Grammy is Here

I mentioned last week that we were anticipating the eminent arrival of Grammy and my mom arrived on time last Monday morning. We went to pick her up at the airport and were a bit surprised to find that the airport itself is currently not open to the public. You have to wait for arriving passengers in the parking lot outside the airport.

This is because of, of all things, a recent terrorist alert for Burundi that is being taken very seriously. For those who do not know, the Burundian army is active as Africa Union peace keepers in Somalia and is trained by the US for this work. There has been heavy fighting between African Union troops and al Shabaab, an Islamic extremist group in Somalia.

About a week ago, al Shabaab issued a warning against Uganda and Burundi that a terrorist attack was eminent. This is disturbing, especially since this is the last thing that a country coming out of 14 years of civil war needs. It is so impoverished, so underdeveloped, so traumatized by violence. In fact, I am not sure what kind of psychological impact such a threat can really make here. It seems like most people are just numb and life is going on pretty much as usual.

We did wait for my mom and, despite the heightened security, were able to talk the police into letting us go in the building to use the restroom, and even to go in and meet my mom when we were sure the flight actually arrived. (Carrying a baby helps.)

Mom looked really great, not like she had been traveling for 2 days at all! Oren was in school when she arrived, but we had David with us at the airport. David seemed happy to have another person to carry him around.

Oren was also thrilled to see her and she gave him connect-the-dot and color-by-number books, which are his two favorite activities these days. She also had cheerios for both of the boys, a huge treat here!

She was loaded down as well with other items we asked her to bring, as well as some things for our volunteers (who had family send stuff to our house to take out here.) That is truthfully one of the great things about having visitors come from other places. They can bring things we cannot get here.

The rest of the week has been fairly routine. We had our friend Simon as well as Onesphore and his kids over for dinner on Monday. It was good to be able to support Onesphore, whose wife Innocente just left for a two-year residency in France to complete her medical training. It is hard, but really the only way for a person to get a medical degree here. We are going to try to help him set up Skype so he can call her, and so her two young kids can see her.

We had the SALTers over for dinner Wednesday, and my mom enjoyed meeting them, having been in contact with several of their parents. And on Friday evening, we had a great visit with Zachee, Bridget and Tim.

Saturday we had a meeting with our advisory board, or at least attempted to have one. One of our Burundi advisors was unable to attend, and our advisor from Rwanda, who was flying in that day was prevented from arriving because of a plane crash at the Rwanda airport the day before. Nonetheless we did discuss the changing Burundi context with those were present, especially concerning the up-coming elections in 2010. We are planning to have our partners try to do some collaborative work around election sensitization in the coming year.

We did take mom to church this Sunday and to the beach in the afternoon. She has enjoyed doing these things and has busied herself with taking care of David in the mornings the whole week so Rebecca and I could do some extra work.

One of the big ways she is helping in this is to get David to eat more. We took him for vaccinations last Tuesday and the pediatrician said he was underweight for his age (5th %). So he needs to gain some weight. Mom has been good about getting him to eat more mashed up food and more protein. Granted, he does not look unhealthy and is very energetic, but we are trying to fatten him up a bit.

This is a short entry, but it is late. We are enjoying the lights provided by our now well-working solar-charged battery (hooray!!), but I am falling asleep and Rebecca wants to try to give me a haircut before bed.