First week in Burundi!

I am sorry we have been so incommunicado in the past week. I was worried about getting this blog entry up. We have not had any chance to connect up to the internet at all since we have been here. We will have access at home when we move into our house, and at the office when we are there. But right now we are staying at a guest room at an orphanage so we cannot get internet access.

We have been extremely busy though. We have been setting up house staff for our house, meeting MCC partners, MCC staff here, being extensively debriefed about program focus from the current Reps. Doug and Deanna Hiebert, setting up childcare for Oren, meeting other people, and much more. I have to say we are pretty overloaded at this point and there is no end to this pace for at least a week which is all we have with the current country reps.

I am trying to think of how to communicate all of the immediate impressions I am having about the place. I will say that my first impression coming off the plane was very favorable! We came in on a Kenya Air Boeing 777 from Kigali Rwanda. Bujumbura's airport is one of those small open air low tech affairs. So we got to come down a staircase from the plane right by the engine and crossed the tarmac to immigration and customs. I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning :-) VERY OLD SCHOOL! I am also trying to notice more than the obvious differences. It does remind me very much of my childhood in Bangladesh. The sounds, smells, feeling like a bit of a curiosity when I am on the street or driving in a car-- but also the architecture of houses, the high walls around homesteads which look forbidding, but open into lush gardens, fragrant flora, the sounds of birds, and a house with open verandas and walls. Modest servant quarters in a small adjacent building, are found around back. Inside the floors are cool clean concrete, white walls, and we sleep under the gauzy haze of mosquito nets fluttering under the breeze of an electric fan.

The weather here is always in the 80s. Mangoes, bananas, papayas and pineapples are standard fare at every meal. Birds are striking, the crows all wear white feather vests and the starlings are brilliant blue. We had a small reception at a nearby guest house with a lovely view of Lake Tanganyika (where you can watch hippo come up in the evenings). Oren enjoyed following an enormous box turtle and 2 crowned cranes that strutted around the property while we sat out on a lawn drinking passion fruit juice.
But outside the walls of the compound where we will live the roads are partially paved at best, pot holes are the size of small bathtubs. We will be inheriting a Toyota Landcruiser and that should be helpful. The people are polite but reserved. Custom dictates that greeting with a handshake is very important and not to be ignored. The walled compounds, police with AK-47s, and the necessity for day and night security are reminders that this has been a country mired in conflict and that there is a wariness about violence erupting again.

I am getting reschooled in my college French in every conversation. Right now I am the translator for Rebecca and I in our conversations with our childcare worker Denise. She is a nice young woman with high school education. She does not, however, speak English, only french and kirundi. Rebecca is also beginning to pick it up. Fortunately there are those who speak English and in our meetings with several MCC partners we have had a chance to get to speak to some of them in English.

The MCC team in Rwanda/ Burundi will be comprised of Rebecca and I, two service workers and our program administrator Zachee. Brandon does reforestation work with a partner called Help Channel, and Jody will be working in school with the Batwa (pygmy people) in Burundi. We have had a few gatherings with them and it has been good to meet them. Zachee is a Godsend to MCC and us as new Country Reps. He has been here since the beginning and speaks English, French, and Kirundi well. He also knows this program like the back of his hand. He has a 3 yo named Timothy who I think will be a good friend of Oren.

I have also had the opportunity to meet several of our partners. I am becoming deeply appreciative of our mission as I meet some of these men and women. Several strike me as young Nelson Mandelas. Passionate visionaries with a heart to transform Burundi. They have staked out bold initiatives at doing reconciliation work in areas of tribal conflict, refugee camps, and Churches (a place of marked ethnic strife here.).

I am trying to get this up on Saturday morning so you can read it before Sunday. The good news is that once we are in our permanent residence we will have regular, decent speed, internet connectivity. Skype anyone?

Here is a picture of our new house in Bujumbura...NOT! Actually it is a traditional house at a culture museum we visited. It was next to a reptile museum where you can see crocodiles and poisonous snakes. For a dollar you can feed a guinea pig to one of them. (We passed on that.)

Last Night in America!

I have just put Oren to bed at 'Grandma Jean's and Papa Dave'' house for the last time. He was noticeably quiet and reserved. He had spent several hours before running around with his cousin's Miriam and Gabriel, but as we prepared for bath and bed, I talked about this being our last night in America he said again he missed his red house and was feeling sad about it.

So tomorrow is our last day here. We will go to church with my parents and do a mission moment, then have lunch, finish packing and head off to Dulles airport. Our flight leaves at 9:30pm.

This week has been a good last week. We received 6 new suitcases as an anniversary present and have been packing them. What does one take in 6 suitcases for a 5 year trip. Legos, for one thing, as well Winnie the Pooh and a stuffed elephant, and a d0zen dvds. It is great to have an ipod, by the way because I have about 100 CDs to take along.

