Dreaming of Congo and The Valley of Dry Bones

This entry is definitely going up late, (so I am sorry to all faithful readers.) This is my second week back in Baltimore and I am happy to report that things are going very well with David Henry. He is a very mellow baby. (likes to sleep).

Oren is also loving spending time at his grandparents house. And it is really nice to be here through the fall and holidays. Rebecca and I realized that this will be the last time we see winter for 5 years. When we return to Burundi we will not be home for 2 and a half years (home leave for 2 months), and when we do come back it will almost certainly be in the summer. So we are enjoying the fall with a real appreciation of this country that has these beautiful seasons.

Not much to report from Burundi. I am in regular contact with Zachee who is manning the fort in MCC and he seems to be doing well. He has moved everything to our new office now and is working on getting a decent internet connection.

I am also in regular contact with our partners in Congo. I have not talked about them a lot but we partner with two organizations just across the border in Bukavu. It is very close to Bujumbura but also very close to Goma—the city that has been under siege by General Nkunda’s rebel forces. Congo has been very much on my mind as it has been in the news for the last two weeks—twice on the front page of the New York Times. (see story) The problems there impact us greatly in Rwanda and Burundi as we are experiencing a great spill over of refugees as a result of the fighting. The situation is a tragic mess, and at this time prayer is the only answer I could suggest. (Although it would help if Congo would make more of a commitment to security and law enforcement on it Eastern border.)

The fact that there is a tremendous amount of mineral wealth in the region, really exacerbates the problem. And there are many militias and even government soldiers who are fighting for control of territory and riches, not unlike street gangs fighting for drug trafficking territory.

The real victims are women and children who are raped by the thousands or conscripted into the army. It is truly a reign of lawless terror there. I am including a map of the Great Lakes region of Africa so you can see the area and our proximity to it. (Goma is just above Lake Kivu and Bujumbura is near the top of Lake Tanganyika)

I confess it is strange to be sitting in such a comfortable setting and enjoying the beauty of the season and the loving care of our families and yet feeling strangely restless to return, to the suffering and need, the heat, the bad roads, the challenges of language, but close to brothers and sisters who need us now. I do not feel like I am home here anymore, eventhough I feel embraced and pampered here, my heart is in Central Africa right now. I think we will all be ready to go when it is time. Oren does talk fondly about his friends, and especially his nanny Denise who he really likes. I do pray that David will not be exposed to to much illness in his infancy but there will be some risk of that—particularly malaria.

The reason this blog is so late is that I have done a ton of writing this week. Rebecca and I presented two programs this week, one for my parents’s Baptist Church and one for North Baltimore Mennonite where Rebecca is a member. I did a powerpoint show for the former and a sermon for the latter. I can tell you I spent many hours writing at the computer right through Sunday morning. So that is why this is late. For your interest (and posterity) I am posting the sermon if you want to read it.—If you don’t I won’t be offended. The gist of it is that the causes of poverty are spiritual and not material. It somewhat explains the approach that MCC takes to its development strategy. If you are interested in mission work you might find it interesting.


Imagining a good future:
(Sermon Preached by Paul Mosley at North Baltimore Mennonite Church, 11/16/2008)

Read Ezekiel 37:1-14 The Valley of Dry Bones

I want to begin by saying what an honor it is to be here in this place today to share with you all. My wife Rebecca is a member here, and we have many fond memories of being here in the past. Particularly on July 12, 2003 when we were married.

For those of you who do not know us well, Rebecca and I are Country Representatives for MCC in Rwanda and Burundi. We live there with our son Oren will return in Jan with our new son David as well. This is a new assignment for us, one we began in July of this year. Prior to that I had had a career as a performing artist, dancer and choreographer and was teaching at Vassar College, Rebecca is a graduate of Regent seminary and was working as a pastor of youth ministries in a Methodist Church in Poughkeepsie NY.

Our decision to enter the field of mission and development with MCC as we begin raising a young family can only be explained as an act of faith that came out of our love of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we do trust that his timing is perfect.

Rebecca and I will be sharing the pulpit today, I will be laying the groundwork and she will be relating some stories from our experiences in Rwanda and Burundi that illustrate our points.

Let me speak a moment to our selection of the passage this morning. The Ezekiel passage was put on my heart very shortly after our arrival in Burundi. We took a trip up to Rwanda and stopped at a genocide memorial where the skeletal remains of over 9000 people are kept in a church where they were slaughtered in 1994. The question “Son of man, can these dry bones live again?” rung in my ears the whole time. I imagined how Ezekiel must have felt as he witnessed the valley of dry bones of his countrymen, --

Something weird about me: I am a person who has a great love of the Prophetic writings—I read them often, for fun. I find the prophetic imagination intriguing. Perhaps it is the prophetic flair for dramatic and creative spontaneity that speaks to me as an artist. (You know the prophets were the performance artists of their day, Ezekiel, for instance, laid on his left side for 380 days then flipped over on his right side for 40 more just to prove a point!) But Ezekiel has particular interest for me now as I find myself working in a country that has been effectively been under siege for the past 14 years.

Ezekiel was prophecying during the Bablylonian siege of Jerusalem. The siege lasted several years during which time he prophecied furiously against Judah until it was finally overrun by the Babylonians. His language is far harsher than mine, but the message through this time of the siege was basically this: Resisitance is Futile! There is no military solution for the Israelites. Judah will be defeated, Jerusalem will fall and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

The causes however were never attributed to Babylon’s military superiority, but rather to Judah’s spiritual condition. Judah had turned from away from God, sacrificed its children in fire to idols, forsaken its widows and orphans, made a mockery of justice, and abandonned their role as examplar Yahweh’s Holiness.

But despite all his forwarnings of gloom and doom, it is important to understand that Ezekiel was not a cynic! Deeply pessimistic, yes, but not cynical. He did not see himself as apart from or above, but very much a part of his nation. He took tremendous personal risks to condemn the direction his nation was heading and to try to get them to change course

The other amazing thing about him to me, is that despite his dire prophecies and pessimism about the present, his vision of the future was irrationally, almost perversely optimistic and hopeful. This is beautifully expressed in his vision of the Valley of Dry Bones.

This vision would have come well after the siege of Jerusalem was over, the demolition of the nation of Israel was complete, its armies slaughtered--its people, those who survived, were carried off into slavery in Babylon.

In the vision Ezekiel finds himself in the valley of dry bones. The bones of his people.
The special care to remark not just on the fact that all that is left of Israel’s army is bones, but VERY DRY bones, amplifies the existential fact of the situation. This is beyond hope.

But what is particularly intriguing about this scene is what happens next. God asks Ezekiel a question: Son of man, can these dry bones live again? That is my favorite part of the whole passage. God’s question to him and us: Son of man, can these dry bones live again? I find it intriguing because it seems like a test—a test of faith, or perhaps of Ezekiel’s willingness to hope. What is the right answer? What would you say if God asked you about a seemingly hopeless situation--say the conflict in Congo, or Afghanistan? It seems like both yes and no are problematic.

Yes--contradicts everything that empirical experience would have shown Ezekiel or us. Dry bones do not come back to life, even children know that. Right?

