We have been developing a Sunday routine that is really giving some meaning to Sabbath. Generally we do not work at all on Sunday, but go to church at the Burundian fellowship PTI in the morning (usually goes from about 9 to 12) then we either go to the beach or home for lunch and play. We enjoyed lunch on the porch yesterday after a very thoughtful sermon on the ‘discipline of giving.’ Probably most interesting were the questions afterwards about what this means in the Burundiain context. Not so much that people are poor, but that there is already tremendous social pressure to give any surplus to the many needs of family, friends, etc, for any number of reasons from weddings and funerals to business loans.
This in turn gives one leverage in the community to ask for money when these needs arise for them. But this network makes giving in the sense of true charity difficult. (That is giving in which nothing is received in return.) Mzungus get sucked into this network as well. Rebecca and I are, on a daily basis, asked by strangers, friends, staff, partners, etc. for gifts or ‘loans’ for any number of projects. I feel in many ways we are far more ‘generous’ than we were in the US simply because a lot more people ask us for money.
BUT I honestly cannot say I feel particularly good about giving away money this way. First because we are not really part of this social network, so we don’t really have a quid pro quo relationship with these people in quite the same way. Secondly, I really feel that this money reinforces a dependency relationship and reifies the belief that white people and white people’s money is the answer to the challenges in Africa. I would say that the more I am here, the more I believe the opposite to be the case. I have seen very few instances where financial inputs by us, have brought about sustainability or long term transformation in anyone’s lives.
A long diatribe to say that the sermon has encouraged Rebecca and I to rethink our giving and we have decided to be much more intentional about where we give and why. We do, for instance want to support the vision of the fellowship we participate in. We also do want to be able to help our staff take care of their families, but also build their capacity. We are helping 2 of the 3 with education at this time, and that feels like something valuable. The big challenge will be to say “no’ a lot more to the many legitimate needs that are brought before us that really should not be solved with a quick fix from a rich mzungu.
(continuing with the day) Sunday afternoon we went to the English fellowship where Oren goes to Sunday school. One thing I like about this fellowship is that I get to play the djembe when we sing from time to time. We also help out with the Sunday school.
The latest addition to our Sunday routine that is really enjoyable is after the English fellowship we head over to Ubuntu, a restaurant overlooking the lake, where they have half price pizza and drinks between 5 and 7 every day. We are making this a weekly tradition and we usually invite friends (like Zachee, Bridget, and Tim) to eat with us. What is nice about it especially are the enclosed grounds complete with crowned cranes, turtles, frogs, and even some cats, as well as large rocks and palm trees that makes a fabulous natural playground for the kids to entertain themselves while adults talk. (We occasionally see hippos on the lake here in the evening as well.)
Yesterday we were there alone because Bridget was recovering from malaria (It also rained while we were there). It was still a nice time though with the family sitting under an open pavilion watching the rain fall and enjoying the cool breeze.
This is the rainy season and that means it is malaria season. I consider it almost a miracle that no one in our family has succumbed yet since we have been here. We are diligent about using mosquito nets at night, which I think is the most effective preventative measure. We are no longer taking malarial prophylaxes as we did not have good feeling about taking larium weekly for 5 or more years. But that has meant we really need to use those nets.
Malaria has been the cause of a great deal of absences of our house staff the past three weeks. All have had malaria and have missed one or two weeks of work at a time. This has made life challenging as we have had to do a lot of cooking and shopping, and cleaning on our own. (I know that does not sound too hard, but in a place where there are no supermarkets or prepared food, even making a pizza means you start with tomatoes, flour, and a wheel of cheese).
The big news for Oren though, happened on Friday and I am sorry I have no documentation of the event. We were at Entente Sportive, the swim club, after work with the kids and some of their school friends. Oren suddenly decided he wanted to jump off the 3 meter platform. (There are 2 three meter platforms and a five meter platform on the deep end of the pool.) I went over with him, and after about 30 seconds of looking down, he jumped off. He came up out of the water with a tremendous look of triumph on his face and went back up and did it 5 more times. (One of the 'perks' of living in a third world country is that there are no safety rules governing such things as 4 year olds going on high diving boards.)
He loved it so much that he wanted to go the next day and do it again. When we went Saturday though, he suddenly got afraid and refused to jump. It was sad because I brought the camera then and was going to put a picture of him jumping in. Maybe we will try again next weekend.