We did alot of visiting this week. We saw my brother Jonathan and his son Fletcher who is about the same age as Oren. Here they are at the zoo in Baltimore. (No that is not a giant Burundian tortoise!)

We also met an old friend of mine, Jeff Kenney at the Smithsonian in DC. We had lunch and Oren got to ride the metro. That was his favorite part. Jeff, who does alot of international travel warned us that theft from baggage was so out of control in Nairobi and Johannesburg that putting any valuables in checked luggage was tantamount to throwing it away. So we have had to think carefully about what we are stowing where. Rebecca is very strategic and we have at least one or two outfits in every bag, so if some don't arrive we can still change our underwear.

Part of my spiritual preparation for leaving in the past month has been to run 8 miles per day in the mid morning. I precede it with a morning devotional. It has been very helpful to focus and I have been praying for many of you as I run. I feel I have heard God's voice when I run, as well as face some of my deepest anxieties about this next step. Right now I am at peace with my anxiety.

Last night I stayed up late and watched Hotel Rwanda. It is one of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen. To think that we will be trying to bring peace to a nation in which 1,000,000 people were macheteed death in a civil war is daunting. We also started taking Larium, our antimalarials. One of the bad side affects to be on the lookout for is hallucinations, anxiety, nighmares and psychotic episodes. After the movie, I don't know if I will be able to tell the drug reaction from my state of mind. I do know that one of the projects we are involved with in Rwanda is a program to help reintegrate some of the perpetrators of these acts back into their neighborhoods. With my human eyes it is hard to imagine what reconcilliation would look like in the face of the magnitude of the crime and the unbelievable number of people involved in perpetrating it.

I think I will bring Out of Africa to watch on the plane to get a less morose perspective on this move.

Rebecca is looking more and more pregnant and Oren talk regularly about his little brother (who he still calls Banjo). Rebecca is also feeling some anxiety about the discomfort of air travel. Please pray that this will not be too much of a problem.

I have really enjoyed hearing from many of you. Please keep us in your prayers this week. We will be landing in Bujumbura on July 22nd after 2 days of travel. We will be starting a new job in a new language almost immediately.

Leadership Training is done and Oren's Birthday

This past week we finished our last week of leadership training in Akron, PA. I feel as prepared as I think is possible for this assignment without being there yet. The last week we focused on strategic planning, as we will need to define the direction for the Burundi program in the next 5 years. MCC is focused primarily on working with local partners in the country where they serve, and our work in Burundi is focused on peace-making training, and 'capacity building'. Among the partners we work with are several associated with the Evangelical Friends Church in Rwanda, Burundi, and Eastern Congo. We have a worker supporting programs involved in reforestation in a food-for-work initiative, and a teacher working with the ba-twa (pygmy tribe) in Burundi. The Country (Burundi) is the poorest in the world. They are still emerging from a devastating civil war. AIDS and very high fertility contribute to the challenges they face. 50% of the population is under 15. I pray that we might be able to walk with those who are struggling and have integrity about the ways we reach out to them. Please make prayer for the people of Burundi a part of your prayers for us. On our last day in Akron, we had a commissioning ceremony as part of a morning chapel service. Rebecca and I helped lead worship and we did a 'song and dance' presentation. She played and sang "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me" and I danced. It was very well received! It was a blessing to share as part of the leadership training experience.

On a different note: We got back to Baltimore this past Thursday night and celebrated Oren's Birthday on Friday (a bit late, but he can't read a calendar yet). It was really the Birthday of his dreams as trains was the theme, and he received 4 treasured gifts that he loves!

• The movie The Polar Express (which he had but watched it until it wore out.)
• A Polar Express Brio engine and coal car
• A picture of a diesel engine going down the track in the Hudson River Valley (Heidi Espinoza took it.)
• A little rolling suitcase to carry his toys to Africa.
  
• He also got a Thomas the Tank Engine Birthday cake that amazed him!
  

Here is a picture of his Thomas cake. I am glad he enjoyed this. He really misses New York. He talks about playing with Asa and Pastor Bob often. And he wishes he could go to his red house. Yesterday, he asked us, "What is God's name?" We told him, "Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit." He replied, "I want to call God 'house.'" We do pray that Oren will be able to find spiritual security in this time of transition, in his insightful, three-year-old way.

Today we have been unloading our pod, which arrived this morning. Everything seems intact. Thanks again to all who helped us pack! We have less than 2 weeks to go before we leave the US...

Two Weeks Down, One to Go

Today is Oren's Birthday, in case you did not know. But we are going to celebrate it on July 4th as he is currently in Baltimore with Grandma Jean and we are here in Akron, PA doing our 3rd week of training. This week was not particularly different than last week. Our sessions in training focused on conflict management. We also heard about priorities in International Programs for MCC. Peace education and capacity building within our local partnerships is a priority. There are also dedicated resources for AIDS, Water, Food Security, and Peace, Education. We also had a chance to look at a review of the last 5 years of the program we are inheriting in Rwanda / Burundi, with some work in Eastern Congo.

