Although I was hoping to reach 300, it is quite astounding for me to see the body of written work I have created in nearly weekly installments about the
events of the past 6 years. I treated
the task as a ‘spiritual discipline,’ a public journal to allow others to share
in the experience of a North American Christian family working and living
in a small Francophone African country.
I am thankful for the grace to have been able to complete it from
beginning to end.
While there is much that I was not able to say in a public
forum -- indeed some of our most difficult struggles are left unmentioned -- I do
feel pleased that I was able to
create some narrative unity in the experience we had there, including some of
the true highlights and challenges.
Not surprisingly, the reflections chronicle changes in me more than anything else. The zeal for
going out and doing something like this is not the same impulse that makes
creating life and community as an ex-pat. a sustainable reality.
As far as value, the blog did serve as a useful distraction if
nothing else. Even during hard times, on a bad
day, I could take some small solace in being able to retell our woes on the
blog. In more practical ways, quite a few people who were moving to Burundi found the blog and even became friends; a few others made connections to our partners and started to support projects. All of these were unexpected positive
outcomes.
I hope in the future, it can become meaningful for our
children to read when they are older and want to understand who we were as
parents, and a family when they were young.
I admit, I have found myself frequently re-reading old
entries to remember not only the event, but the creative re-telling of it.
I read two books on the way home, one was Wallace Stegner’s
Angle of Repose, the other was Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. They are in no way similar, but both do deal
with the theme of ‘re-telling’ events to bring out or perhaps create meaning,
understanding, hope. While I do not
consider myself a writer in any serious way, I do feel the deep joy
of ‘telling’ our story and somehow enobling the ordinary, raising it, modestly,
to the level of myth or legend. I think
there is an honest, and a dishonest way of doing this, and I hope I did this
with integrity, not confusing story-telling with lying.
To put on the final chapter:
We have completed our two week break between departure and re-entry
which we spent in several places in Europe.
The primary reason for stopping there was to participate in an official
debriefing, run by an organization called Le Rucher, which prepares
missionaries and long-term workers for return back to their home
countries. Although they specialize in
trauma and crisis situations (ex: hostage-taking or death of a team member) they also do
general counseling for missionaries returning after a long absence to one’s home culture, a process which has complications of its own.
Our European soujourn began in Zurich where we spent a
night at the home of a friend of Rebecca from grade school. Caroline and her family welcomed us to spend
a night there.
The condominium was the beautiful perfection of Danish modern
décor. In fact, I finally truly understood the real appeal of IKEA. Every square inch of the place was
white except the blond wood floors. Even
the piano. The beds were covered
with a single duvet. It was very simple, yet elegant. The 4 floor walk up gave us a nice view out the window. The neighborhood was quaint and the public
transportation was incredible.
We left at noon the next day to travel by train to Stuttgart,
Germany where we spent 4 days with Tanja and Stefan Hoffman and their three
boys Silas, Nils, and Luis. These were
some fellow missionaries who were in Burundi for 5 of the six years we were
there. Nils was one of Oren’s classmates during the entire time. Their family had returned home to Germany last summer and we really missed them. It was really nice to see them again, and to talk about the realities of re-entry that they have already experienced -- a bit of peer counseling, maybe.
We did some outings and hikes in the area
around where they live. They live in a
village outside of Stuttgart in which every tree is a fruit tree—plum, apple,
peach, cherry. You could just walk
around and pick a fruit to munch on the way.
We visited a castle in part of the old city.
For Rebecca and I, a highlight was being able to swim in a
fabulous pool every morning while their kids were in school. There was an incredible public pool facility
a short walk from their house. It had 5
pools and several water slides. One of
the pools was a 50 meter lap pool. The
water was so shimmering clear -- you could see from one corner to the far corner! -- and the people swam in such an orderly way that
it was almost intimidating. After
being used to swimming in an opaque pool in Burundi where people swim
somewhat haphazardly, this was too good to be true.
We were able to swim 3 of the days we were there. Oren loved the water slides. David found the water too cold much of the
time. (The water was not cold but the
air is much cooler and drier than Burundi.)
We left them on Sunday and headed by train to Geneva for our
debriefing. The location of the debriefing
was in a small town (Cessy) just outside Geneva across the border in
France. Someone from the center picked
us up at the airport train station and took us there.
The accommodations at the Le Rucher center were comfortable,
on a large property in the countryside.
There was a view of the Alps and Mt. Blanc right in front of us (although mostly hidden by clouds). The food was also very provincial including
many cheeses and other dairy products.
My favorite was a gigantic bowl of crème fraiche that was brought out
for us to share every morning.
