Rooting reconciliation in the region

Last Monday began normally for the boys as we dropped them off at school. But it was a very usual day for Paul and I as he dropped me off at the airport to travel to Arusha, Tanzania. I headed off for a meeting of the Partners and stakeholders of the Great Lakes Initiative – it’s that big gathering of Christian leaders on reconciliation, which I have attended the past two Januaries. Duke University has been the major initiator of the GLI, but has found partnership in different ways with our organization MCC, with World Vision international, and with African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM). So there were reps from each of those groups at the meeting, along with four Christian theologians from the region (two University rectors from Eastern Congo, a Catholic priest from South Sudan and our friend and founder of the theological school and church we attend here in Burundi, Emmanuel Ndikumana.) Because of my participation in the GLI since 2009, going to this meeting was work, but it was also an opportunity to work with good friends I’ve made along the journey.

Our task for this week was to better analyze what the GLI has been doing and what it should be doing for the future. And in addition, we were trying to plan a road map for rooting the GLI better in the region (in terms of coordination), rather than have coordination happen in North America at Duke University.

We started our process by charting a history of the GLI, which is not simple when it involves seemingly unconnected things happening in different parts of the world by different actors. But thanks to an awesome innovation called “Sticky Wall,” we were able to work as a team of 12, pool our knowledge, and come up with a decent timeline of events and impacts.

The GLI was birthed out of a time of ecumenical theological reflection in 2004, when 50 scholars from all around the world and from different faith traditions wrote a document called “Reconciliation as the mission of God.” Those convictions have guided our yearly gatherings, but have often puzzled people who have come looking for more practical training on conflict transformation or for political petitions to sign to guide their advocacy work. So we also needed to better define the “DNA” of the GLI – which is demonstrated pictorially here. What people have found is that in this region, Christian leaders have made peace-building their business and their project, if they even think of it at all. This approach often, ironically, leads to kingdom-building, organizational conflict, narrow political thinking, discouragement and despair. The GLI tries to create a space for Christians to consider that reconciliation doesn’t start with us – it has been and will be the central mission of God vis-à-vis his whole creation. And we are called

personally to be God’s ambassadors of reconciliation, called to be converted, coming to terms with the barriers in our own hearts and seeking to create a new community with those very different from us – something we practice every time we meet as an ecumenical, inter-ethnic, multi-lingual group from the region. In particular, we have tried to target and invite key Christian leaders who seem to be tired of the old model (where the church is another power base which divides people) and could make a difference if they came and were encouraged.

It takes a long time to say what I just said! So we also worked to define in a mission statement what the GLI is about – we needed to do this because not everyone, even in our own organizations, understands or is fully supportive.

Our mission is to mobilize restless Christian leaders, create a space for their transformation, and empower them to participate in God’s mission of reconciliation in their own communities, churches and contexts.

On our second day, we started working on defining the current organization of the GLI, which is very ad hoc and hard to picture, because of the nature of different partners coming in and contributing at different levels. And then we tried to imagine a better organizational structure. We need a resilient, small organization, with simpler leadership coming from the region, and we feel like we were able to approach a good model of that. And finally on the third day, we worked on the specific milestones we will need to reach in the next three years to achieve that vision.

One of the exciting outcomes of the specific planning is that all 3 NGO partners expressed the need to plan from the country level, from the bottom up, rather than from the regional level. Each country in the region has different issues. We have seen how the GLI makes so much sense in the context of Burundi and the calling of the church in this country to speak into the political / spiritual issues that will be part of public life in the near future (elections, truth and reconciliation commission, general trauma healing). We are already making progress in developing a Burundi GLI country group as a community of leaders. We talked about some sub-regional gatherings as well, in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, to try and work through the specific tensions here. And there is a possibility of doing some cross-border work in Northern Uganda and South Sudan, another area of conflict.

So, personally, I enjoy being part of this work because it is one key place where my professional role connects well with my training in theology. According to normal missionary gender roles, it is not often that I have the opportunity to participate in a conference or meeting like this. I love being a mother and a wife, but I also miss the kind of engagement around ministry that I enjoyed in seminary, for example. In the GLI, it is a real privilege to spend time with African theologians and scholars who could be my teachers, but who engage me as an equal, though I am a woman and a westerner.