On the other hand, NO, is a refutation of faith, and even worse, an abdication of hope. Isn’t anything possible for God?

Ezekiel’s answer seems like the only answer that walks the humble line between hope and skepticism and I believe instructs us about an attitude we might adopt in our hearts in the face of a seemingly impossible situation. “Sovereign Lord, You Know,”

Then God proceeds to lay out his development strategy for the restoration of the country. Notice he does not start with a loan from the World Bank, a strategic alliance, a generous aid package, or even Doctors Without Borders.

He says: son of man Preach to these dry bones, say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’

The problem with the dry bones, the underlying cause of their current condition, is spiritual, and the restoration is for God first and foremost a spiritual one. The bones themselves in verse 11 even describe themselves as being without hope.

Ezekiel obeys God and then witnesses, in his vision, a miraculous restoration, the bones, tendons, flesh, and skin coming together, a renewal that begins at the sinews of each person, a healing that renews every individual, until they rise again together as a nation.

God again commands Ezekiel, again to propecy to them, so that his breath would enter them, I believe, in the passage, the breath symbolizes the restoration of unity and hope.

God’s word to the newly restored nation is this: “I will put my spirit in you and you will live and will settle in your own land.” I can imagine how the promise of returning to ones homeland would sound to the millions of refugees and internally displaced people in the great Lakes region of Africa. To those living as refugees and in an extended state of siege, this promise is truly a vision of salvation.

The passage is a poetic vision of the good future, written by one of the Bible’s great pessimists. It is invoked frequently in song and sermon by people who have been oppressed and yet hope for a better tomorrow. In our own cultural context it was a rallying cry for African Americans and probably best recalled in that song Them Bones Gonna Rise Tonight.

So how does this sound to someone living in Central Africa today? Does it have resonance in a region of the world mired in ethnic conflict and a scale of carnage rivaled only, in recent history by World War 2? Is it a realistic promise, or simply pie in the sky?

And what might it have to tell us working in Faith based development groups like MCC? Are there lessons for us today in our current context? A development strategy? Can we attribute much of what we see in terms of poverty and misery to spiritual privation, or are the problems related primarily to scarcity, and ignorance?

I can tell you what I know about Burundi: Rebecca and I arrived less than a month after a tenuous peace accord had been struck between various rebel groups to end, or at least pause, 14 years of civil war.

The chief rivalry is between two ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. While the conflict was exacerbated by colonialism which supported the minority elite Tutsi over the Hutu, it would be naïve to attribute its bloody history entirely to the abuses of colonialism.

Bujumbura, the capital city where Rebecca and I live, looks like a city that has been under siege for years. The infrastructure is badly damaged and does not look like there has been any effort to repair it. Outside the city many buildings and homes are in ruins, obviously the result of explosives or fire.

For a country no bigger than the State of Maryland, it has the distinction of being on many indexes, the poorest country in the world. In GDP, per capita income it is at the bottom. It has an out of control birthrate, high infant mortality, low life expectancy, land scarcity, and an HIV infection rate between 7 and 10 percent. Despite all this, violent death from the eruption of ethnic conflict remains the most serious threat. I can tell you personally that there is not one person I have met among our local friends, partners and associates who has not had one or more family members murdered as a result of ethnic conflict.

It is honestly hard to know where to begin in all this, as a small Christian NGO. There is so much need…

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me,

"Son of man, can these dry bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."

Let me come back to the question: Is there a lesson for us as Christians who want to serve the poor and oppressed in mission work in this passage, perhaps even a strategy. As I have said, Ezekiel’s vision suggests that the problem for Israel was first and foremost a spiritual one. Well I can tell you that there is a growing consensus among development workers that Ezekiel really hit the nail on the head!

In the book Walking with The Poor, Bryant Meyers a long time director of World Vision suggests that faith based organizations need to take a wholistic approach to development and evangelism, and understand the spiritual underpinnings of poverty. He uses the term transformative development to describe this approach. In the book he claims that until recently development organizations have misunderstood the real causes of poverty.

Historically he explains, it was presumed that the difference between rich and poor nations was that rich nations had material resources and poor nations did not. (the haves and have nots) The solution therefore was to give things to poor countries. (That did not work- it is now common knowledge that giving things to countries can destroy local markets and entrepreneurs.) This strategy was revised in the 70s and 80s to identify the big difference as education not material resources. Ignorance was the problem and transfer of knowledge became the solution. But even transfer of knowledge alone we are seeing, has done little to alleviate poverty in the world and in fact, often has exacerbated inequity.

Meyers does a serious inquiry into the root causes of poverty, and his conclusion, based on his experience, is that (low and behold) poverty is first and foremost a spiritual problem not a material one, and will not be solved with material or even educational intervention alone. It requires, first and foremost, a spiritual transformation of individuals and society.

He eloquently demonstrates this in his observation that in fact,
in every poor nation there are in fact poor and non poor regions,
IN a poor region there are poor and non poor communities
In a poor community, there are poor and non-poor households
In a poor household, there are poor and non-poor individuals (usually women and children are most vulnerable.)

By contrast I would add that in rich nations there are rich and non rich regions
In rich regions, there are rich and non rich communities
In rich communities there are rich and non rich households
In rich households there are rich and non rich individuals.

His point is that transfer of wealth and even knowledge do not change the underlying structures of injustice inherent in all societies and consequently will not succeed in eliminating poverty!

His conclusion: Development needs to go hand in hand with a transformative ideology. A gospel that offers hope for the future, stands against injustice and offers to individuals and society, healing of malformed, divisive identities. Identities like tutsi, hutu, slave, free, white, black, even Catholic, and Protestant. By malformed identities, I mean identities that uphold the lie (the lie that underlies all other lies): that some people are more valuable than others.

“Son of man prophecy to these dry bones, tell them, hear the word of the Lord.”


We are blessed, in our short experience with MCC to have inherited a very thoughtfully developed program that has put the principles of transformative development theory into practice. Our work in Burundi and Rwanda is primarily in the area peace and reconciliation. There is a great need for this kind of work in this region, as I have explained before. It is a problem that touches everyone. As Anabaptists, we are uniquely qualified to offer expertise, in this area based in our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our strategy has been to identify exceptional, prophetic local Christian individuals who are working in the country and partner with them in their work. Despite the immense need, I am inspired daily by the commitment and hope, rooted in their faith, that inspires them to see ways they can transform society, against seemingly impossible odds. For them, it would be impossible to separate the work of peace and reconciliation from the Gospel of Christ, especially in the face of the terribly devisive malformed ethnic identities that have been the root of so much conflict.

Many of them came out of GBU the Francophone version of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. Their integrity and faith has been refined in the fires of ethnic conflict, and they have emerged courageous and with the integrity of those who know that they are alive today but for the grace of God and the calling to his purposes.

I am going to ask Rebecca to come up and tell you about several individuals who lead our partner organizations, both about their work, their character, and their faith.

Rebecca shares testimonies about several of our partners.

I would to close by telling you about a particular project organized by our partner in Rwanda called Friends Peace House.

