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.

The Unexpected Visitor

Oren watches Jodi's nightguard Lazarre clean a fish he caught in the river.


One thing I am coming to understand about parenting young children--and I am sure that this does not just apply to missionaries— is that often the life we make for ourselves presumes that both parents are firing on all cylinders at all times. (I know that many single parents have to do it alone and I cannot imagine how) But I am sick with the flu since Friday and it has made this a very challenging week for us to balance our obligations and childcare.

Because of this I am going to keep this entry short and hopefully be able to say more next week. As I said last week, we have a new routine which includes scheduled time for work, childcare, exercise (swimming), as well as language study, and teaching a ballet class for me on Thursday.

One break from the regular routine happened on Tuesday as I was about to pack up from the office. There was a commotion outside the office than several Burundians led a ‘60ish’ mzungu (white person) into the office. He introduced himself as Don and said he had just arrived from the airport. He was Canadian and had come with no money so he could not buy a visa. The airport authorities had kept his passport and allowed him to go in town to get some money. The problem was, he could not use his credit cards here. He was out of ideas when he checked hi computer for a Burundian he knew. This turned out to be Innocent, our partner in Gitega who runs the Hope School for the Batwa. Don told me the cab driver used his cell to call Innocent and Innocent had told him to find us at our office at the Friends Church.

Lucky for him I actually was aware that a photographer from Canada (friend of Jodi’s mom) was arriving and going to the school this week. I put 2 and 2 together and figured this was him. It is not completely surprising to me that someone from the west might think that you could use ATM cards, credit cards, travelers checks, etc. when coming here. The fact is, the only acceptable foreign currency here is 100 dollar bills dated later than 2005. I trusted his story and gave him $400 for a visa and spending money, then invited him to come to our house and stay the night with us until he headed up to Gitega the next day.

Not exactly a Good Samaritan story, but it was a good deed. He did come and stay with us and then headed up to Gitega the next day. The money issue was still there and we suggested he call someone at home to wire him some cash via Western Union. He said he would do that when he got to Gitega.

He left our house Wednesday morning without much money, no charge in his phone and only a vague idea about how to get a bus to Gitega (where Innoent said he would meet him and take him to the school.) I called ahead, and long story short, they found each other and he got to Burasera.

Interestingly enough, we also had a plan to go up to the school to see Jodi that Friday, so we offered to take his suitcase up with us so he would not have to take it on the bus.

Friday morning we went up early. We had an ambitious day. We wanted to pass through Gitega where there is a one month peace training sponsored by MCC. We wanted to check on its progress, then continue on (full speed) to Burasera to have a meeting with Jodi and Innocent about some future projects for the Hope School.

We got on the road in good time, 7:30 am with the family as well as our night guard Gaspar and his daughter, who was down for some dental work. He was taking her back to their home near Gitega. (Gaspar gets to see his family about once every 2 months, like many who work in the city to support his family upcoumtry.

We were about 20 minutes up the treacherous mountain road when we found all traffic was at a dead halt. We did not know what the problem was and whether we should wait it out or go home, but when we remembered we had Don’s suitcase we realized getting to Burasera was imperative.

We waited for about two hours before we heard from people walking down the road from above that a truck was passing a bus (both going uphill aroumd a corner) a large truck coming down ran right into them as he was not able to stop fast enough heading downhill. (This is an accident that I would think happens daily with reckless driving of overloaded trucks.) But this was the worst I had seen.

Actually we did not see it until we had sat about 4 hours waiting for traffic to move. When we got to the wreck, I could not imagine how this would ever be cleared. There are no huge wrecker tow trucks or jaws of life to tear apart a truck. Human power is what is available and it was already in evidence as they had already excavated away the internal embankment of the mountain to make a single lane around the accident.

Since we were now about 4 hours behind our schedule, we skipped the trip to Gitega and took the shortcut to Burasera. We were disappointed to have to cut this out, but will try to get back later this month.

We got to Burasera just in time for the meeting and it was about then that I realized I was coming down with a fever. By the time it was over I was really sick and asked to be excused from dinner with the priests at the seminary that night.

