Confronting a Culture of False Hopes

Rebecca shopping at Nakumatt, a supermarket in Rwanda with David on her back. She really makes a great impression on the Rwandese this way.



I have been wanting to say something about culture shock for a while. It is interesting to see the different ways it manifests itself over time. In many ways it is only in retrospect does one realize that one has been affected deeply.

I am talking about the kind of subtle differences that speak more to our cultural assumptions. The reason we don’t experience those differences right off, is because we are usually not conscious that we make cultural assumptions until we experience something different and begin to understand that the ‘other’ is not simply ‘wrong’ or ‘immoral’ but has in fact a different set of norms guiding their notions of ‘right’ and ‘morality’. For me the experience has been frustrating at times, but I am beginning to see how things work here.

The issue that has been most apparent to me is the idea of truth and honesty. I elaborated several weeks ago my frustration with trying to get a DSL connection in our house, especially the frustration of going weekly for several months to the phone company only to be told by a friendly customer service rep that it should be fully operational ‘tomorrow.’ After several months of this, I finally found out through some indirect ‘snooping’ that in fact the phone wires in our neighborhood do not, and will not support DSL in the near future. When I confronted the customer service rep. on this, she essentially told me that telling me that would have caused me to ‘lose hope.’

I was rather taken aback at her explanation. I could not see, as a westerner, how a false hope could be better than a bad truth. But last week I had a similar experience which shed some more light on the situation: Some friends of ours went to Europe for holiday and to visit her elderly ailing mother. Her mother has had an extended illness and is not expected to live much longer. When they returned ‘he’ told me that they had told some of their Burundian colleagues that they had gone home to visit their mother who was not expected to live much longer.

The Burundian’s were completely appalled at the frankness of that statement. How, they demanded, could one possibly know that someone was going to die soon. When our friends told them that the doctor had told them so, they were even more scandalized that a medical professional could be so heartless and cruel as to give a diagnosis and some expectation of life expectancy. They said that NO Burundian doctor would ever do such a thing as tell a family that their loved one might (or would) die. He would always give a much more cheery prognosis. The Burundians were actually horrified when our friends went on to tell them that the doctor had also given the bad news directly to her mother. Again they could not believe that such an evil person would be allowed to practice medicine.

I recognized, in hearing the story recounted to me, that it bore a similarity to my phone experience, and then I had a sudden resounding revelation that this is far from the only time I have been given an optimistic hope in place of ‘the raw facts’. In fact, I realized that even in meetings with partners for staff or project evaluations, I have probably been told something that represented a hope rather than a reality.

It was honestly a bit destabilizing because I had the sudden impulse to say (as the poet said about Cretans) “All Burundians are liars.” And in our culture these kinds of statements would be considered lies.

But I also know something else. It does not seem that everyone here is being lied to. In fact, what is remarkable to me is that everyone seems to know EVERTHING about everyone else. So what I understand is that facts are not communicated directly, but there is a way to get them.

When I wanted to know what happened with the DSL I sent Zachee to ask someone else in the company. I think this kind of indirect way of getting factual information is the norm. Direct conversation preserved decorum, real knowledge comes from indirect inquiry.

This was a topic of conversation at the Duke conference several weeks ago. Some of my Burundian colleagues were greatly amused in sharing with me some of the local proverbs that speak to this issue of honesty in direct conversation. I thought this one was fairly amusing: (translation-)
“A Burundian will not tell you that he hates you, and you will not tell him that you know it.”

A more sobering one was:
“One must lie to feed ones children.”

Jodi also shared some insights with me last week about trying to do an assesement about school drop out rates. She wanted to ask a a question to some young girls “Why did you drop out of school?” Her advisors shook their heads and told her she could never ask such a question, it was far too personal. AND YET every single person seems to know why this person dropped out of school.

Jodi’s conclusion was this: The unspoken is a far more powerful motivator in Burundian society than the spoken.

This has some serious ramifications for our work here. One concern of ours is that if people are not representing their true feelings and motivations in direct conversations, how can we be confident that they have actually been reconciled to each other in our trainings. There is some concern that it may be a ‘hope’ expressed as a ‘fact’.

Secondly, in doing follow-up or even base line assessment, how can we get information we need if direct questions are neither a reliable nor acceptable way of getting facts.


I don’t have answers to all these questions, nor do I expect to anytime soon. I don’t even claim to fully understand what is going on here, but that is at least one example of culture shock I have experienced in the past month.

Learning the Kirundi language is definitely helping understand the culture. I continue to plod along weekly, I am making no great strides, but I have a great capacity to just keep learning a bit at a time for as long as it takes.


This week was fine in other ways. The big event was heading to Kigali on Wednesday to meet with partners and plan programs for next year. It is always nice to go up there as a family. Oren says he really loves going there and staying at the Africa New Life Guest House. The truth is though, his behavior when we are traveling is generally worse than when we are at home. He really seems to do better when he has a very consistent, rigorous routine. School days are his best days. He has always been a child who loves order and pattern and that continues to be evident.

Now that David is older and more mobile, Rebecca and I have to split up our work almost completely. Gone are the days when we can both attend a meeting with partners. One of us is the parent, the other is the MCC Rep. But we do rotate the positions. This time Rebecca met with partners on Thursday, then I did on Friday. We returned back to Bujumbura on Saturday.

It was a bit of a hard trip because we pretty much had to tell everyone how much we are cutting their grants this year. MCC has really been hit by giving during the financial crisis. I am hoping that this year is the bottom of the trough and things will begin to improve after 2010.

While we were in Rwanda, an apparent coup attempt was thwarted in Burundi. Here is a link to an article about it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8488598.stm

When we got back on Saturday it did not seem to be any news and everything seemed normal. So I guess everything is fine for now, for those who might have heard anything about it.

We got back on Saturday on time to go over to our friend Thomas and Naja’s house for our biweekly get-together. It is always nice to catch up with them. It can also be a time to commiserate about cultural difficulties we face.

We ended the night with a family movie “Up” which Krystan had downloaded and given us a copy on a flash disc in Rwanda. It is quite amusing for those of you who have not seen it.

Sunday was a pleasant Sabbath. We went to church in the morning, then swam at our pool “Entente Sportif” in the afternoon. Before going to the kids’ Sunday school in the afternoon.

Speaking of swimming I cannot tell you how warm it has been here. In January we have a small ‘dry’ season which is marked by hot, still days. The pool water feels so great! It is hard to imagine that many who read this are mired in cold and snow. I don’t know when the next time I will see snow will be, but probably not for another 4 yeas as any home-leaves will almost certainly be in the summer.

Pray for Rebecca and I next week. We have been asked to preach at 2 places next Sunday, and one is a church comprised entirely of ex-child soldiers (who are now adults.) We want to be bringing a message that will encourage them and build their faith and a REAL hope.