They have created a prisoner reintegration project with a development component that I believe seeks to marry the gospel of peace with providing assistance for human need.

Many prisoners are being released from prison in Rwanda who had been convicted of crimes against humanity. As they come out, there is great anxiety for both them and victims of genocide. Prisoners fear revenge, victims fear prisoners will want to finish the genocide.

Friends Peach House sponsors 3 week workshops in which prisoners and victims meet together, share stories, ask for and offer forgiveness, reconcile to one another, pray together and hope together. At the end of the workshop they build houses for the most vulnerable participants. They build the houses together as a community. I have talked to these participants and they have told me how much these workshops have changed their lives. A prisoner told me he never understood the amount of prejudice he had grown up with. A survivor told me that he lived everyday of his life for 14 years in terror until the workshop. He came in terrified and bitter, but he came to realize “In order for me to have true peace, all must have peace.” He forgave the man who killed his family, they are friends now and are living in peace physical and spiritual. They also stand as a testimony to what the gospel looks like in practice. A restored individual, a restored community and maybe someday a restored nation.

It has been a privilege to witness the stirring of dry bones, the beginning of tendons and flesh attaching to joints because there are those bold enough to say to the dry bones: hear the word of the Lord.

Son of man, Can these dry bones live again?
Sovereign Lord, you know.

The Idea of America: A light to the Nations

“America America God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood,
From sea to shining sea.”

It was an unexpected blessing to be back in the USA for this historic election. I can thank David Henry’s marvelous timing for that. I am trying to write this blog with some sensitivity to the fact that many of my friends, for very good reasons, supported McCain. (Who really showed his statesmanship in his concession speech.) I don’t want to debate any issues at this time, but I would like to offer a perspective on this election from an American who is living overseas.

I can’t begin to tell you how interested everyone I met, in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya, were in this election the past 6 months. When people found I was American (often in a French African country you are presumed to be Canadian.) the topic would turn quickly to the election. Many of my friends and colleagues were stunned that a majority white country might elect a black candidate.

Democracy is a pretty cynical enterprise in many African countries (see Zimbabwe). On the one hand, elections are seen as a way to give one legitimacy in his claim to power (and rights to distribute the nation’s wealth to friends/clients.) , BUT elections are frequently not trustworthy, and certainly not a guarantee that even if someone loses, power will be transferred to the opposition. I can't tell you how unique we are in that respect--After an election, the ruling party does not have any legitimate claim to maintaining control. For many years in Rwanda and Burundi an elite minority was in power, but even when the majority finally gained legitimate power, it represented the interests of that tribal group at the expense of the other. (with murderous consequences-see Rwanda genocide 1994.)

Many Africans I met admire America, but are mostly attracted to the opportunity it offers to make money--(or borrow money really). They are familiar with the American ideals of freedom and democracy, but are understandably skeptical. They perceive elections in the US to be like their own--Even if people change, the ruling class stays in control--they can't conceive of a process that would actually give anyone an opportunity to win an election. They also see American ideals and values as something imposed by the ‘sword’ and upheld by financial power, rather than exemplified in our national or international conduct. (“Might makes right.” is perceived by them to be our national morality rather than “Liberty and Justice for All”.)

Understandably they were stunned that Obama was even a candidate, but did not think he would actually win--because ultimately elections are fixed (in their view).

This election was the single most symbolic act of THE IDEA OF AMERICA that I have ever seen in my life and it is resounding loudly in every country in Africa right now. It was a defining moment where our claims about democracy and opportunity in America became facts! We demonstrated unmistakably, the values we say we stand for! I kept thinking of God’s call to Israel in Isaiah to be “a light to the nations.” In the eyes of many, we said more about our ideals and values in this election than in any wars we have fought in the name of freedom.

My hope is that our example might begin to change the way that other nations, especially in Africa, conduct themselves. Perhaps tutsis and hutus will really begin looking beyond their own ethnic divisions and self interest in Rwanda and Burundi. Perhaps we will see the emergence of some legitimate democratic institutions in these countries that reflect a new found idealism, against the tide of cynicism that has been so much a part of politics as usual in sub-Saharan Africa.

Enough about American politics. I actually do not want this blog to be a political forum. But it is hard to avoid any conversation on politics at this time of year—so please forgive my indulgence.

On to Burundian politics:

This is a good time to recount this experience: I participated in a very interesting forum the week before I left Burundi on the role of Christians in politics in Burundi. It was led by Emmanuel Ndikumana, whom I have written about before. The forum had some very distinguished guests, I was sitting next to one of the two vice President’s of Burundi. (They have 2, one for each ethnic group here.) In Burundi, the question of Christians participating in politics is very controversial. This is because the largest and most influential protestant church in the country are the Pentecostals (that is Swedish Pentecostal.) The Pentecostals are quite conservative and do not believe Christians should be involved in politics at all, not even the electoral process. Submission to authorities is an important value, though, and participating in a general strike, for instance, is grounds for excommunication.

The Pentecostals here are big on excommunication and among the things one can be excommunicated for are:
1) drinking
2) being in a room or restaurant where someone is drinking
3) using fermented wheat for chicken feed
4) going to a wedding or celebration at another church. (Even if your own son is getting married for instance.)
5) moving or waving your hands during singing in church.
6) participating in politics
7) not tithing
8) asking questions about where the money is going

In short they are quite legalistic, and also the ‘frozen chosen’ since body movements are prohibited while worshipping. (They do speak and tongues and prophecy though.)

The Catholics, the other major religious group in Burundi, have a rich musical tradition and dance in the aisles during worship and sing beautiful, multipart hymns and praise songs in Kirundi.

This definitely may come as a surprise to us in the USA where we tend to think of Pentecostal Churches as more demonstrative in worship and Catholics as more staid. I also tend to think of conservative Christians as more politically active in the US, but not in Burundi. Again, a reminder that much of what we practice in our faith is rooted in culture rather than some universal Biblical mandate. (I am not being critical of any of this, the emergence of the practices in Burundi came out of very specific cultural contexts and made a lot of sense at the time. Alcoholism was a huge problem and the political process was suspect for good reason as well.)

Now, because of the influence of the Pentecostal Church, many Christians in Burundi still do not participate in politics for reasons of intimidation by church authorities. Changing attitudes is a difficult business. Emmanuel, who is the pastor of the church Rebecca and I belong to had been a pastor in the Pentecostal Church himself before being excommunicated for his involvement in politics. He is a prophetic voice for the moral obligations Christians have to be involved in civic life and to demonstrate Christian values in political office. This is quite radical in a place where ethnicity and corruption are business as usual in government.

Personal News:

Our family is admittedly still feeling a bit dislocated here as we await the date of our return to Burundi. (Jan 6th) We try to keep up with what is happening now back in Burundi, and I have to say it is a bit hard to be in the US right now with the problems in Congo. We live about 30 minutes away from the border in Eastern Congo, and Goma, the city under siege is quite close to us. I know that we wlll be seeing a tide of refugees coming into Rwanda and Burundi, and I would like to be working with our partners right now to coordinate a response and plan for the future. Right now, prayer is the best and only means we have to be mindful of the plight of our neighbors.

