbura, he stayed the night with us. Despite the fact that we spent most of the evening sitting in darkness, he did share some interesting stories about life in Swaziland and his work as a peace-worker. We were glad to be able to provide him some hospitality and were thankful once more for our comfortable guestrooms.

Probably the worst news was the theft that happened in our car last Tuesday. I was feeling pretty bad in the afternoon, so Rebecca took the kids to the park without me. While there, she did not notice that one of the back windows was slightly open, just enough for a thief to reach in with something and open a door. Long story short, she came back to the car to find that a Leatherman tool and my ipod (with radio transmitter) were stolen as well as the console on the drivers’ armrest that controls power windows and locks. Because of the theft of the latter, all movement of windows was impossible.

The ipod was a particularly unfortunate loss for me, because you cannot replace something like that here AND I had just started using it for my ballet class. It was also nice for long trips and part of our arsenal of things to entertain the kids with when we were stuck in a long meeting somewhere.

The console is another story. We went to our mechanic to have it replaced the next day and he went to a used part shop, who in turn went to the black market district to look for a small specialty used part like this. Within a matter of hours we had bought back our own console for about $80. It is honestly hard to know what to do in this situation. To buy a new one would have been very expensive, and probably not available anywhere in Burundi, but to buy back one on the black market (especially the very one that was stolen) just supports the economy of crime that is growing around here rapidly. We are beginning to be more and more resigned to the fact that parts will be stolen off our car like gas caps, mirrors, etc. despite all our efforts to thwart the criminals. We have been victims of this kind of crime at least 7 times in the last year.

Despite the loss of the ipod, ballet went pretty well on Thursday. I burned a couple cds from itunes. I now have 27 students in the young kids class and about 15 in the older class. The former is a kind of barely controllable chaos, but I am handling it OK. The hard thing is the culture of childcare among Europeans and Burundians, which seems cavalier compared to how protective we are at home. Parents drop their kids off at the school gate (or send their drivers to do so). Most have not even gone in to see what I look like or where the class room is. They also come to pick up the kids late and don’t seem to care what they do after class is over. In the US, I feel like an unattended child doing their own thing for more than 5 minutes is a school emergency.

I have to say, I would appreciate a bit more parental interest for the sake of order if nothing else.

I am enjoying the teaching as a divertissement though, and this week I taught the older girls a short variation from Swan Lake.

I mentioned Friday being the day we finished the concept papers late into the evening, and Saturday a quiet day of rest which included our bi-weekly luncheon with our other missionary friends. We were at Stephan and Tanja’s house this week, our German friends.

By Saturday evening Oren was running a high fever, so we had a family movie night at home. Sunday we also spent at home taking care of Oren. We are hoping he will be feeling better by tomorrow; otherwise it is off to the doctor for malaria tests.


I mentioned last week that Rebecca would fill you in a bit about the ‘dot’ she attended and what the ceremony was about. Keep us in prayer as we work through these few weeks of difficulties.


Paul mentioned that I attended a “Dot” ceremony (pronounced Daught, meaning Dowry) last weekend. I wanted to describe this fascinating tradition a little. We have known for some months now that our young friends Jean Claude and Francine intended to get married. But normally, here in Burundi, there is not much publicity about a dating relationship until the couple in question knows they want to marry. The Dot is an important milestone: asking for the permission of the families. According to tradition, the young man would go with his father and other family representatives to visit the family of the girl. The girl’s family would receive them graciously and offer them drinks (usually banana beer). And then they would embark on an elaborate, circuitous discussion about the purpose of this visit. Usually there was some discourse concerning the merits of a fine cow, aka, the sought-after daughter of the household. “You are most welcome, and we hope you will feel comfortable and stay as long as you wish. But is there anything that you would like from us?” “No, we just appreciate visiting you…” “But really, can’t we give you anything as a gift while you are here?” “Well, we have seen a certain beautiful cow in your family’s pasture…” “Is it this one? Are you sure you didn’t mean a different one, etc…” An urban Dot is not a spontaneous visit, but a well-planned and orchestrated ceremony, modeled after the traditional rural custom. I picked up our three SALT volunteers, and we helped to represent Jean Claude’s family. First we waited for him, along with other “Kinsmen” at the new home he will share with Francine. We had a big vehicle, so we chauffeured three young ladies and six huge baskets filled with the traditional gifts Claude’s family was bringing to sweeten his request for Francine’s hand. The baskets contained beans, grains, sugar and other staples. Then we drove to a location near Francine’s big sister’s house and waited for the call to know that they were ready to welcome us. When we arrived, we found a large canopy set up completely blocking the street in front of the house. On the inside, two sets of couches and tables were set up facing each other, and one wall of the tent was decorated with fabric, animal skin rugs and baskets. Francine’s ‘family’ was all seated in rows of chairs facing us. We sat down in opposite rows of chairs, and almost immediately, young men came with crates of fantas and we all enjoyed a cold drink. Next the series of speeches began and the exchange unfolded over the course of nearly an hour. Jean Claude’s representative was another young family member (his father died while he was a baby), and essentially he expressed that Jean Claude had been suffering from a great sickness lately, which would only be cured if he could come and ask to marry Francine. The gift baskets were presented. Various dances and songs were interspersed between episodes of the discussion. Finally, several young ladies came out of the house, the last one being Francine. There was an amusing episode, where the family tried to marry another sister off to Jean Claude, but he persisted, and he gave his big monetary gift to the counterfeit bride, in order to be able to finally greet Francine. Now the prospective couple was allowed to sit together. Symbolic gifts were exchanged: a ring for Francine and a cane and Bible for Jean Claude. Gourds of banana beer were passed around, and the guests took turns taking a sip from straws. Alcohol seals the deal in this culture. Actually to be honest, I wasn’t able to take a sip, so I don’t really know what was in the gourds. At the moment they were being passed, I was struggling with David, trying to get him tied onto my back, without totally dismantling the imvutano dress I was wearing for the occasion. I do know that Claude and Francine worked very hard to make this Dot as much of a teetotalers event as possible, because of their convictions, but it’s possible they couldn’t totally rule out the sipping-from-gourd ritual. All in all, this was a fairly short ceremony by Burundian standards. We were done by 7:30 pm. But as part of Claude’s “family,” and as the appointed transporters of gift baskets (which had been returned filled with similar but different staple foods), we were “implicated” (as we say in French), up until the very end. So, we joined the extended family for a final festive drink at a local cabaret. As Jean Claude explained, he prevailed on his family to keep the Amstels away from the actual Dot ceremony, but he couldn’t totally prevent them from enjoying a beer after the festive occasion. Actually, I was glad to be involved in this final stop of the evening. I would never have gone into a local beer garden like this one for any other reason. And it also gave me a chance to hear about Claude’s hard work to include his father’s extended family in the event (he had just become acquainted with them) without alientating the relatives of his late mother who raised him. It’s beautiful to see how this new marriage has brought about the work of reconciliation from old wounds. So now, with parents’ permission in hand, the wedding is planned for November 7th.