Another gift of the week was the facilitator of our meeting, a man named Bill Lowrey. Along with leading us through fun and different processes for doing our work, he also gave us some personal, spiritual input. His specialty is in helping peace-builders develop personal resilience, so that they can be effective for the long haul and not burn out too quickly. I really appreciated what he had to say, but I also clearly felt that I am wearing very, very thin right now.

I knew that going into the week and I was also anticipating a time of rest and reflection, being away from the kids for a few days. On the good side, I was able to take two good long walks/jogs in the lovely countryside around the retreat center where we stayed. I never got to see Mt. Kilimanjaro throw off its blanket of clouds, but the environment was very fresh and the community around there was not apparently impressed enough with foreigners to follow me around. On the unfortunate side, our group ended up working until 10 pm every night on details of the next gathering in Uganda. So much for alone time!

I traveled home on the same flights with Emmanuel Ndikumana and he was good enough to give me some very long, detailed explanations of things that are currently happening in the church in Burundi. Some things were encouraging, such as the legacy of the late bishop Elie Buconyori of the Free Methodist church. Others were enlightening in a discouraging way, and strengthened my conviction that we need to have a place like the GLI where Christian leaders are challenged with the truth that the center of the gospel is sacrifice and reconciliation, not power.

Following this week away, I felt very worn out. And right away on Friday, we had to frantically start putting the pieces into place for our Partners’ retreat, which starts – today, actually! I was busy unloading other tasks, which I had unwisely taken onto my plate earlier (like postponing preaching at our church).

Paul gave me the report that the kids were good during the week and he really didn’t have a problem with them. I won't mention here all the issues he was dealing with during the week, involving immigration, others'  health issues, volunteers, etc. They had a school holiday on Wednesday and he took them to the beach for lunch and to our local zoo. They were certainly very affectionate to me, and loved being able to snuggle for our family movie night on Friday. On Saturday we had a nice group of people over for yoga, but I found I was too exhausted to participate, so I played with David instead. After everyone had left, Paul took a long look at me and gave me permission to go back to bed for the rest of the day. I didn’t refuse and found that I actually could sleep for the whole day, something I haven’t done in years I think. We had a quiet Sunday with church, pizza lunch at Ubuntu and our small group.

One funny moment was pointed out to me on Saturday, when our house was full of newcomers to Burundi.

Me: “Oren, put down the machete!”

Beth: “That’s not something you hear every day at home!”

It underlined for me in a moment some of the vast distance we will need to cross when we return to the USA. Here, a machete is just a standard piece of gardening equipment. It had just been used for pruning a large bush in our yard. I was chiefly concerned that Oren had picked it up and was deep into his imaginary role as a Minotaur fighting the Telmarines and was starting to wave it about. In America, it is a deadly instrument and no family would even own one! Oren was in tears about giving it up, but I think even he saw the logic that his own cousins would NEVER be allowed to touch one. We better safely hide the machete away before they come visit in June! ;-)

Ruthless Clarity in Bujumbura, --A.'s Story

The perfect bishop.  They return every year to our neighborhood and forage in our trees.  Caught this fabulous shot with my new camera.

After this past Tuesday everything seems to be a bit of a blur.  Not that anything else bad has happened,  but that day was so unforgettable that I seem to have amnesia about the rest of the week. 

I do remember that Rebecca went out with her women friends on Wednesday, and that we had dinner with our friends Courtney and JJ (from World Relief) over the weekend.  The rest of the week was fairly normal in terms of routine-- school, work, and weekend rituals.

Rebecca left town for Arusha (Tanzania) on Monday and will be gone until Thursday.  I am here with the kids so they will not miss school.  She is having meetings with some of our partners on an annual regional seminar called the Great Lakes Initiative.  Hopefully she will have things to say about that next week.

One thing I did during my last visit to Kigali sans-famille was to re-watch the movie Apocalypse Now on my computer.  I have not seen it for many years but it has been one of my favorites in terms of critical acclaim in the past.  I remain impressed by it and probably have a deepened appreciation of it now that I live very near Joseph Conrad’s Congo which he describes in Heart of Darkness—the book on which the movie and the Colonel Kurtz character are based. 

The only problem is that I now have an inner monologue voice that seems to narrate my life here that sounds a lot like the dead-pan monotone of Martin Sheen as Colonel Willard.  I certainly don’t feel that pessimistic or cynical, but at times it is fitting, especially when it comes to judging the actions of others cross-culturally.