Over the weekend we went and saw Oren in Baltimore. He was having a great time because Grandma Jean has an EXCELLENT train set. He is looking forward to a Polar Express Birthday.

I should mention that on the way back to training on Sunday, we met Sarah Carlson and her partner Steve at the Brandywine Museum in Brandywine PA to see the Wyeth exhibit. (www.brandywinemuseum.org/) It was very cool There were 3 generations of Wyeth painting. N.C Wyeth, who did the illustrations fro Treasure Island, and Kidnapped, Andrew Wyeth, who you might know for his amazing paintings, and James Wyeth, his son. While we were there, Andrew Wyeth's granddaughter gave us a tour. It was very interesting to hear about the paintings from her point of view. Here is a picture of one of his paintings for you to admire.

First Week of Training down, 2 weeks to go

I am committed to getting at least one post per week. We are counting down the weeks to our day of departure. We have been in training for our position at a leadership conference at the MCC headquarters in Akron, PA. We are here in a retreat center setting with about 20 other people learning the ins and outs of the job, the mission of MCC, anabaptist theology (and our commitment to pacifism), structure, budgets, and much more. It is a bit daunting.

Oren seems to be adapting well, although we made a brief visit back to Poughkeepsie over the weekend to say goodbye to the youth at our church and he had a chance to see his house empty. He was quite surprised. In one particularly insightful moment, he asked a little girl at our church if she would come to Africa with him, and when she said she couldn't he began sobbing. I told him it would be OK and he said: "No its not, no one is coming with me!" For a 2 year old to grasp the finality of this visit and our move, seemed wise beyond his years.

We are back in Akron now, and Oren will be going to spend a week and a half with his grandparents in Baltimore. If any of you want to find out more about the organization we are working for, you can read about it at http://www.mcc.org

Here is a picture of Oren at the MCC training facility.

Commisioning and Last Day in Poughkeepsie

I am writing this entry from Akron PA where we will begin our leadership training tomorrow. But I want to backtrack and talk about our last week in Poughkeepsie. I will begin with last Sunday when we went to services at PUMC for the last time. It was quite extraordinary! During the service, I performed a dance to the song When Its All Been Said and Done. I used a section of Psalm 116 to introduce it:

How can I repay the Lord for all He has done for me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord
I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.

I felt like the dance represented a setting aside of that career in pursuit of a calling He has placed upon me. The act of obedience and sacrifice, undertaken joyfully. It was a blessing to perform it in the service.

After church there was a huge commissioning luncheon for us. All of our friends were there AND our parents, who came up from Baltimore. Rebecca's and my contributions were recognized. We have never felt so loved, cared about and prayed for, in all our life!!!

We officially left Poughkeepsie on Wednesday morning. It was an interesting departure though. The night before we left there was a terrible storm and 2 trees blew down in our backyard. They knocked down the power lines and cable. It was a terrible mess! We had to call a tree service and the electric co. then head out of town. There was little we could do. As we drove down 84 West we hit a huge rock that fell off a truck and popped a tire. We had to exit and spent about 3 hours trying to find a place to get a replacement. It was challenging, but we took it all in stride, imagining how we would cope with these types of trials in Burundi where tree services and service stations would be far more difficult to come by. I am sure they do not have AAA either.

We enjoyed several days of relaxation in Baltimore and arrived in Akron, PA this evening.

Goodbyes and Shots

I did my last day at Vassar this past Friday. I felt good about the way I left things. I wrote a manual for my job. Director of the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre. It was a digital document about 50 pages long with another 100 pages of hyperlinks. It was very interesting to review my work the past 8 years so systematically. I also created a new VRDT website. http://dance.vassar.edu/vrdt/. All links connected to that page (except the VC Dance website) were created by me. I was very pleased with the way it came out. I really felt I left well.

There were several surprise parties in my honor. The best was one the VRDT dancers and Kathy Wildberger threw. I was literally kidnapped from choir practice at my church by 2 dancers and taken blindfolded back to Vassar. There was a huge party with live music in one of the studios. It was wild!

The past week Oren, Rebecca and I have been getting vaccinated for Burundi. I have had, tetanus, diptheria, menegititis, hep A and B, yellow fever, typhoid, some of them are a series. Oren has had all this and a rabies series as well. We also have prescriptions for antimalarials. The warning about possible side affects include psychotic behavior. Hmmm. We will have to be on the lookout for that.

This weekend we do our final packing of our storage pod and send it to Balitmore. Then we are off to Akron, PA for leadership training.

Oh yeah, the great news is that we have an offer on our house!