Rebecca and I will have the chance to raise consciousness about some of the issues in the area as we will be preaching or presenting at several churches in the next 2 weeks. I am hoping to be able to speak of the power of a Christian witness to address the problem of injustice that underlies so much of the poverty in these countries. We will speak at Valley Baptist on Monday, and North Balitmore Mennonite on the following Sunday.

Oren and David are doing very well. David, thus far is one of those really quiet, mellow babies. Hopefully he will stay that way. Oren, on the other hand, is definitely trying to make the adjustment to all the changes that are happening around him. The many changes of location are definitely disruptive to him being able to establish patterns. Since he is a great lover of order (as reflected in his love of trains) he is struggling with all the changes. He does enjoy playing with his cousins Miriam and Gabriel who live nearby. Here they are playing in the leaves. He and his cousins also visit the train museum here regularly, which is a real highlight for him.

Reverse Culture Shock, David Henry, and Halloween

A view of our bedroom in Bujumbura with baggage getting packed. Notice our stylish mosquito net hanging down from above.

When I left off last week it probably did not sound so good, and the good news is that I was due for a reversal of fortune. I endured my last 2 days in Burundi, recovered from the illness, and had a nice send off from our church and a dinner with Emmanuel Ndikumana our pastor. We had a fascinating conversation about what it means to be an expatriot in a place like Burundi. In a time of crisis, when does one stand in solidarity with one’s brothers, and when does one leave on account of security. Especially among Christians, he challenged me with the question: Can we rely on you? For Emmanuel the answer is that ultimately all friends (foreign and domestic) will fail us, but we can rely on the love of God and the mercy of his son through whom we can endure all things. He has been tested more than once in this regard.

I left the next morning, after a late night packing. (Ultimately I just threw one suitcase inside another since I went with pretty much nothing.) All my clothes here are not suitable for fall or winter in the USA. I did my best to prepare all staff salaries, and other house business for Isaac before going. I feel like I left more things untied than completed—but I was not missing that plane.


The route went from Bujumbura to Nairobi (short) where I spent 14 hours in the transit lounge (photo here) before leaving for Zurich. That was a lot of time to kill and fortunately I found a wireless hotspot and updated my Facebook account, chatted with friends and wrote a good friend (Republican Christian) a long argument about why she must vote for Obama for President. (Don’t get me started please.) But the time did pass.



The flight to Zurich was overnight on SwissAir and relatively comfortable. I spent another 5 hours in transit in Zurich. This was a mad clean airport! I walked around and had a $20 Continental Breakfast. Finally I boarded United for my last leg- the flight to Dulles airport. This flight was not very smooth, and after 30 hours of travel I was definitely over it. But the nasty little surprise at the end was the worst. A front had come into Dulles just prior to our approach and we had severe crosswinds as we landed. I don’t think I can remember a landing that was that scary in my life. In order to keep the plane going in a straight line to the runway, it was tilted at an angle that made the wing look like it would hit the runway first. The landing was rough and uneven and rocked us back and forth a lot. It was definitely the last straw for me after many rough weeks without my family. But it was over and I was back. Oren was waiting for me at the airport and it was awesome to see him. (The photo here shows how dark the sky was when we landed.)


Culture Shock: It is strange how much more affected I have been, even in this short a time, by reverse culture shock, than by my experiences of life in Burundi.

I almost forgot:

1) that October is not uncomfortably hot here.
2) the highways are smooth, well maintained, and all cars don’t smell like diesel fuel
3) that the air is not dusty and polluted
4) that I can drive down the street in town and not feel like I am going to hit a three year old walking alongside the road.
5) what raw apples, lettuce, fresh milk, and chicken meat tastes like.
6) that refrigerators keep food cold here.
7) sugar is not brown and full of rocks
8) ants on all the food in the kitchen is not just a way of life
9) you can drink and brush your teeth with tap water.
10) I don’t have to pay my dishwasher.
11) all beds don't have mosquito nets
12) the contents of a toilet should disappear when flushed.
13) jogging is not an extreme sport involving diving out of the way of motorcycles.
14) driving ≠ sweating

All in all, it is a bit disconcerting, the prospect of being here for 2 months in the beginning of this assignment. There is a way in which forgetting all of these things is important in order to the work there and being reminded means having to readjust. This time we will be returning in the cold of winter. The last time we went it was mid summer, so the difference will be even more pronounced.

What is great though is seeing family and planning to visit friends. That is what I love most about here and Burundi. We have developed a close group of friends there even in this short time, but we also have so many loved ones here who we are excited about seeing us. Here are some dates for those of you to be aware of:

We are in US together from Oct. 29-Jan 6, 2009.
We will be based in Baltimore but will plan a visit to the Hudson River Valley between November 20-24th. I will be at Final Showings at Vassar on the 20th and 21st and at PUMC on the 23rd. Rebecca’s cell is 845-891-4580 if you want to coordinate with us.

Since Rebecca and I are reunited again, I asked her to write a mom’s eye view of the delivery of our Son DAVID HENRY MOSLEY! Take it away Rebecca--

We were relying on some split-second timing around our baby’s birth. Much to our surprise and delight, everything worked out according to plan. Paul arrived home safely on Tuesday and had a little time (probably too little time) to get reconnected with Oren and me before we left for the hospital on Wednesday morning.

It is truly a surreal experience to give birth to a child by a scheduled c-section. I just showed up at the hospital, filled out paperwork, and was prepared for the operation. Within a matter of 10 minutes after entering the OR, the doctors were pulling David Henry out into the light. One of the first comments about him: “he has big hands!” The process of closing me back up was not as pleasant. But on the good side, a nurse positioned a mirror so that I could watch as our new son was cleaned up across the room (a much better choice than looking up at the reflection on the light above me, which showed what the docs were doing to me!). I was grateful to be so much more alert this time and able to enjoy the first minutes and hours of David’s life.

It has been a great blessing to deliver this child in Baltimore. David was welcomed and held by all his immediate relatives here within a day of his birth. His two grandfathers were really touched at meeting their little namesake. Paul and I definitely feel that Papa Dave and Grampa Henry are great role models for our son, not just because of their professional medical achievements but because of the kind of choices they’ve made in their lives to use their training for the benefit of the poor and their characters as loving fathers and husbands.

Paul and I have had to split duties between David and Oren. Oren has needed more attention from his dad in this process. He’s come to the hospital for several short visits, and he thinks his little brother is pretty fascinating…but not quite as interesting as the toy subway car David gave him to celebrate his big brotherhood. I have, of course, stayed in the hospital to recover, and have actually enjoyed the quiet time to get to know our new son. He is such a sweet, undemanding child so far. It’s wonderful to just watch him sleep. For a newborn, he spends a remarkable amount of time looking around contentedly with open eyes. I’ve had Paul and both grammas stay overnight with me on different nights and I’m grateful to have so many loving family members around to support us.