“In a war there are many moments for compassion and tender action. There are many moments for ruthless action - what is often called ruthless - what may in many circumstances be only clarity, seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it.”  -- quote from Col. Kurtz

Probably the most interesting high-light worth sharing this week is a story.  I usually recount our own stories here, but today I want to share one from an associate of mine.  I will call him A.   I would want to say A. is a survivor, or use other adjectives to paint him sympathetically.  But I don’t want to do that here.  I want to put down plainly what I know about him and how he ‘se debrouille”.  The word ‘se debrouiller’ is one I have written about before.  It might be translated in English as ‘to manage’ but that does not quite catch it.  It is more like ‘disentangles’ or gets out of difficult situations.  But managing and getting out of difficult situations here are pretty much the same thing, as you will see.

I should give a bit of background on my own association with A.  In fact, he is probably one of my few truly “African” friends.  I do not say this because I have few Burundian friends, but because I do not know how I would classify him in the definition of ‘friendship’ that I learned in my life in North America.  I think outside of a patrimonial culture it is hard to define these kind of relationships.  I would say, perhaps, that it might be called a patron/client relationship maybe like a lord would have with a local merchant or tenant farmer.   It is cordial, but there is clearly a hierarchy, I am ‘above’ him in our relationship, though he is not an employee of mine, and that is what he is looking for.

new patio furniture.

I am learning how to have this kind of relationship, although I have not known its equivalent in my life in the US, but it seems to be based on a kind of regular ‘calling-on’ me (every few weeks) where he tells me what he is doing.  Usually his calls include a request for a bit of money, or a loan. 

The difference between a gift or a loan is hard for me to understand outside the system of ‘social security’ here.  A loan is not a formal arrangement of borrowing with a repayment plan so much as a kind of ‘I owe you one’.  If I was fully a part of Burundian society, I could probably hit him up later when one of my children was getting married, to contribute.  But for the most part it is one way with me as benefactor.

Until this past year I have been uncomfortable with the lack of mutuality, but recently I have found him to be useful in doing favors, particularly finding gas for my car when there are shortages.  He also has numerous connections at the market and can find me things, and is very happy to wait in long lines for me for things like paying my annual automobile tariff.

Over time I have come to accept the role assigned to me as a kind of ‘benefactor’.  He would like to use the word ‘parent’ but I rebuff him when he tries.

His story is not atypical.  He is from a mixed ethnic family and during the civil war his family was forced to divide with his father fleeing to his hutu relatives and his mother fleeing to hers on opposite sides of town.  He was raised by his mother’s family and his father died during the war. 

He was second in his family and shared the responsibility with his elder brother of caring for his younger siblings and mother. 

When I met him, at an English speaking church service (where he was looking for connections to benefactors) he was starting a business in the market.  He and his brother were able to open a clothing stall because he had had a taxi cab which was hit by another car.  When the insurance was paid (more than a year later) they were able to use the money to open the stall.  That was 2008. 

It seems his brother got the lion’s share of the business and got married as well.  Once married, he began contributing less to the family leaving A. to take care of their mother and younger sister.  I watched him struggle, with the market stall selling T-shirts and shorts, and occasionally doing some free lance driving.

I admit that I would complain during those years about the small loans he asked me for to care for his family.   The market struggled and he never seemed to be able to save a bit.  A year and a half ago, he told me he needed to raise a lot of money to pay for his sister’s wedding.  I watched him make the rounds for contributions and leverage himself out everywhere to give her a proper wedding.  (There is a certain way that weddings are done here and  there is little room for variation whether one is rich or poor.  They are always large, fairly expensive community events.)

His sense of pride in being able to do this for his sister was palpable.  For me it was hard to understand how he would have so little put aside, even to reinvest in his business, and his constant requests, and then put out so much for such a seemingly frivolous expense.  I resented, on his behalf, this social network that seemed keep him impoverished.  “How are you ever going to have money saved for your own marriage and family if you have to take care of your brothers and sisters?” I asked him more than once in the past few years.

In the past 8 months he seemed, despite everything, to be getting ahead.  He had leveraged several of his ‘patrons’ (me included) to be able to buy a very old car and had began his taxi business again.  With two income streams, the market and the car service, he was able to do  a little better, although did not seem to ever have much of a surplus.  He did however, hire a couple of employees to help run his market stall, and I was impressed that he was making a small contribution to the market economy in the city.

Two months after buying the cab, his market business ended catastrophically (January this year) in the fire that destroyed the central market.  His entire inventory and stall burned to the ground in the fire.  He had lost everything.