The good news was that we did find Don there and Jodi told us about some really amazing photography projects he was doing with the children at the school. He and Jodi had lent their cameras to them to take pictures, then he gave critiques and helped them understand more about framing. I was amazed when I saw the results, some were worthy of National Geographic. What was most fascinating to me was that, unlike National Geographic, these were photos of people from another culture, BY people of that culture. The fact that many of these children may not have even seen a camera before this and yet were able to grasp some aesthetic ideas about photography was even more amazing. The seventh grade girls, for instance, did a photo essay on girls who do not go to school. (Keeping Batwa girls in school beyond 4th grade is a huge issue in Burundi.) They went out a did shots of their friends who are not going to school and contrasted them to pictures of themselves studying, etc.

Don and Jodi are trying to think of ways of using this project to help the school in some way, any ideas would be welcome.

Don was staying at the seminary so he was joining Rebecca, Jodi, Oren, and David with the priests that night. (I stayed in bed.)

Although I did not go, Rebecca brought back an interesting report. First she told me that Oren was amazingly good. When he walked in the room he went to every person, 1 by 1 and shook hands and greeted them. (Burundian kids all do this) Then he sat down in a chair next to one of the priests and began looking through his child’s Bible with cartoon pictures. He recounted many of the stories to the priest who was quite impressed. All of this was done without one bit of prompting from his mother or anyone there.

Apparently it was one of the more hilarious evenings with one of the priests crawling around on the floor with Oren and David.

Don also hit it off extremely well with the priests but not so much by his piety as much as their mutual fondness for the local banana beer. Jodi said it was one of the more amusing evenings she had had with the priests. I was sorry I missed it.

We left on Saturday morning to return to Bujumbura. I did not feel well, but I thought that if I was getting worse, I would rather be in Bujumbura than upcountry if I was goimg to get seriously ill.

Before we said our goodbyes Don gave me back the loan I had given him when he arrived and also announced that he was also going to make a $400 donation to the school as well because of my willingness to help him out with the money and hospitality when he arrived.


We got back on time Saturday for Rebecca ( and David) to go to a Dot (Dowry Ceremony) for our very good friends Francine and Jean Claude. Again, because I was ill, I was not able to go, but I am hoping she will be able to write a bit about it in the near future.

Sunday was our day of rest once again and after church we went to the beach. Oren learned how to use goggles in the pool and really enjoyed trying to retrieve rocks from the bottom.

I was feeling better this morning, but have been going downhill since this afternoon. The power was also just cut again, so I think it is time to quit.




Bonus Photo: While waiting for traffic to move I took a picture of a woman farming. Notice how here upcountry there are no terraced fields so people cultivate and grow in very steep conditions. Apparently there are many injuries from people falling out of their gardens.

Ballet in Burundi and Other Opportunities to Minister:

Oren and friends practicing the drums after church this week.


It is interesting to see how much one’s sense of entitlement changes once one is deprived of something long enough. At this point we have settled into a weekly routine of about 6 hours of power every 24. It is by no means regular, so might go a day with 12 hours on and 36 off, or maybe 3 hours at different times. The most annoying is 6 hours between midnight and 6 am when we don’t really need it. Our washing machine and refrigerator sit empty most of the time, and are becoming more and like museum pieces--relics of a bygone age. We rarely store leftovers now, but do try to do some loads of clothes at any hour we can.

The reason I say that one’s sense of entitlement changes is that after about 6 hours in a day, I feel I am anxiously awaiting the sudden cut off. If it does not come, I feel I am positively indulging in some kind of decadent waste of power and light. (Actually, we do know that our friends in the next neighborhood get it when they turn ours off.) Tonight, for instance, it is already 9:00 pm and we have not lost it and I am actually getting a creeping feeling of guilt as each moment goes by.

This has been a really good week, despite the constant complaining I do about power. (Actually we are quite used to it now, even the kids.) Watching a dvd is no longer part of the morning routine before school for instance. But Oren does really like to go and we are feeling a real sense of connection to that community, especially since many of his friends are there including Timmy, as well as the children of our German and Danish missionary friends.

This week was the beginning of extracurricular activities and we signed up Oren once again for the ‘obstacle course’ which is kind of tumbling and muscle coordination for preschoolers. This meets on Thursday afternoons. The other more daring activity was my own offering to teach 2 ballet classes a week, (1 hour to 5-8 year olds, and 1 hour to 9 and up.) This is also on Thursday afternoons and I started this week while Oren was doing the obstacle course. It has proved to be one of the more popular offerings and I have 2 large classes (all girls). Fortunately I did bring a couple of ballet cds and had some others sent here from home this week.