There was one other family there. They were German with 3 kids coming back from
6 years in Afghanistan. The debriefing
was for our two families, and there were 5 debriefing counselors that worked with us through the week.
It was a very interesting and helpful process, particularly
since it was geared to every member of the family. We usually began together in the morning with
some singing, then the adults and kids were separated and the kids did their
own debriefing session with 2 counselors.
The adults would meet as a group briefly and were given an assignment to work
on. Then we would get several hours each
of individual counseling sessions with one of the counselors.
The assignments we did included making a detailed timeline
of the past 6 years identifying areas of change, concern, criticism, conflict, and crisis.
We talked about these with the counselors. Toward the end of the week we focused on
re-entry and what we could expect, how to start to make new ties, etc. One of the interesting things they said was
that coming back from such an assignment, you
will find yourself with a great deal of highly specialized experience and
knowledge that will have no practical application in the context to which you
are going. This can be very
difficult to deal with as few people will actually be very interested to hear
all about your experiences. We were
reminded that as much as we have changed, nothing in the place we are returning
to has remained stagnant either. People
have changed in your home as well. Don’t
assume you are coming back to the same culture you have left.
The kids did a similar thing in a more visual way. They made a timeline with our help. But they also made "hot air" balloons and attached
strings to them, then attached symbols of things that had tethered them to
Burundi. The next day they had to cut
the strings and decide which of those things would be left behind and which
could go in the gondola with them. On
the 3rd day they added new strings of things that would tether them
to the new place they were going. Both
Oren and David enjoyed doing this.
They were also asked about their reaction to leaving. Our kids are in opposite camps on this. Nine-year-old Oren is thrilled to be going
back. To him America is all about
Grandparents, zoos, museums, and theme parks.
Five-year-old David is devastated.
He deeply identifies Burundi as home, for him this is not returning, but emigrating to the US. At one point someone asked
him if he was excited about his upcoming Birthday. “NO.” was his reply.
When asked why not, he said:
“Because I am going to a country I don’t know where I have no
friends.”
Even though David is 5, the debriefing seemed to be valuable
to him and I am glad there were counselors there that were able to process loss
and grief with him even at his young age.
The only disappointment about the whole experience was that
Rebecca had a terrible cold that was at its worst during 2 of the days we were
there. It was hard for her to be fully
present at all the sessions while feeling so miserable.
We left the center on Friday and returned to Geneva where we
rented a car. The last 3 days of our
time in Europe were to be spent in Adelboden, Switzerland, a very quaint village
in the Swiss Alps. Rebecca’s friend
Caroline had invited us up to their vacation home, (a chalet on a highland farm
that had belonged to her husband Phillip’s grandparents.) I joked that I was very
relieved that I did not live in this place, because if I did, I could imagine
only being disappointed by the Kingdom of Heaven after I died.
The town was the perfection of Swiss quaint beauty. Every house was a chalet that looked like a
cuckoo clock, in dark wood complete with flower-filled window boxes. The landscape was all lush green meadows
populated with towering Chrismas-tree shaped evergreens with a back drop of
snow covered mountains rising into the blue sky. The meadows also contained many wildflowers
and contented cows wearing gigantic bells that echoed in the hills.
The air was fresh and crisp, the water was melted glaciers,
the milk and cheese were produced right in front of our eyes. At one point we even went into the home of
one of the nomadic herders and saw the large copper kettle on a woodstove where
they made cheese. In his cellar were
shelves upon shelves of aging swiss cheese.
We could not resist buying some to bring home with us. I can only imagine that Tolkien got his inspiration for the life of Hobbits in the shire from the Swiss.
We took several hikes into the Alps and rode many cable cars
to get around to different places. Cable
cars were like public transport and you could actually buy a day pass to get
around to different places. In the
winter, of course, this is all for the purpose of skiing. (The first cable car ride Oren almost refused
to get on because he thought it was a roller coaster that was going to descend
1000s of feet at top speed. He was
relieved to find they were, in fact, slow.)
We arrived on Swiss National Day, which they celebrate
with fireworks like our 4th of July.
Oren and David were thrilled to be able to light some off with Benjamin,
Caroline’s son. They would now like "playing with explosives" to become a regular family activity. :-( Caroline’s parents were
also with us, who had been friends of Rebecca’s family when she was growing up
in Bangladesh.
The whole stay was magical, although several morning the
weather did not cooperate until after noon.
But we enjoyed the whole time thoroughly. Oren got a souvenir Swiss Army Knife on our
departure.