I seem to be working backwards through the past week and I will just say by synopsis that the work week went well with much of our work focused on election preparations (see press release below). One thing worthy of note has been a teachers strike in the Burundian public schools.
The teachers are on strike because they have not received their full salaries. I am not exactly clear why, but it is a typical problem for govt. employees here. The Belgian government even gave a grant to pay the salaries so the teachers could go back, but it seems the government squirreled away that money for other things. (another typical problem.)
Now however, after more than a month of this strike and exams coming up, the public school students have decided to call a strike and to demonstrate against an unfair disadvantage they will have going into national exams vis-à-vis private school students who have not missed any classes. (Apparently the national exams will happen as scheduled despite the extended teacher strike.)
So the public school students have been preventing private school students from going to class by going to the schools in the morning at throwing stones at them at school entrances this past week. They have effectively shut down several private schools. (Including the one behind our house.)
It is really sad to me to see another example of a completely broken system here. Honestly, as I look more and more deeply at the problem of poverty I find less and less a spirit of compassion in me but rather a spirit of anger. This is probably the second phase of being a foreigner in this context. Underneath the suffering one almost always finds, not misfortune but structures of injustice that keep the poor miserable and stuck, while the wicked prosper.
And I won’t be simplistic, it is not a simple matter of wealthy first world nations raping the land and people, these structures are at every level and know no racial boundaries, they exist in the world, nations, states, communities, neighborhoods, households, and families. The vulnerable have no power at all these levels and transformation has to happen in all of these places. A change from the top will not change the injustices at the levels below, nor am I convinced that a change from the bottom necessarily will bring about change at the top. It is a challenge to know where we can enter to bring about change that transforms all. But it does reaffirm my belief that such work for change requires a supernatural patience and hope.
I am thankful that our work here is through an organization that recognizes God as the agent of change, and we have the patience and hope that only a faith that extends beyond our individual lives can engender. That said, I think I will end here.
I am including below a press release Rebecca wrote for our activities in Burundi related to election preparations.
MCC joins efforts to prevent election violence in Burundi
Rebecca Mosley
April 23, 2010
BUJUMBURA, BURUNDI – Burundi, still recovering from a 15-year civil war, is bracing itself for national elections in the summer of 2010. Past elections have triggered violent ethnic conflict; the current elections are a real test of Burundi’s progress towards ethnic reconciliation and power sharing. Burundi, one of the 10 poorest nations in the world, desperately needs a sustainable peace in order to concentrate on much-needed progress in education, health care, agriculture and development of infrastructure.
MCC and its local partners have joined together with other organizations from the historic peace churches as the Quaker Peace Network (other international members include American Friends Service Committee, Norwegian Quakers, and African Great Lakes Initiative; 7 local Friends NGOs are also key members in the network).They are recruiting and training election observers to help promote free, fair and transparent voting. They have also joined with a larger nationwide network to prevent election violence. Key people have been handpicked from every corner of the country to report incidents of election violence—as well as note pro-active work for peace. They aim to map any incidents to better understand causes of violence and work at resolving conflicts before they explode. A reliable network of information will help dispel the kinds of rumors which led to the violent conflagrations of past decades.
This network for preventing election violence, “Amatora mu Mahoro,” was launched on Friday, April 23. The president of the National Independent Election Commission (CENI) presided over the event, and gave high praise to this effort to change history in Burundi and safeguard a peaceful electoral process.
“Amatora mu Mahoro” has widespread support across Christian denominations. The Quaker Peace Network represents some of the protestant actors. But the closing speech was given by the Catholic Archbishop of Bujumbura. In a wonderful gesture of rare ecumenical cooperation here in Burundi, Msg. Everiste recognized that Christians of every confession have already decided to pray hard for these elections. “But not simply to pray. They have decided to work for peace with the faith that moves mountains.”
MCC Burundi is a small program with few financial resources. But it has supported these peace efforts through the rich relationships it has formed with partners in Burundi. It has been able to connect local grassroots peace activists – from University peace commissions to elders of village reconciliation councils – with these national efforts. In this way, the national network has access to reliable local information and people of integrity in remote corners of the country. And local peace builders are empowered to play a role in the national effort to solidify peace in their country.
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