The Flood

Zachee's backyard and porch. That little line of bricks under the columns is a 4 foot high wall.


I am beginning to harbor a deep anxiety about Tuesdays. For some strange reason, it seems like the tribulations that we face on a nearly weekly basis here are visited upon us on Tuesdays. In the last 4 weeks we have consecutively seen Tuesdays where a close colleague’s young wife died, a longtime local partner died, Oren broke his arm; and this Tuesday, a flood seemed like a test of Biblical proportions.

I want to begin the story a bit earlier though. As you may remember from last week, we had just returned from Rwanda last Saturday after a hard work week of meetings. My Dad arrived Saturday as well and spent the week with us. By Sunday, I was not too surprised that I was coming down with a fever and it was actually quite high by Sunday night. I was relieved to be back in Bujumbura and we had planned to take a day off Monday to relax.

The only event we had planned was to take my Dad to Lumiere University to do a guest lecture on Strategic Leadership. Despite feeling lousy, I was happy to take him and help him set up. We were disappointed to find that the power was out – he had prepared a PowerPoint presentation as part of the lecture. However, the moment he began, the power came on, an answer to a prayer I was repeating right up to that point. The lecture went very well and was even attended by the President of the University. Sadly, we had to decline a dinner invitation with the President because I was feeling so sick afterwards. (A bit of a cultural faux-pas, but I think we will be forgiven.)

On Tuesday morning we prepared for a normal workday, and it was nice to be in our daily routine. I woke up, made breakfast for Oren and got him ready for school while Rebecca fed David and showered. We dropped Oren at school but were surprised that we did not see Zachee and Timmy there. (We usually see each other at school) We headed to the office and as soon as I got there Zachee called my cell phone. I asked how he was and he said. “Things are bad.”

Zachee can be a master of understatement, and I was not sure whether it was something terrible, or if perhaps his car battery was dead. He then went on to say that the heavy rains overnight had flooded his house. But what he described on the phone sounded more like a tidal wave. He said everything on the first floor of his house had been destroyed and a worker, who slept downstairs, almost drowned. He said if Timmy had been downstairs he certainly would have drowned. (Fortunately his bedroom was upstairs.) He described it all as happening suddenly, at 5 am, and I was having trouble visualizing how this steady rain could have such a spontaneous effect. I told him we would come right over.

When we got there, it became quite clear what had happened. The next door neighbor’s house which sits higher than Zachee had very poor drainage. Water coming downhill (draining out of the most populous slums in Bujumbura) had actually found a channel into their yard and had filled up the entire brick enclosed yard with about 6 feet of water. (It is important to remember that every house in Bujumbura is surrounded by a brick wall.) The wall adjoining Zachee’s house suddenly gave way and crashed down at 5 am (photo of wall that broken down). Water and bricks poured into Zachee’s yard, slammed through his first floor in a six foot wall of water, smashed down doors, pulverized the furniture and everything in the lower level, and continued through to his other outer wall on the other side of the yard, knocking that down as well. Because Zachee’s house sits a bit lower than his 2 neighbors, about 4 feet of water remained in his yard and first floor, and did not have any way to leave. All the drains were blocked by fallen masonry.

When we got there, it was an appalling sight. It was especially strange because neither neighbor had had any water enter their own houses. We could not even drive our landcruiser into the gate. In his lower level, his kitchen, dining room, guest room, library, tool room, porch, and servant quarters were deep in muddy water. Nothing was standing up, doors were smashed to pieces, the fridge was floating around in the kitchen (photo), the dining room hutch, tables, and chairs were in pieces, the guest bed mattress was floating as well, everything else was submerged in water and mud. The bedrooms upstairs were fortunately out of the tidal wave’s range. Zachee described being wakened by what sounded like a clap of thunder.

Illness for me always seems relative. Despite continuing to nurse a high fever, I felt like his situation was far worse than mine, and I offered to help in any way I could. We started by wading through the water to try to find some of his books, DVDs, important folders, power tools, etc. with our feet. We waded around for several hours fishing through the opaque water. Virtually nothing was salvageable, certainly no books or papers.

At noon we went and picked up Oren and Tim, and all went to my house for lunch. That afternoon Rebecca and I (and Dad) took care of Oren, David and Tim while Zachee worked on getting a pump truck to get the water out of his house and yard. (It is worth mentioning that Bridget, Zachee’s wife, was in Congo doing some work with the Norwegian government and was not to be back until Thursday evening.)

Tuesday evening we had our Bible study, but I told Zachee to pack bags for himself and Tim that evening and move into our house with us until he was able to clean up and at least get his kitchen functional again. That night they stayed at our house, in our last remaining bedroom. (Actually we moved David into our bedroom to make 2 guest rooms available).Tuesday night, needless to say, my fever was considerably higher, and I was feeling very bad.

Wednesday morning we took both boys to school, Zachee went to work at the house, Rebecca went to work, and despite feeling terrible, I took Dad to his second and final lecture on strategic planning at the University. It all went well and we picked up Rebecca, then Oren and Timmy for lunch after it was over.