Last week, before David was born, good friends of our family, the Bollingers, hosted a baby shower for us. It was so special to spend that time with extended family, good friends, and long-time friends from the church where I grew up. People were so generous in giving us practical gifts and cute new clothes for David. One gift was a fun little pumpkin blanket and pumpkin socks. Grammy Bunny and I couldn’t resist dressing him up last night and taking him for a walk down the hall of the maternity ward (and I’m glad that I’m already able to be up and walking around).

Back to Paul…

The last real experience of culture shock worth noting was going to Oren’s preschool to witness a Halloween parade. I am a new dad who has not set foot in a preschool until now. (Oren just started here. When he returns he will continue with the only difference being that it will be entirely in French.) Being surrounded by parents, flashing cameras and overly excited children was a pretty traumatic experience, especially when my little elephant boy sat down in the middle of it all and picked his nose incessantly for all of the group shots. (It is interesting to note that nose picking in public is acceptable behavior in Burundi, and one will see it often in the middle of a formal dinner, church service or business meeting.) I guess he is still trying to make cultural adjustments too.

Africa Wins Again!

OK…where to begin. For those of you who follow this regularly, you know I am publishing late this week. I will try to describe the last week to you and the reason for that. I do want to start by saying that I am not a complainer, and I have a pretty good attitude about the challenges that life in Central Africa brings, but I was definitely tested to the limit this week.

It probably began Monday when Zachee and I started to move our office. We have been needing to change locales for a while so we signed a lease with the Friends Church (Eglise Evangelique des Amis) to rent space. We were told we could move in anytime and stopped by Monday morning to have a look. No one was around but the office was open and I noticed that they had left us some furniture too. We went back to our office, rented a truck (and driver plus three helpers) in the market and loaded everything into it. When we got back to the new office with all our stuff in tow, low and behold, it was full of people working! A perplexed man asked what we were doing with all the furniture and files and we explained that we were moving in. Imagine his shock, since he had not even been informed that his organization was being evicted. AWKWARD!! Apparently that was a small oversight on the part of our landlord.

On Thursday I went to Rwanda with Brandon, an MCC worker, and Isaac my housemate. I had to meet and interview some partners about programs they were doing and wanted Brandon to do some photography for me. (Isaac came up to see the work of his organization, World Relief, in Kigali.) The drive up was uneventful and the border crossing was fairly quick (no buses ahead of us.) When we got to Kigali, we stopped at an internet café for some coffee then went to our guesthouse. The next morning I went to see our partner org. called Friends Peace House. We support, through them, quite an amazing prisoner reintegration program. It involves inviting recently released prisoners, (held for 14 years or more) for crimes against humanity committed during the 1994 genocide to a 2 week workshop. Also invited to the workshop are victims of genocide (survivors). Together they learn about conflict resolution, share testimonies and have an opportunity to be reconciled, ask for forgiveness, forgive, and most importantly dispel the ignorance and fear the two groups have for each other. (Prisoners fear retribution, victims fear another attack.) After each workshop, the group chooses two of the most vulnerable families, and together the whole group builds 2 houses for them. Sharing together in a work project solidifies the relationships in the group. It is a real trust building exercise. MCC supports the project by paying for the tin roofs ($1000 each). If anyone is interested in supporting the project let me know.

I interviewed several ex-prisoners and victims about their experience in the workshop and Brandon took pictures. It was a very moving experience. Among the more quotable quotes was from from a young man named Claude, a child during the crisis who saw his family killed. He lived his life up to the time of the workshop tormented by fear. He said he learned that finding peace was not a private matter. He had to confront his enemies and be reconciled to them. “If I am to have peace, all must be at peace!” was his revelation. He was very surprised to find that returning prisoners were as fearful as he was and completely destitute when they came out of prison. He has since been reconciled to the killer of his family and they have become friends. With forgiveness and reconciliation to his enemy he has completely lost all fear in his life. Together he and his new friend even feel empowered to fight the real enemies that stalk their country: poverty, ignorance, and despair.

In the afternoon, Brandon and I went out to visit some of the families and houses that have been built. I had hoped they were close to town, but they were not. We drove about an hour out of town on the good road before we turned onto the bad road. We visited 4 houses, each presenting a more difficult driving challenge. It was great to see families making lives in these houses and hear what it meant to them to be supported by their fellow participants in this way. They were all very happy. I have some pictures here of the 4 houses for your interest.

By the time we got back that evening I was wiped out. I had not spoken English all day and had had hours of intense conversation, I was also fried from the driving on all of the dreadful roads. (foot paths). We stopped and picked up Isaac in town and were really looking forward to an Indian meal to enjoy and unwind. We decided that the last thing we would do before dinner and rest was to get some gas in the car so we could leave early the next morning.

We stopped at the gas station and Brandon and Isaac jumped out of the car to change some money nearby. I was by the car but opened the hood to check the oil. 2 minutes later they came back and Brandon looked in and said, “Did you leave the car?’
I said “No, I have been right here next to it.”

“Then where did our bags go?” ...

I know most of you have had that experience. That fateful moment when a direction has been chosen for you. Maybe deliberately, or as a result of a moment of carelessness, but with irreversible consequences. We stared at each other, stunned, panicked, horrified. Indeed Brandon’s bag with his $3000 Mac computer (with all his photos on it) was gone along with Isaac’s bag which had a $700 camera and ipod in it. We asked around, phoned the police—back to French again--and still struggled to understand what to do. Finally we decided to find a ‘mzungu’ with connections who could help us. We knew the director of World Relief, Phil, lived near the US embassy. It was already very dark and we were not sure how to get there but we set off. Long story short, we eventually found it and he sent one of his Rwandan staff to help us at the police station. (He and his wife were also great at the trauma healing work that was necessary when we arrived there unannounced.)

We proceeded to the police station to file a report. We discovered to our great relief that all of us had our passports on us and not in the bags, so we would be able to leave the country. Brandon’s computer was insured so all we needed to do was file a police report and get a receipt to give to the insurance company. We felt that was the best we could hope for, and went to file the report. Here is where everything took a distinctly African turn…

Rwanda is a police state. That is to say, it is highly regulated and the police have a lot of power. We went to file a report that evening at the central police station in the city. It was nearly deserted, nonetheless, there was no sense of urgency about helping us. Finally the officer at the desk deigned to acknowledge us and opened a large book and laboriously filled in numerous columns with details from our statements. Watching him write was like watching a movie in slow motion. The process seemed to take hours. When he was done, we asked for some kind of copy of the police report. He told us htat he was not authorized to give us a copy, only the ‘commandant’ could give us that and we need to come back the next morning. We told him we were rushing to leave town but he assured us the commandant would be there at 8am and he would already have everything he needed from what was written in the book. The process would be quick.

That night we did go out for Indian food it was fabulous and well worth the wait, eventhough we did not get to eat until after 10pm. It made us feel better about the whole evening too. We got back to the guesthouse around 11:30.

