Visite Sur Terrain

This is somewhat of a significant entry, blogwise, #52. That means I have been doing this weekly for a year now. (Actually I started at the beginning of May, but then went to a weekly schedule in June.)

If there are any entries that came very close to not happening in the course of a week, this would be the closest. I am actually suffering from a bad cold at the moment, and Rebecca and I just stayed up until about 11pm doing our monthly money count and report. (One of the least enjoyable parts of the job.) We are required to account for every penny we spend, and it is easy to forget small shopping trips, etc. when everything is done in cash.

We have given up at this point and will pick up again tomorrow.

This was another full week, and these full weeks are beginning to add up. As I mentioned last time, we were hosting two MCC peace program officials (Gopar and Amy). Hosting involves taking them around to meeting all our partners who are doing peace programs for them to give us feedback. They have also been staying at our house. (It is good to have a roomy house for them to stay in here.)

Since I am cutting to the quick here, I would say that one of the most interesting days was our trip up to Gitega to visit some of our partners up country. Rebecca and I decided to divide and conquer. (She stayed home with the kids while I took Gopar and Amy upcountry.) We left Wednesday morning and came back on Thursday.

It was a fairly complicated departure involving several steps to drop Oren to school, Rebecca to work, pick up our security guard who was coming with us, and pick up Amy, Gopar, and Claude (who works with one of our partners, and was our translator), before getting gas and heading up country. (I had a bit of a scare as the first gas station I went to was out of diesel, and there are frequent city-wide shortages.) Despite the stops, we did get on the road only about an hour behind schedule.

When we got to Gitega, we picked up some members of UCPD, and headed to a small commune about an hour away called Bukira Sazi. It is a place where UCPD, our partner, is running some peace and community development projects.

A ‘visite sur terrain’ (field visit) is always interesting, but not for the reasons one might expect. As much as we would like it to be an opportunity to see the community members at work, or doing workshops, putting lessons in practice, etc. It is rarely like that. The arrival of reps from an NGO is like a national holiday. We are anything but flies on the wall. Even being a bit late meant that most of the members of the community were probably hanging out at the meeting place waiting for our arrival, having put all other activities of the day on hold..

I am a reminded of the principle in quantum mechanics about the problem of identifying the location of a particle (electron). In order to detect it, one must bombard it with particles, and in doing so, you change its momentum path and location. In other words, you cannot observe a system without fundamentally changing it. That is certainly true in doing a field visit.

Our particular visit involved two stops, one to meet some members of a peace and reconciliation group, the second to meet a women’s collective. Claude was our translator from Kirundi into English, although when we were asked to say something to the community I was able to speak about a paragraph in Kirundi myself.

The visit with the women’s collective was the more interesting of the two. We had to drive very remote hill (terrible roads) and came upon what appeared to be a local market in session. There were about 300 women and 200 children in their best outfits milling around on the hillside. When we got closer, they all came toward us, and we realized this was the group we were meeting. (We had pictured an intimate time of testimonials with 4 or 5 women in a hut demonstrating some of their income generating projects.) When we got out of the car they made an immense circle around us began singing and dancing. We talked to them as a group for a short time, then we did get to see two alternative technology projects. One was a fuel efficient stove that was designed to cut down on charcoal use, the other was a method of growing vegetables in large plastic bags as land is very scarce.

By the time we finished seeing those things it began to pour rain. We headed back to the cars and returned to Gitega. We had a meal with the UCPD partners and listened to their ideas for the future, then headed to over to the MIPAREC guesthouse to spend the night. MIPAREC is another, much larger partner that has lodging facilities, a conference center, etc. It is run by Levi Ndikumana, who is never dull to be around. He talked to Gopar and Amy about, among other things, the difference between Tutsis and Hutus. He told us there was really no morphological difference, and that he himself had at different times been captured by both groups who had planned to kill him for being a member of the other. He is the founder of MIPAREC and invited Gopar to teach at an upcoming seminar. (Here is a picture of the two of them, Gopar has glasses.)

We left Gitega Friday morning and raced back to Bujumbura to try to get back before many of the offices close at noon (for the weekend.) I was aware that Zachee is leaving for 3 months on Monday and we wanted to get some things done with the local bureaucracy. We were a bit late and Rebecca and I spent a frantic hour trying to get something done before we had to get Oren at noon.

The rest of the day is a blur as is Saturday. I do know that I put Gopar and Amy on a plane on Saturday morning then worked to clear the remaining stuff out of our old house. (We were turning it back to the landlord on Sunday.) By Saturday night I was sick and woke up sick on Sunday. We did manage to give the landlord the keys and are just about clear. (It has not been an easy process to leave the old place.)

We are happy in the new place and here is a nice picture of Oren climbing the mango tree in our front yard. I am reminded of my own youth in Bangladesh (East Pakistan at the time.) and climbing a mango tree in our back yard there. I am sometimes aware that I seem to write this blog through Oren’s eyes, or at least my own eyes as a child growing up in a third world country. I find myself feeling very close to him in a way that is hard to explain--like I know what he is experiencing both from the inside and outside. He is beginning to find the adventure of being here. He loves to climb (I found him on top of the landcruiser today), run, walk on walls, travel with us when we do ‘les visites sur terrain’ (he was disappointed he did not get to go), try new things. But I am also aware of his melancholia, his longing to be back in Baltimore or New York. I can’t help but wonder about the man this child is preparing to become. It is going to be especially hard this week with two of his friends, Zack, and Timmy, leaving town for a long time next week.

I do know, however, he will be thrilled to see three of his friends from New York in Bujumbura this week. Justin, Bridget, and Alecia, three former youth of the PUMC youth group on the way here for a three week sojourn. Will keep you posted.

Women dancing for our Visite Sur Terrain