I saw him the next day and expected him to be devastated but he was surprisingly resilient.  “I thank God for looking out for me.”  He said.  “I had just bought the car before the market burned.  Now I will work as a cabbee.  It will be OK for me.”

Minotaur horns

I still saw him fairly regularly and last month he told me how he was going to open a restaurant in the very crowded “gare de nord” a big bus and taxi stop on the edge of town.  He had again leveraged himself out to several of his benefactors (me again as well—he never does anything from a place of surplus).   He had found a stall for rent and did some work to get it running.  He opened it this past week.   I visited it on the third day of opening.  He had hired about 3 employees and his brother and some other family were hanging out.  It did look like a good location and he had all the essentials for a small restaurant.  (A place to cook out back, a small fridge, and electricity.) 

Out in front of his restaurant I saw an unbelievable site.  His taxi was sitting by the road completely smashed to bits on the front end.  I asked what happened and he told me that on the day he opened the restaurant he had his cab parked out front.  That evening a drunk driver came careening down the road and smashed into his car destroying completely.

I asked about insurance and A. told me that if he ever saw any insurance money it would be more than a year from now, but he did not even seem very hopeful about that.

What really struck me though was the way he smiled as he told me all of this.  Again he shook his head and said,  “God really takes care of me.  Look, I have this restaurant right when I lost my cab.  We will be fine.”

Why am I writing this… Is A. the poster child of misfortune in Burundi?  A case for sponsorship by World Vision?  No.  A.’s story is not exceptional but typical of what life is like here for a small time Burundian entrepreneur.   I think it gives a picture of what the unregulated, uninsured world of free enterprise looks like here as well.  A. is more than a survivor.  He is a success story.  He has mastered the art of how to ‘se debrouilller’ here in Bujumbura.  He has his work, his patrons, and yes, even his own clients that make up the social network of economic life here.  Having been drawn into his social network by him I have a bit more of an intimate view than I would have had as an outsider. 

The more I understand A., the more I  feel powerless to ‘help’ him.  I have tried giving him advice, encouraged him to save, but the more I enter into the logic of his life, the more I understand how completely rational his actions are and how difficult it is for him to suddenly abandon the social relations he has in favor of some system which might allow him to ‘escape’ from the cycle of this kind of entrepreneurial subsistence.  Even things I would suggest do assume some level of functioning of social institutions like insurance and government regulation.  Maybe someday these will be reliable, but for now, the only true ‘social security’ are the social networks one creates and maintains.  I watch A. massage his patrons, and cultivate clients.  I do not envy him the amount of work he does to maintain his social network, but I see, now, how it works for him.

“- what is often called ruthless - may in many circumstances be only clarity, seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it"

Survival Tips: What to Expect When You Hit Someone With Your Car

Testing--A picture of Noel, one of our dogs, using the new camera I bought today.

I skipped a week of blogging.  Something I almost never do.  It is a discipline that I really don’t enjoy doing as much as I enjoy being awed by the sheer volume of writing I have done since being here.

I did not skip it because we were overwhelmed by work.  It was a very busy 2 weeks, but the real reason was a loss that hit me harder than I expected.  Not a loss of life, although there have been several deaths of children of some families we know that have hit close to home.   But the loss that shut me down last week was the theft of my camera. 

Theft has been a continuous problem here, but it has been on the increase in our organization in the past several months.  The theft we experience is rarely if ever, violent crime.  Although that is a problem in the poorer quarters it rarely touches expatriates.

But the type of theft we most often experience is a kind of slow bleeding.  Sadly it is usually done by someone who works at the house in small increments.  I have had to help at least one service worker get rid of several house staff, but it seems that money disappears from nearly everyone here, a little at a time.

I suppose it is understandable as prices continue to rise bit by bit, as the currency devalues and salaries remain the same.  I don’t think that theft is a good or sustainable coping strategy, but it seems to be one that is common here to make up the difference.

I think being robbed bit by bit by people you know or trust has a long term effect of weakening one's resolve.  Anger and a sense of betrayal eventually give way to a kind of emotional fatigue.  The masaai tribe likes to take some blood from the neck vein in a cow to mix with its milk.  They do not kill the cow but do receive nourishment from both the blood and the milk.  Ingenious perhaps, but I think I know how the cow feels.