At 8am the next day, we came back to the police station (knowing full well that we had been told what we wanted to hear, not what the facts were, but really having no other choices.) The commandant was, of course, not there, and no one knew of his whereabouts. Someone said he had heard he was in Uganda. Neither the officer we talked to before nor his book was anywhere to be found either. We explained what we needed to about 10 other policiers and after much fussing, someone finally came and took our statements down meticulously again. When he was done we asked him for a copy of the paper for the insurance company and he said in surprise “Oh no, only the commandant can sign that!” We again, with growing impatience, said we had to leave town that morning in order to get through the roadblocks before dark in Burundi. He eventually sent us to another officer who also, in a completely different book, took down our statements in great detail. (This time with carbon paper!) Again, when we asked him for a copy he said matter of factly that we could have a copy as soon as the commandant came and signed it, and that perhaps we should come back tomorrow.

For those of you who have read Kafka’s The Trial, I can only imagine that he had had some experience with an Franco-African bureaucracy. At this point I pulled out all the stoppers and told the man that my pregnant wife was about to give birth in the US and I would miss my flight if we did not get back to Bujumbura by nightfall. (only a slight exaggeration of the facts.) Eventually someone was given permission to sign after numerous telephone calls followed by tedious minutes of paper straightening, and stapling.

We got our forms and drove furiously back to Bujumbura that day (leaving a mere 3 hours later than planned). Brandon drove and despite the loss of time we got back to Bujumbura that evening.

Generally, in our ride home we were fairly philosophical about the whole thing, accepting God’s will in everything that happened, and realizing how fortunate we were in so many ways. We mused over the expression that our World Relief friends used for the types of bureaucratic obdurance, cultural misunderstandings, petty crime, and frequent frustrations that we mzungus encounter here: AFRICA WINS AGAIN.

As I said at the beginning of this blog entry, I do my best do avoid complaining about life here. I have one more night before I make the 20 hour flight back to the USA for the birth of my son. (The birth will happen this Wednesday.) Due to internet problems I have not been able to talk to Rebecca so I really miss her and will be glad to see them.

I am truly blessed to have an amazing wife and (soon) two sons whom I will see in 36 hours! BUT…


This morning I woke up with a high fever and diarrhea (something from the Indian restaurant): D’OH Africa Wins Again!





By the way, the photos above were all taken by Brandon Theissen who is one of our MCCers out here from Canada. He works with a partner called Help Channel on reforestation, but moonlights as a photographer, and is a great person to have on our team. (Here is a picture of him (taken by Rebecca, I think.)

Au Bureau de Poste and the Hope School

Picture of Hope School at Burasera with Seminary in the background.

I am doing my best not to count the hours until I get to see Rebecca and Oren again. Fortunately life here is presenting me with enough challenges and urgent tasks that it would be impossible to pine. I have about 8 days left here. In that time I need to move our office, go to Rwanda, and make a myriad of financial arrangements to see that our service workers, partners, housestaff, and bills are paid during the two months that we are out of town.

I did get to take a weekend off after my Ghana trip. I feel like I have not had one for a while. I had sprained my back in Ghana as I mentioned last week and spent several hours laying on a large frozen fillet of fish from our freezer as we had run out of ice. I also took a real swim (1.5 miles) on Saturday at the Club du Lac T. (Truthfully I would rather have been in the kiddy pool with Oren.). On Sunday I was back in my church again after having absent for 3 weeks due to various trips every weekend. It was good to be there again.

Monday and Tuesday were a bit frustrating because it was hard to get a lot done. Zachee’s son Timmy had malaria and had to go to the doctor on Monday, while I spent half the day at the bank making arrangements for Zachee to have signing power on our accounts. I spent the other half of the day at the post office picking up parcels that had arrived for us. Thank you all so much who heard about Oren missing Cheerios and the high cost of cheerios here. He will appreciate the gift when he comes back, I have not doubt. The downside is that the customs officer at the post office charged me $80 worth of duty on the parcels, so counting postage I estimate the cereal we received ended up costing about $60 per box. I noticed on my receipt that the import tariff was 5% of postage—($2), but a whopping $70 ‘transactional tax’ was also assessed--which I am guessing was the custom agent’s cut! I asked about it and he simply showed me that all his receipts in the book included a ‘transactional tax.’ The fact is, corruption is so institutionalized here that it is not really possible to challenge it. The agent even put the charge down on my copy of the receipt and stamped it and the parcel officiously on every side. (For more about the institutionalization of corruption here read the book Africa Works. --The premise is basically that since all the largesse from collection of ‘fees’ is redistributed rather than kept by an individual, it is legitimized and in the interest of the elite in power and their supporters/clients to perpetuate it, not fight it.)

Tuesday was a jour conge (holiday). We have a holiday almost every week in Burundi in October. Sadly they are mostly memorial days for assassinated presidents. There is a cynical joke here about the danger of being president of Burundi during the month of October. It is indeed tragic though that several of the visionary founders of Burundian independence and democracy who resisted ethnic divisions were killed in the past 20 years.

On Wednesday I went up country to Burasera, where Jodi teaches at the Hope School for the Batwa. I had mail, money, and supplies to bring her (24 rolls of toilet paper among other things.) As I have mentioned before, the trip is treacherous and punishing on the vehicle (as well as my still sore back.). To be precise, it is more dangerous for pedestrians and bicyclists than motorists. I witnessed, on the way up, the remains of a recent truck wreck--It had slammed into the embankment on the way down the mountain. Tragically 2 bicyclists who hang on the back for a ride on the hills were killed when it hit. I was driving up with Gaspar to take his mattresses to his village, and we drove in awkward silence for quite a time after passing it.

I arrived in Burasera in the afternoon, on time to see Jodi giving private English tutorials to a group of students. Here are some pictures of her in the class. I think the students are fascinated by her and she loves it there. She has encouraged some of the adults in the area to share their history in class for the students, as there just does not exist much by the way of written history about the batwa. This is because many of the batwa settled here are severely dislocated communities who were at one time in Congo before they fled being kidnapped in the forest and forced into Mbutu’s army or slavery. (When I say slavery, I am talking about the 1990’s and later, not the nineteenth century!) Jodi related several stories to me about people in the area who shared stories of being captured and sold into slavery in Uganda, and then many years later, had miraculous reunions with family. The stories emphasize the triumph of the batwa spirit over the forces of oppression.

Jodi has been very resourceful in developing a curriculum suited to the rustic conditions they have at the school. (They have virtually no supplies, running water, electricity, meals, etc.) In the morning though, she took the students on a field trip to a nearby hydroelectric generator that makes power for the seminary with a water wheel in a small river. She had the electrician from the seminary explain to the children how water can be used to create electricity. I am trying to imagine how that must have sounded to the children of what was essentially, a generation back, a hunter/gatherer culture. She has big ideas for capacity building in the school including completing a water tank for hand washing (as a mission project), creating a health care voucher system at a nearby hospital for illness, AND eventually even a laptop for every student through the laptop project. If anyone is interested in participating in one of these projects let me know!

I spent the night in the seminary guest house and had dinner with the priests who love to have visitors join them at their table. When I passed by the monkey on the way to dinner I was filled with a longing for Oren to be there, who really liked to come up and see it. I am including a picture here taken on an earlier trip with Rebecca, Oren and I, looking at the monkey.