The bigger challenge is trying to figure out what to tell parents about getting ballet shoes ( and tutus—which all the little girls want to take class in). The US (since 9-11) does not allow us to use credit cards overseas to buy anything in the US online. So it is a big pain to try and order on line. I will research some European sites to see if I can find a place to order these things. If anyone wants to donate a bunch of pairs of kids ballet slippers, they would be gratefully accepted.

The other big challenge is teaching the class entirely in French. Fortunately all the terms for ballet steps and positions are already French, but I found myself brushing up on anatomy and other little-used words to make sure I could communicate. The kids are happy to help me though, and dance does not require too much language.

For music I bought a cheap radio that runs on battery and broadcast my ipod through it. That way I can work without power (The class is in the late afternoon). I had my first test of that this week as there was no power at the school.

The room I teach in has a concrete floor and no mirrors, but there are barres and I felt it was not bad. (My standards have definitely changed since leaving the US.)

After my classes I go to capoeira, so Thursday is a pretty active day.

It is interesting to see how the week tends to have a rhythm of activity that moves from routine Monday through Wednesday to more and more unusual at the end and through the weekend.

On Friday Rebecca and I took a road trip up-country in a direction we do not usually go, to a town called Ijenda. We have been looking for a place to have a retreat for our expanding MCC team in November. We found some really lovely hotel-retreat centers that would be nice. There are some great views across the hill country and even some hiking opportunities. We will make a decision about where to go this week. The whole trip was accomplished in the afternoon, after school on Friday, and Oren, David and Zachee were all with us on the ride.

Saturday morning I had an opportunity to go back to the prison. I have been waiting another chance to get permission, and this time I was given 2 days notice that I would be preaching a message when we got in. I did find a good meditation I had used on Luke 7:36 about the woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, and Jesus telling the Pharisee that those who are forgiven much love much, and those who are forgiven little love little. I was excited to go and picked up Zenon, a pastor and friend that morning.

When we got to the prison we found it was in lock-down and no one was being allowed in. There had been an escape attempt and some shooting inside the night before. We were disappointed that we could not get in, but I have to say, in my experience with prison ministry, not getting in for similar reasons was not a completely unusual occurrence. We will wait for God’s timing in this, (which is tentatively rescheduled for this Wednesday.)

Saturday afternoon was spent with our missionary friends from Denmark and Germany. We were at Thomas and Naja’s house this time, which is up on the hill a bit in a neighborhood which only a year ago was virtually controlled by the FNL rebels. Things have really changed around here. We played games and talked about work and how to do things well in this cultural context. It can so often feel that everything we try to do to help, has the danger of creating a dependency.

I am personally feeling that money coming from us is more of an addictive drug, than a cure for any of the myriad development problems we are dealing with here. But how to intervene in ways that really make a difference to the most vulnerable is a real challenge.

One thing I am convinced of though is that schools and education are a very good investment, as well as human resources that can help build capacity. I am glad that our MCC team is growing for that reason, and I am very pleased that we support an excellent school project for the Batwa, with a service worker and financial resources.

Saturday eveningm Rebecca made a social call to huge wedding reception -- a relative of one of the SALTers host family's was getting married. (It is important for us to make appearances at things like this.) Meanwhile Astrid and Travis brought their 5 girls and video projector over to our house so we could watch a movie. (Their house had no power.) It was a fun evening.

Sunday we have settled into a routine of church, beach, church, dinner, blog. This was what we did this week as well. It does feel like a Sabbath to have times for worship and rest.

The weather has been a bit unusual. Rainy season began for a week than stopped completely and we have really had nothing for several weeks. It feels kind of constipated, honestly. We get, at least 4 times a week, a gathering of black clouds and a bluster of wind, thunder and lightning in the hills. It looks like we are going to be drowned out, but we get about 5 minutes of a light spitting, and then the sky is clear again. We really need the rain to get things growing again. I am particularly keen on seeing our mangoes ripen. (Oren and his friends have taken to picking them off the tree green and eating them that way skin and all.)