I don’t want to be overly morose, that was last weekend so I have recovered somewhat.  It seems to be a fact of life here and we have generally learned to be diligent and not leave things out that might be temptations.  The camera had been used and was in the car in our driveway with the gate locked when it disappeared.  The likelihood of an inside job is very high.  But I have no way of knowing for sure.

Felix with Rwandese partner Antoine in Kigali

The past week was spent in Rwanda from Monday to Thursday.  It was a trip that was fairly routine as far as being a monthly visit, and it was an opportunity to be in touch and do some worker care for our three Rwanda volunteers.

Felix went with me and we also met all of our partners to sign our yearly contracts with them for upcoming projects since April is the beginning of our fiscal year.   We also met with our Rwanda advisors to discuss aspects of our program including the ongoing challenge of getting long-term visas for our volunteers.  Rwandan immigration has gotten a lot tougher since the M-23 rebel problems in Eastern DRC.  I don’t know if there is a direct connection, but there does seem to be a higher degree of scrutiny of foreigners in the country.

I did not go on any field visits, out of town that is.  Actually I did visit one field, a model field demonstating low tillage conservation agriculture techniques that Mat Gates our service worker has cultivated near his house.  It seems to be doing well and he had some corn already growing out.  We have not started the full-blown conservation agriculture project, still waiting for final approval of the grant, and our partners are chomping at the bit to begin.  Part of my job this week was to tell them to be patient.

The only thing that did not go well was a momentary panic attack when I went to my car and found my briefcase with computer missing after a lunch meeting with our volunteer Alyssa.  I nearly fainted and weakly called Matt to tell him send Felix.  When Matt answered he also asked if I wanted my briefcase and computer which I had left at his house.  I was relieved but surprised at how close to the edge I am after all of the aforementioned thefts.

In field with Antoine and
Alyssa our SALTer

On the way back to Bujumbura on Thursday, Felix and I swung by Burasira (an hour and a half off the main road) to pick up Teri-Lynn, our SALTer working at the Hope School.  There was flooding in her area and she had no water or electricity and wanted a few days R and R in Bujumbura.

I took the opportunity to get some video of her teaching that I will try to post on the Hope School Facebook page soon.  The library is well underway and is just missing part of the tile roof.  I was told that this would not be finished until rainy season was over as the tiles are being made out of clay on-site and right now it is too rainy to let them dry properly.

We arrived in Bujumbura Thursday evening.  It was great to be home with Rebecca and the kids.  Friday morning it was great to swim.  I went to work in the morning but spent the time preparing a sermon which I was asked to preach on Sunday.  Fortunately on the drive home I had had a clear well-ordered inspiration of what I would say. 

Friday afternoon was ballet which had not happened the past 2 weeks because of school holidays.  It was fun to be back and the kids were all there.  We are getting close to a little recital we will do in the first week of June.  They seem to be excited about this.

Library construction.

Teri-Lynn came to the older girls and the adult class.  It is always nice to have a dancer come to class and I think it did inspire the girls and even the adults as I was able to use her in a few cases to give an idea of what the aesthetic is supposed to look like on a trained body.  (There are not a lot of trained classical dancers here.)

Friday evening our family went to Ubuntu and had pizza with Rosel and Isaac Froese some friends of ours who had been here several years ago, as well as Tim and Jeanette.  The kids love to go there at any time.  Probably our favorite restaurant in Bujumbura, still.

Saturday was yoga and a meeting at church which directly followed.  Oren was invited to a knight birthday party of a German friend from school in the afternoon.  He got to make a shield mounted on wood, as well as roast bread on a stick.  Rebecca and I went as well as we are friends of the parents who work with GIZ, the German development agency.

Sunday was church and I felt the sermon went very well.  I was preaching on stewardship and made the point that stewardship is not ownership and requires that we:

1. Know the will of the owner
2. Be willing to submit to his will
3. Do his will in the right way

I actually used the passage of the bad tenants in Matthew 21 to make my point.  I won’t recount it all here, but the last part, doing the right thing in the right way has particular relevance here where I experience, especially among Christians, a tendency to use any means to justify moral ends.

This happens often with situations involving money which is given for one purpose and used for a different one, which may seem ‘higher’ or more urgent than what the giver intended.  Accomplishing good ends in the wrong way is just as bad as doing the wrong thing.

I gave the Biblical example of Saul lighting a sacrificial offering when it was clearly not his job.  Ultimately Samuel complained that “ To obey is better than sacrifice.” 