I returned to Bujumbura on Friday and had my last Kirundi lesson until January. I am sorry to be ending my lessons as I am finally beginning to be able to have some rudimentary conversations. (It is a very complex language.) I am amazed what one can learn about a culture from the language. I can only say that every culture divides up reality and concepts in some unique ways. It is interesting to see what words in English do not have exact equivalents in Kirundi (ex: to make or to do is almost always translated--to work) and vice versa. In Kirundi, for example, ‘to want to know’ is a single word/concept that is completely different than ‘to know’. There are also about 9 ‘classes’ of nouns. (There are no masculine and feminine classes like french, but two of the divisions are people and animals). All have entirely different ways of agreeing with their corresponding adjectives and direct objects. For example a good child: umwana neza, is different than a good cow: inka nziza. The beginning of the word good, changes for each class of noun, and you have to learn all the classes to know which one to use. To make it worse it changes again in plural--four good children are abana beza bane and good cows are inks nziza zine!

Taking Kirundi has also helped my French a well, as my teacher speaks mainly French and Kirundi, so instruction is primarily in French.

One more thing worth reporting: I now have 2 housemates, Isaac and David (see picture) who are going to be staying here in the house while Rebecca and I are away. They are both ‘3rd culture kids’—spent their childhood overseas with missionary parents. They just finished college and are working with a Christian NGO called World Relief. Isaac will be working on AIDS awareness and David will work with a microfinance project. It is inspiring to see these young men who are so enthusiastic about being here and working compassionately to make life better for others. Actually David was a last minute arrival. He was supposed to be placed in Eastern Congo (across the border which is only a few miles away), but the security conditions have deteriorated so much there in the past few months that his NGO decided not to send him there for the time being.

I talk to Rebecca and Oren when I can, but Skype is very disappointing in trying to communicate feelings and to share emotional support. They are doing well and Oren is surrounded by loving, doting grandparents. It is strange to hear Oren talk to me on the phone and to realize how much he is growing and changing there. He speaks quite clearly in grammatically correct sentences. I will be very glad to be back with them again and not miss all the exciting development stages he his passing through.

Ghana Conferences, the Slave Trade, and Cecille’s Hope

I am writing this blog lying on my stomach in bed in Bujumbura. Although it is not an ideal posture for composing, it is one in which I can be in for an extended period of time without excessive pain. Apparently I injured my back during my travels to Ghana last week. I probably should not be surprised since in my paranoia about having luggage stolen I stuffed everything I needed for 10 days into my hand carry and briefcase. For those of you who are used to American airports where an extendable gate takes you right into the plane and airport, that is not the case here. You descend by staircase, cross the tarmac, and then go back up the stairs to the gate in the airport (or into the plane). I think I hurt my back taking the bag out of the overhead storage, or descending the stairs.

On the good side, I really prefer to go outside before and after a flight, because it gives me a chance to see the plane, smell the jet fuel, and feel the weather when I come and go. I am becoming very aware of how much time we spend in climate controlled conditions in the USA. That is quite a contrast to Burundi where we live in open air houses and feel the changes in weather constantly. We have to get used to the smells as well. Sadly Bujumbura smells vaguely like burning to me at all times. That is probably due to the fact that everyone has to burn all of their garbage at their homes, since there is no municipal trash collection. (For anyone who hates paying taxes, you should spend a few weeks in a city where you don’t have to. Find out what you lack,--schools, ambulances, fire trucks, garbage collection, playgrounds, parks, trustworthy police, safe drinking water, a house without an 8 foot wall around it topped with embedded broken glass.)

But I diverge, back to Ghana. The purpose of going to Accra was to participate in strategic planning (5 year plans) for MCC for its future, especially in Africa. They asked all of us working in countries in West and Central Africa to meet in Ghana, and bring some of our local partners. I traveled with 2 other Burundians, and a Rwandan partner. (Zachee, as well as Levy who runs a peace ministry in Burundi, and Cecille who works with a group called Femmes en Dialogue in Kigali, Rwanda- she is in the front in this picture) All of our partners made some great contributions to our planning and I think they really enjoyed getting a chance to travel. As part of the planning workshop Cecille shared some of her story and I will share it with you in hopes that you might be inspired by her work:

Femmes en Dialogue brings together women who were victims of the 1994 genocide, (widowed, children killed, attacked themselves) with women whose husbands are currently incarcerated for committing crimes against humanity by participating in the genocide. Cecille shared some dramatic stories about women who have met and have supported each other in the group even though, in some cases, the husband of one was the murderer of the other’s family. She has witnessed some tremendous acts of reconciliation and healing. Women have forgiven each other, as well as the incarcerated men. Widowed women have also been able to identify with the plight of those whose husbands are imprisoned and left devastated by guilt and loss of livelihood.

Cecille is well qualified to be doing this work and her passion for it comes from firsthand experience. She was very young and just married in a mixed ethnic marriage when the crisis erupted. (She is tutsi, her husband is hutu.) When the hutu’s were killing tutsi’s in Kigali, her husband protected and hid her and their children. They all survived the massacre (although not her extended family). The story does not end there though, her husband was later captured and accused of crimes against humanity himself and is currently incarcerated where he has been for the past 14 years, awaiting a hearing on whether he will ever be released. She is a courageous woman and I have great respect for her work and hope for the future. Her ministry is definitely inspired by her unique dual perspective on the tragedy of the events of 1994. I also see in her a confidence in a Lord who will someday ‘turn her mourning into dancing’.

The time was not all work though. There was opportunity for sight seeing and shopping as well. One of the things I bought was a new Djembe (Ghanaian drum) to replace the one I had had stolen when I was in Chicago earlier this year. I bought the biggest one I could find, and it cost about $35 with the bag! It is really nice and survived the trip back to Bujumbura without a problem! Here is a picture of the store where I bought it in downtown Accra. Notice the store is called In God We Trust. Many of the businesses had names expressing religious sentiments. I had less trouble with that one than He Has Made All Things Beautiful Fashion Boutique and the pious Jesus Above All Liquor Store.

Among the sights we saw were two slave castles along the coast. Elmina Castle, and Cape Coast Castle. I am including pictures of these here. We took a 2 hour tour of Elmina, built in 1482 by the Portugese and heard some of the atrocious history of the European slave trade. It was ironic that the fort originally was used to trade goods with Africans and only later became a trade in human beings when a market for cheap, durable, human labor emerged in the warm climates of the new world (North and South America). Africans were found to be the strongest workers and were captured and sent to the Americas for labor. The conditions for keeping them was appalling as they were prepared for transport. Men and women were separated and kept as many as 1000 per cell with no bathrooms, and one meal per day. It is estimated that only 30% of slaves survived from capture to arrival in the Americas. The gratuitous cruelty of conditions in the castle defy belief--including the fact that the women were frequently used to satisfy the sexual desires of the men who captured them.
(Ironically, the children of these unions were separated and given education at the castles which later evolved into the Ghanaian formal education system after slavery ended.)