We drove to the Zurich airport on Monday morning and boarded
a British Air flight to Heathrow and then on to Baltimore. For me the flight was really the true
transition from our old life to our new one and I was happy it was long.
In Baltimore we were greeted by Rebecca’s parents and my Dad
and cousin Gabriel. (My mom was at home
with one of the other cousins.) They
drove us to my parents house where we spent the first night. The kids were so excited to be back that
despite jetlag they stayed up to nearly 11 pm to play with all the toys at
Grammy’s house that they remembered.
The next day we did many errands including registering the
kids in school. We saw some friends and
family, particularly Rebecca’s brother’s family Paul and Gwendolyn with cousins
Miriam and Gabriel.
But the other friends we saw were Naja and Thomas Spanner
with their kids Elias and Aviaja. These
were our Danish friends from Burundi who left last year to come to Baltimore to
work with World Relief. Elias was also
in Oren’s class in Burundi and will be at the same school Oren is
attending. It is actually very nice that
they will be here this year and perhaps ease the adjustment back as they share
many memories of us of our past life.
Rebecca and I are currenly at MCC headquarters for a day to
do our final work debrief and ‘hand back the keys’ so to speak. We were asked to share some our personal
experiences. Here is a bit of what I had
to say:
It hard to convey the deep satisfaction that we feel for the
work we were able to do in Rwanda and Burundi.
We felt called by God to do this and the experience has been
transformative for us. But it was not
sustainable, put another way, it was sacrificial. We were blessed to do it, but it did wear us
down. It also remade us. Who we were when we left is not who we are
now. That is both a blessing and a
challenge. Among the things we learned
in life was how to find ways for renewal that are built into rituals of
routine, daily, weekly, and in larger cycles.
Daily, we found the ritual of physical acitivity (swimming) followed by
Bible reading and prayer to be very lifegiving.
The weekly ritual of yoga and brunch, church and small group, the quarterly folk dances, the annual
vacations, all became important in helping us sustain ourselves during our
assignment. Even the writing of the blog
was important part of the ritual of living there.
One lesson I have learned in general is that the motivations
that push us to take an action may have nothing to do with what actually
happens. And that is OK. As a cautionary tale I will say that one of
our big motivations for going was to give our children an exposure to a
culture not their own. (Like we ourselves had as children.) In our fantasy we would expand
their world view and they would learn a new language and appreciate a culture
very different than their own.
In practice, the experience was difficult and even traumatic
for Oren. Children will have a very
different experience than you will. For
some language learning comes easily, for other it is difficult. In Burundi, taking a child on a field visit,
for instance, subjected them to a level of curiosity by local people that
bordered on harassment. They were stared
at, often touched, pinched, squeezed, laughed-at, and even taunted. Sometimes Oren would not even get out of the
car and was treated like a goldfish in a bowl with hundreds of onlookers.
I have no regrets about our desire to expose our children
and even for the experience they had.
They will process it and hopefully it will be redeemed to them fully in
the future. But I want to emphasize the
fact that no matter what we imagine the future to be, we make choices, but WE
DO NOT CONTROL EXPERIENCE, for ourselves, and even less for our children. We do the best we can, but we are always
boarding a raft on white rapids and hanging on for the ride, paddling does very
little to affect the course.
We are out of one river and are about to enter another. I feel a bit like this is more of a canoe
ride on a slower current.
We don’t know what is next for us, but I am glad that we
bring back with us a faith in God that gives us both hope and perseverance to
face the good and the difficult things we will encounter as we move forward.
This is the end of this blog. I am amazed that I have come to this
point, I still have such vivid memories of the beginning. As a former choreographer, I
do believe a work of art, a creative act, must have an arc. A beginning, a climax, and a well-conceived
ending. So this is my ending of the story of our journey
to Burundi and back. I thought about extending a bit into the re-entry experience, but I think that we will do that more privately. It has been a pleasure and an important part of processing our experience to be able to re-tell it to those who have been interested in reading.
I thank the many friends who we know and don’t know who
have taken this journey with us vicariously through this blog. I know many friends from Poughkeepsie, our sending church PUMC as well as friends family and churches in Baltimore (Valley Baptist, NBMC, Long Green Valley) have been following faithfully the entire time. We picked up many friends and followers along the way, especially fellow ex pats. from Burundi. But many other friends from Facebook who we have known in our lives have kept up with us as well.
I don’t know who you all are who had followed this blog, but I
appreciate anyone who took the time to read the stories and reflections that were shared here. I hope we will meet again
sometime. If you would like to leave a
comment on this final entry, I would appreciate knowing who you are.
For now...
Imana Ibahezegire
Dieu vous benisse
God Bless You.
