--But I am getting ahead of myself. I will say more about this next week and include some nice pictures of Ghana when I download them from my camera. A lot happened last week in the intervening time between returning from Rwanda and leaving for Ghana.
The time in Rwanda was good and included meeting with several partners. The most interesting one was upcountry near the Ugandan border where one of our partners, CAPR, does interdenominational peace work by bringing pastors together to dialogue and build unity. This is particularly important in Rwanda where ethnic divisions fell along denominational lines as well. This was the byproduct of different denominations dividing the country up regionally to evangelize; consequently, Christianizing the country resulted in reifying ethnic divisions rather than ameliorating them. (I used the word christianizing to distinguish it from the more transforming work of sharing the Gospel message and bringing people into a living, loving relationship with Jesus and each other, which seeks to love enemies, and bless the peacemakers.) They asked me to say a few words as part of the conference, so I pulled together a little encouragement talk (in French) using Ezekiel 37 about the dry bones coming to life. I think they were planning on giving me an hour to speak off the cuff, but I begged off and said 10 minutes would be more than enough!
The meeting was interesting, but the drive up deserves its own space in this blog. Since I had flown up to Kigali, I had to rely on local transportation to get me around in Rwanda. This put me considerably out of my comfort zone but I braved at least one trip in town on a ‘taxi-moto’ (a motorcycle taxi). I have not mentioned these before, but it is one of the preferred modes of transport in Kigali and Bujumbura. (Probably because fuel is so expensive) The risk by western standards is really unacceptable and I have avoided them, but did have a few short trips that seemed reasonably safe in town.
To go upcountry I had to hire a cab. Fortunately I had the number of a local cabbee who was reliable and I called him to ask him to drive 4 of us up. He agreed, and we made a price. My prayer was that we would not find ourselves driving through the Rwandan mountains at night in an unreliable vehicle. (This prayer was not answered the way I wanted it.) We started out Saturday, midmorning. The cab seemed to ride low but I had no choice but to trust it or else create an embarrassing scene betraying my probably irrational fear. I had two of our Rwandan partners in the car with me as well and they seemed not to be worried. The car overheated the first time about 30 minutes into our 3 hour journey out of the city. The fuse to the fan was not working. We stopped and took on water. We went another 20 minutes and stopped again… and so on... until we got to a town with a mechanic who could bypass the fuse and connect the fan directly to the battery. That helped. (I could write a whole blog entry about what a 3rd world auto service station looks like, but it would be too much of a side track here. Suffice it to say, spare parts are non existent, and wood, tape, string, nails, torn cloth and cardboard, are all acceptable materials for repairing an engine.)
We plodded on to our destination though by now we would be quite late. Despite my anxiety, I was in for a real surprise. Northern Rwanda is home to a spectacular range of volcanic mountains! You should shoot me for letting my camera battery die here, but I can only describe it as something that would inspire the scenes from the movie King Kong, or Dr. Livingston’s “Dark Continent” The 13 peaks were sublime and beautiful towering above the hillsides, the tops hidden in clouds . Our project was also right next to the lowland gorilla national park. (We did not have time to stop in though.) I really understood then, one of the reasons that Kigali is so developed, and has such a thriving tourism industry. This was truly magnificent. I hope to come back my family sometime next year.
In stark contrast, the village where our project ran was profoundly impoverished, and in our short time there we saw some development projects for children to learn sewing in order to afford school fees and food as well as an income generating woodshop where they made planks. The contrast between the guest houses near the park entrance and this were striking. I thought of tourists who would bypass this on their way to the beauty of the volcano and gorilla parks.
We had our meeting with the pastors and it was good, and I spoke reasonably well. It was, however cut short by our necessity to get back on the road to Kigali before it was dark. (We also took on a passenger.) I have to admit that the ride back was very hard. We continued to break down, bottom out at every bump, and limp back to Kigali at a snail’s pace in total darkness. I can’t tell you the relief I felt to get back to an internet café and Skype Rebecca and Oren that night.
I returned to Bujumbura Sunday morning to an event worthy of note--a levee de deuille for Zachee’s wife. This is a ceremony that is done a year after the death of a loved one. It is an official lifting of the veil of mourning, after which time one can get married, family property can be petitioned, debts can be collected, etc. Prior to that year, nothing legal is done with the decedent’s property and making new relationships prior to this is socially unacceptable. Zachee lost his wife Fifi last September, and this has truly been a year of mourning for him. I do believe that he and his 3 year old son Timmy are ready to move on, and it was good to support them in this ceremony.
Without Rebecca, the week was very busy for me on the homefront as well. I had to do the many things that she normally does, like make the weekly menu and shopping list for the cook to go to market, pay staff, organize cleaning, etc.
All my work here has been complicated by the fact that we have been having daily power failures in Bujumbura for the past week, at very inconvenient hours when I usually need the computer. I also had several guests over the weekend for the aforementioned ceremony, and I have a new housemate, Isaac, who just came to Burundi. He will be staying with me for the next month and will continue on to housesit when I go back to US.I have really missed Oren greatly and look forward to talking to him although Skype does not keep his attention. To his great delight though, I have been taking pictures we have of him from Africa and elsewhere and adding in his favorite cartoon characters, using photoshop. Here is one of him in our backyard under the avocado tree with me and Dumbo. He loves these and apparently said to Mommy when he got it: “Dumbo is in Burundi!” Rebecca reports that they are doing well in Baltimore and Oren loves to be at his grandparents’ house where raspberries are in bloom and he can pick them off the bush and eat them. He also began preschool there.
A final postscript. For those of you who read last week of Gaspar’s need of mattresses for his children. I bought them this week with him and hopefully will be able to help him get them to Gitega when I go up next week.
1 comment:
Paul:
Your story about the car in Rwanda reminded me of our two VW beetles in St. Louis and how we patched them together with cardbord, duct tape and string.
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