I talked about the freedom one can find in voluntary submission, rather than coerced obedience by describing my own experience in learning classical ballet where submission to a ballet master led to an experience of physical and artistic freedom I never could have accomplished on my own.

Forced submission makes one a slave, and is a gospel preached by slave masters, but voluntary submission leads to a freedom we could never obtain in our own power.

I will leave it at that.  It seemed to be well received and after church we went to Club du Lac for lunch.  On the way home we tried to drop Teri-Lynn back on a bus to go upcountry but there were no more seats so she came back home with us.  She participated in our small group which was a bit of an odd gathering with only a few regulars.  Nonetheless it was nice to meet together after a two week hiatus.  The discussion was lively as well.

On Sunday our service worker in Gitega, Melody, also came down and stayed with us as she and I were going to have a meeting with partners on Monday morning.  It was an advisory committee meeting on the Peacebuilding Institute that is run by the partner she is seconded to.  It seemed to go well and among other things, she unveiled the website she had created for it.  (Great Lakes Peacebuilding Institute.)

The meeting lasted most of the day and Rebecca and I even had dinner with one of our Rwanda partners who had come down for it. 

I did start the blog afterwards but fell asleep before I could finish it.  The sermon on Sunday had lifted my spirits considerably and I felt the rhythm of disappointment and joy is not so out of balance that I want to run away or curl up in a shell for too long.

Today is Tuesday and started with a very refreshing swim after missing most of last week.  The morning was routine for a change and at lunch I actually met an expat. who was selling a camera and had advertised it on a Bujumbura professionals site.  I bought it from her so I once again can make photos.  (Sorry for the dirth this week.)

In the afternoon I went back to work and to pay some bills but got caught in a terrible rainstorm on the way home.  I am always wary of accidents on days like this and was driving cautiously when the young woman darted out from between 2 stopped cars on the other side of the road and without so much as glancing, ran right into my path.  I slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, hitting her as the car came to a full halt.

This is like a worst nighmare here and there are many horror stories of drivers being dragged out of cars and beaten to death after hitting a pedestrian.  I always dreaded the thought of what I would do in such a situation.  Would I get out?  Drive off and look for a police officer? 

Surprisingly, I seem to have an auto-pilot that kicks in in such emergencies, maybe it is from EMT training.  I immediately stopped and jumped out without thinking about what would happen to me.  The woman was conscious and seemed shocked, lying on the ground but not obviously injured seriously as she was moving around.  I went to help her up and get her into the car to take her to the hospital.

I had almost succeeded when 3 other guys ran up to help as well.  One was yelling ‘sister’, ‘sister’!  They got into the car with us after helping her in and I sped off to the nearest hospital.  (Bumerec for any Burundi expat readers.)

We helped her in and we were taken immediately to a room and she was seen by a doctor who ordered  some X-rays.  Her brother talked to me outside in the lobby while we waited.  He said that they were coming back from church and she had crossed after them.  He said she was his big sister.  He said they were all University students.

After a while we got the x-ray results.  I paid for all care which came to under $15 for an ER visit, Xray and some painkillers.  The doctor said there were no serious injuries and she would be fine. 

We were all relieved and I offered to file a police report, but they were all against it.  When we went out to the parking lot the young woman’s mother arrived and the girl went into the car in which her mother came.  The brother talked to me a bit privately and I knew he would want a bit of money for helping.  He also asked for some money to replace her shoe which had been destroyed.  I was happy to oblige and gave him another $30 in francs.  He walked away with his friends and I went to say good-bye to the girl and her mother.  I told them that I had given her brother something for her to replace her shoes.  Her mother and her looked at each other perplexed and she said:  “That guy was not my brother, those 3 guys that jumped in the  car with us were total strangers to me.”

I did give the young woman my business card, but she seemed to be OK.  I left feeling the way I seem to feel a lot here---Ambivalent.---Relieved that I had been spared something worse; I cannot imagine having to live with the guilt of killing someone by hitting them in a car.  But on the other hand, I was a victim as well.  At a time of feeling very vulnerable and trying my best to do the right thing, someone had come along and extracted, once again, a bit of blood from my carotid artery.

I talked to my colleague Felix about it afterward.  He said that it was extremely common in a bad accident that there will be among first responders a fair number of thieves who take advantage of the opportunity to help victims to be able to steal their things.

I think I will be ready for a little cultural recess by summer.  Hopefully things will be less hairy between now and then.