I asked Rebecca to write a brief recount of some difficult times for our staff. Sadly her story here is not atypical of what life deals to many who live here:


On Wednesday mornings, I have started meeting for Bible study and prayer with a group of other missionary women. They are very inspiring people, who have a clear vision of the will of God for their lives. As one woman said, the will of God is not a mystery. Are you caring for widows and orphans? Are you visiting prisoners? Are you praying for and healing the sick? Are you welcoming in the outcast and the stranger? If you are wondering what God wants you to do with your life, it’s pretty easy! Just start doing the things of God. And these women are daily living with and caring for orphans, the sick, and the vulnerable.

My prayer this week has been to see what it means to do the things of God here. I do believe that we are following God’s call and that we are doing good work. It’s just that most of the time, the good work is being done directly by other people. We read the plans and offer advice; we give the funds and visit the projects; we call and support volunteers who work alongside our partners. But as far as our MCC work is concerned, we are not “implementers,” and that is very intentional. We believe that the Burundian and Rwandese partners we work with are better qualified and positioned to work effectively than we are, and we want to support them, not supplant them.

But where does that leave us? It’s hard to experience God’s presence when you are not called upon to minister in Christ’s name. Being a pew-sitter is deadly to my faith, I must admit. You’ve got to be on the front-lines in order to keep being equipped. Thankfully, my eyes are opening to see what ministry looks like for me here. Actually, it happens all over the place – not in regularly scheduled office hours or prayer sessions.

For example: Gaspard, our night guard, received a letter from his wife, saying that she was very sick. His wife and four young children live several hours upcountry from Bujumbura and he visits them once a month for a five-day weekend. His wife’s illness was a major crisis, and he left as soon as possible. In fact, he still hasn’t returned, so we pray that she is recovering at this point. This is a very heart-rending and common situation. Even if both spouses are healthy, it must be emotionally and practically hard to be separated nearly all the time. But if she becomes incapacitated, who takes care of the children? And if he must care for her, who is earning an income for the family? I admit sadly that there was an opportunity for ministry that I missed with Gaspard. I was able to send him off with his salary and an advance for medical care, but I did not think to pray with him and for his wife.

Another example: We got a call last night that our substitute night guard Epaphras had gotten in an accident. He wasn’t killed, but he was suffering. Without any further facts, we were very worried for him. Thankfully, he was well enough to come to work this evening, so we had the chance to talk with him about what happened. He was riding his bicycle and was nearly home when a motorcycle swerved in front of him. He hit and then flew over the top of the moto and landed with his face in the ditch. He suffered pretty terrible abrasions on lots of parts of his body and face, and his bones and joints are very sore. A few other people were also involved and injured. He was quite shaken as he told us about this. Truly it’s a miracle that he wasn’t killed.

But the aftermath of the accident is financially quite devastating. His bicycle was totally destroyed in this accident. And his glasses were also broken beyond repair. Of course, the motorcyclist had no insurance. And Epaphras has no steady job at this point. He only works for us a few days a month while Gaspard is at home, earning about $20 (which is an incredibly high wage for five days here). It will take him years to save up enough to buy another bicycle, and his glasses are essential, but how will he replace them? Even a medical bill of a few dollars is more than he can afford. People like Epaphras live on the edge to extent that is hard to even fathom. We were able to listen to him, and we did remember to pray with him first, and afterwards gave him his salary, some bandages, and a contribution so that he can replace his glasses.

And a final example: I realize there is a choice between just keeping my kids occupied and ministering to them. Really playing with David and teaching him things can actually be ministry. It’s giving him love and attention that he needs, and that no one else in the world is qualified or able to give him. I can choose to be bored when he doesn’t know how to stack blocks, or I can chose to minister to him and teach him a new game (he learned peek-a-boo this week, covering his own eyes and then peeking out and smiling). And we’ve known for a while that Oren struggles with being in Burundi and missing his home and family. He really needs assurance and love and direct attention. I haven’t done anything much differently in an outward way this week, but he has been very sweet and we’ve had some good moments. And in fact he has also been more obedient, for which I am thankful. I am seeing now that one of the most challenging spiritual tasks we’ve been given is to raise children who experience and understand the things of God innately because of the parenting they have received.

So, I hope that there are opportunities for ministry this next week that don’t involve other people’s tragedy, but my eyes are being opened to see them when they come.



Bonus photo: Oren entertains David at breakfast with his finger-puppet show.