The afternoon was unavailable for work once again as babysitting 3 children is a lot of work, but we wanted Zachee to be able to continue work on clean up. Oren and Timmy are particularly wild together and need a lot of supervision (see last week’s blog!). I was really missing our worker Denise who had left us several weeks ago. Wednesday evening Zachee and Tim stayed again. We needed many things for the house since we had been gone the week before. I was too sick to really run around, so Rebecca had to do errands while I stayed at the house with all the children. (Marcelline and Dad were there as well to help.) Poor Rebecca really had so much on her plate with 3 extra guests, AND a sick husband to care for as well.

As if that was all not enough, while she was driving from one errand to another, some bandits jumped onto the back bumper of her car in a downtown traffic jam, and tried to jimmy off the spare tire. She honked furiously, which didn’t discourage the thieves. However, the cars in front of her cleared away and she was able to make the turn and go fast enough that they had to jump off before they could complete the task.

Wednesday night my fever was unbelievably high and I was feeling a bit delirious. I should say something about how I feel about fevers. Strangely, I do not dislike the feeling of being incapacitated by the chills and misery associated with fever. Fever is the cure not the illness. I feel like it’s the way the body forces the rest on me that I am refusing to take, in order to heal. I often feel that fever has a physical and spiritual component as well. On Wednesday night, I was particularly aware that this illness seemed to be a divine corrective, not a spiritual attack. I realized that in the past 2 weeks I had been doing everything in my own power, even helping Zachee, and not seeking God. I was now at the breaking point. So shaking with chills at 2 am, I asked Rebecca (who had gotten up) to pray with me and for me. We prayed for over an hour. When we were done the fever broke, and the bed was drenched in sweat. I was weak Thursday, but have not been sick since that night.

Thursday, Rebecca and I went to the office after we dropped the kids at school, Zachee stopped by as well and we took some time to pray with him at that time. (We had not done that with him yet!) It was good, and at that point, in God’s strength I knew that we would be able to face the tribulations that the week had visited upon us. It was the first day back to the office in 2 weeks and it felt good to begin to catch up. The hardest job was to complete our monthly financial report and account for all the money we spent in the past 2 weeks. We did get our statement to balance though.

Zachee took Timmy after lunch to pick up Bridget, and Rebecca and I were relieved to have her back to help Zachee. They joined us all once more for dinner that night. They had their house to a place where they could cook on the porch on charcoal, and decided to go back home that night.

On Friday, the day seemed almost normal, we dropped Oren off at school and went to work, only we brought dad with us. While Rebecca worked, Dad and I ran around doing some overdue errands. It was good to show him around a bit more of the town, including the central market area. We succeeded in finding an electric iron as ours had burned out recently.

After lunch that same day, I drove him back to the airport and he got on a plane back to Addis to connect to a flight to Rome and then Baltimore. I imagine he is home by this writing. It was such a pleasure to have him visit. That marks the visit of a second grandparent (Rebecca’s Mom was first.) We hear there are plans for all four to visit sometime this summer. We are blessed to have such adventurers for parents. Of course they are the reason we have wanted to come back overseas in the first place.

I would be remiss in failing to mention some of the good points of the week. One thing was the opportunity to extend our home and time to Zachee in a time of need. It was a real opportunity for Christian witness for us to invite him and his family to stay with us. Zachee said that it was really an example to many when a ‘boss’ extends such lavish hospitality on an ‘employee.’ Especially if he is a mzungu. Zachee is, of course, a friend more than anything else to us, but I think it appeared remarkable to many who watched from a distance.

The other amazing thing has been Marcelline’s cooking. While we were in Rwanda, we sent Marcelline to work with Enoch, the cook of one of our neighbors—he is really quite a master chef. Enoch taught her a ton of new gourmet recipes, as well as places to find things in the market like fresh lettuce, spinach, broccoli, etc. She has made some exquisite dishes. Enoch even came over to our house this week to make sure she did them right. On the menu this week we had:

Monday—spinach quiche
Tuesday—fish and mango coconut curry
Wednesday—fish stew with French bread
Thursday—sausage and vegetable goulash
Friday—stuffed cabbage rolls
Every meal has been accompanied by amazing salads with lettuce, peppers, and mangoes in them. She has also made a fine selection of homemade salad dressings from ranch, to peanut, to an assortment of vinaigrettes.

We of course allay our guilt about eating so well by insisting that what we are really doing is ‘building her capacity’ so she can find work when we leave, or perhaps even open her own restaurant someday. In the meantime, we are eating a lot less rice and beans, and a lot more salads.

And finally, Slumdog Millionaire is playing in Bujumbura tonight, and the Carr’s said they would baby-sit the kids for us!

It’s important to take the bad with the good!

Final Image: Oren and Timmy have are becoming better friends all the time. Especially after living together in Kigali and then Bujumbura the last 2 weeks.