It is of course even more tragic for me to see the complicity of the church in all of this. The chapel was an auspicious presence in the center of the castle. I do not know how the priests who worked there serving a Lord who was stripped and beaten, reconciled their work supporting the men involved in the slave trade. Here is a picture of me standing on the roof overlooking a market, and another of me next to a cell where insubordinate captives were put for discipline. There was no exit from here. You were simply put in, starved, dehydrated, and not taken out until you were dead. Its value was deterrence and not reformation.

I got back to Burundi on Friday morning and got home to find the house still intact. It is good to be back but it is still lonely without Oren and Rebecca. I was able to talk to them frequently on Skype. They are doing well in Baltimore. Oren started preschool and really seems to like it. He has said some things about missing Burundi as well, so I think he will be ready to come back when we do. Rebecca is doing well with the pregnancy. She told me she misses work in the field almost as much as I miss caring for Oren in my free time.

I did read a book recently called The Shack on my flight. It was interesting and wrestles with the problem of suffering. I am currently reading a book called Africa Works about the failure of institutions and the state in sub-Saharan Africa. Not light reading.

Volcanoes in Rwanda and Dumbo in Burundi

For the second week in a row I find myself writing this entry outside of Bujumbura. Yesterday I arrived in Accra, Ghana with our program officer Zachee, and two of our partners, Cecille from Rwanda, and Levy from Burundi, for some strategic planning meetings. We will try to imagine a vision for the future for MCC in the region. These meeting also include MCC representatives and partners from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Chad and Congo, as well as senior International Programs staff from the US and Canada.

--But I am getting ahead of myself. I will say more about this next week and include some nice pictures of Ghana when I download them from my camera. A lot happened last week in the intervening time between returning from Rwanda and leaving for Ghana.

The time in Rwanda was good and included meeting with several partners. The most interesting one was upcountry near the Ugandan border where one of our partners, CAPR, does interdenominational peace work by bringing pastors together to dialogue and build unity. This is particularly important in Rwanda where ethnic divisions fell along denominational lines as well. This was the byproduct of different denominations dividing the country up regionally to evangelize; consequently, Christianizing the country resulted in reifying ethnic divisions rather than ameliorating them. (I used the word christianizing to distinguish it from the more transforming work of sharing the Gospel message and bringing people into a living, loving relationship with Jesus and each other, which seeks to love enemies, and bless the peacemakers.) They asked me to say a few words as part of the conference, so I pulled together a little encouragement talk (in French) using Ezekiel 37 about the dry bones coming to life. I think they were planning on giving me an hour to speak off the cuff, but I begged off and said 10 minutes would be more than enough!

The meeting was interesting, but the drive up deserves its own space in this blog. Since I had flown up to Kigali, I had to rely on local transportation to get me around in Rwanda. This put me considerably out of my comfort zone but I braved at least one trip in town on a ‘taxi-moto’ (a motorcycle taxi). I have not mentioned these before, but it is one of the preferred modes of transport in Kigali and Bujumbura. (Probably because fuel is so expensive) The risk by western standards is really unacceptable and I have avoided them, but did have a few short trips that seemed reasonably safe in town.

To go upcountry I had to hire a cab. Fortunately I had the number of a local cabbee who was reliable and I called him to ask him to drive 4 of us up. He agreed, and we made a price. My prayer was that we would not find ourselves driving through the Rwandan mountains at night in an unreliable vehicle. (This prayer was not answered the way I wanted it.) We started out Saturday, midmorning. The cab seemed to ride low but I had no choice but to trust it or else create an embarrassing scene betraying my probably irrational fear. I had two of our Rwandan partners in the car with me as well and they seemed not to be worried. The car overheated the first time about 30 minutes into our 3 hour journey out of the city. The fuse to the fan was not working. We stopped and took on water. We went another 20 minutes and stopped again… and so on... until we got to a town with a mechanic who could bypass the fuse and connect the fan directly to the battery. That helped. (I could write a whole blog entry about what a 3rd world auto service station looks like, but it would be too much of a side track here. Suffice it to say, spare parts are non existent, and wood, tape, string, nails, torn cloth and cardboard, are all acceptable materials for repairing an engine.)

We plodded on to our destination though by now we would be quite late. Despite my anxiety, I was in for a real surprise. Northern Rwanda is home to a spectacular range of volcanic mountains! You should shoot me for letting my camera battery die here, but I can only describe it as something that would inspire the scenes from the movie King Kong, or Dr. Livingston’s “Dark Continent” The 13 peaks were sublime and beautiful towering above the hillsides, the tops hidden in clouds . Our project was also right next to the lowland gorilla national park. (We did not have time to stop in though.) I really understood then, one of the reasons that Kigali is so developed, and has such a thriving tourism industry. This was truly magnificent. I hope to come back my family sometime next year.

In stark contrast, the village where our project ran was profoundly impoverished, and in our short time there we saw some development projects for children to learn sewing in order to afford school fees and food as well as an income generating woodshop where they made planks. The contrast between the guest houses near the park entrance and this were striking. I thought of tourists who would bypass this on their way to the beauty of the volcano and gorilla parks.

We had our meeting with the pastors and it was good, and I spoke reasonably well. It was, however cut short by our necessity to get back on the road to Kigali before it was dark. (We also took on a passenger.) I have to admit that the ride back was very hard. We continued to break down, bottom out at every bump, and limp back to Kigali at a snail’s pace in total darkness. I can’t tell you the relief I felt to get back to an internet café and Skype Rebecca and Oren that night.

I returned to Bujumbura Sunday morning to an event worthy of note--a levee de deuille for Zachee’s wife. This is a ceremony that is done a year after the death of a loved one. It is an official lifting of the veil of mourning, after which time one can get married, family property can be petitioned, debts can be collected, etc. Prior to that year, nothing legal is done with the decedent’s property and making new relationships prior to this is socially unacceptable. Zachee lost his wife Fifi last September, and this has truly been a year of mourning for him. I do believe that he and his 3 year old son Timmy are ready to move on, and it was good to support them in this ceremony.

Without Rebecca, the week was very busy for me on the homefront as well. I had to do the many things that she normally does, like make the weekly menu and shopping list for the cook to go to market, pay staff, organize cleaning, etc. All my work here has been complicated by the fact that we have been having daily power failures in Bujumbura for the past week, at very inconvenient hours when I usually need the computer. I also had several guests over the weekend for the aforementioned ceremony, and I have a new housemate, Isaac, who just came to Burundi. He will be staying with me for the next month and will continue on to housesit when I go back to US.

I have really missed Oren greatly and look forward to talking to him although Skype does not keep his attention. To his great delight though, I have been taking pictures we have of him from Africa and elsewhere and adding in his favorite cartoon characters, using photoshop. Here is one of him in our backyard under the avocado tree with me and Dumbo. He loves these and apparently said to Mommy when he got it: “Dumbo is in Burundi!” Rebecca reports that they are doing well in Baltimore and Oren loves to be at his grandparents’ house where raspberries are in bloom and he can pick them off the bush and eat them. He also began preschool there.

A final postscript. For those of you who read last week of Gaspar’s need of mattresses for his children. I bought them this week with him and hopefully will be able to help him get them to Gitega when I go up next week.