Driving Lessons and School Pageants

An Oren special.  Good picture of mommy I think.

Question: How few cars does it take to create total gridlock in an intersection?  I have seen as few as 3 successfully enter simultaneously and  keep each other and all traffic from being able to proceed forward for 15 minutes.

Driving is definitely getting worse here.  I have not wanted to comment on it, probably some denial, but I don't think I can let another week go by without mentioning it.  It is interesting that there are some trends that we can observe in even 2 and a half short years.  I know when we came here in 2008, the civil war was barely over, there were still nightly curfews and while the roads were atrocious, the traffic was not really terrible.  I encountered few traffic jams beyond a slight slowdown around the central market.  The roads were, of course, so bad that there always seemed to be a self-imposed speed limit to keep from destroying one's vehicle.

The roads have improved dramatically in the past 2 years.  Almost all the major routes in and out of town have been repaired, and the main road upcountry is completely repaired as far as divots and cave-ins.  (It is still a narrow 2 lane road most of the way up.)

But I really think the dramatic uptick of accidents I see is only partly related to the improvement of roads and a general increase in speed of driving.  It is very apparent that the number of cars driving around and even more, the number of motorcycles, has skyrocketed, all of this since the elections this summer I believe.  

Now Bujumbura is a small town and the largest artery in and out is still only a 2 lane road.  It does not take much to greatly exceed the capacity of the infrastructure of the city.   This has led to nearly constant traffic jams and gridlock on the route called "Rumonge Road".  It actually does not take a lot of cars to create gridlock and drivers here are quite awful and impatient, so upon encountering slow moving traffic, for instance, drivers will pull into the road sholder or oncoming lane and block oncoming traffic and create massive jam ups when they cannot get back on their side.  

Also, because Bujumbura has been a city with relatively few vehicles for many years, there is neither the driving etiquette, nor the infrastructure (stop signs, traffic lights, highway center lines) to create orderly traffic flow.  Most intersections have no signs whatsoever and crossing is a free-for-all.  The strategy is to  go in fast and appear to be the most crazy reckless person in a kind of game of chicken to see who will yield.  Generally the biggest car wins.  (Having a landcruiser is definitely a good thing.)  The other strategy is to get your car into a situation where you are the cause of the huge traffic jam then everyone does their best to get you through.  All of this is exacerbated by the fact that there are 4 rush hours per day.  One in the morning, then going home at noon for lunch (no one eats in town, not even schools have cafeterias, EVERYONE goes home for lunch.)  Then there is the 2pm return to work and the 5pm return home rush hour.  The weekend is worse because Saturday is wedding day and you cannot imagine the amount of traffic that get jammed up as hundreds of weddings end everyday at 5pm and everyone heads to their receptions.  One can wait an hour to go less than a kilometer.

Police are of little help as everyone pretty much ignores them or treats their hand signals as helpful suggestions rather than requirements.  The motorcycles are the worst and utterly a law unto themselves.  As I said, their numbers are on the increase and now the streets are teaming with them.  They are the taxis of the city.  During rush hour, as the cars creep along, they pass by quickly in constant lines and huge hordes, stopping for nothing, driving absolutely anywhere on or off the road, never yielding, and completely ignoring the police or any other common-sense rules of driving with the intent of arriving to one's destination alive.

I have to say, I have, almost daily taken extreme evasive action to keep a motorcycle from using my car as an object on which to commit suicide.  The most dangerous thing I do is make a left turn because seeing you stopped on the road at an intersection with your left signal on does not impede them from zipping up and trying to slide by on the left side before you make the turn.  I took defensive driving when I was 16, but even that course was aimed at keeping oneself safe by anticipating other drivers' moves.  But implicit in the course was the assumption that other drivers did not want to die.  I can't say that about some drivers here. 

If you are intuiting, from this introduction that we are going to go on a trip upcountry this week, you would be correct.  I used to dread the trips up the precarious mountain road teeming with freight trucks coming down from Dar es Salaam at high speed, but now I am thinking that city is more dangerous than that.  I still typically have to take serious evasive action to avoid being hit when driving up.  

Actually Rebecca will be going up by taxi on Monday to Gitega for some meetings with partners, and will stay the night with Yolanda, I will go up on Tuesday by car with the kids and Felix.  We will have another meeting on Tuesday then come back down on Tuesday afternoon.

Looking back this week, the highlights seem to be around events preparing for Christmas which we have  been doing a much better job of than in past years.  This was the week of children's Christmas programs, and both Oren and David had Christmas program at their schools on Friday and Saturday.  

This was David's first Christmas (or any school) show.  Rebecca and I left work at 11 am to come and see the kids sing Christmas carols under a big tent set up for the parents.  I tried to get pictures of him and his class singing "Petit Pere Noel" but the camera battery died.  Actually he, and most of his class sat stone still for the whole sond while his teachers sung and tried to animate them.  It was still cute, especially to see him as the only mzungu in his little class of preschoolers.

Speaking of mzungus (and getting old), Rebecca had a funny encounter at David's school earlier this week.  When she dropped David off, one of the administrators asked if she knew anyone who could be Pere Noel for the Christmas show.  (She said it was clear by the question that they were hoping she would volunteer ME.)  They had a Pere Noel (Father Christmas) suit with beard and mustache but no one to wear it.  Rebecca knew I would not be available but suggested our pastor Emmanuel Ndikumana who also has a daughter at the school (and was standing nearby).  The secretary (who is Burundian) laughed out loud and said "Oh no, I have many African brothers who would be happy to help, but the children here will never accept a black Pere Noel, they will know he is a fake."  Rebecca said it was a funny exchange and Emmanuel laughed to.  

When she told me, I was slightly amused, but left with the question: When did I become old enough to be considered a good candidate for Pere Noel?  I am not fat, or grey, or bearded, or grandfatherly, but hey, I'm white so I guess that is good enough to fool kids around here.  (Actually the European Pere Noel is not fat at all, and in fact St. Nicholas, who visited Oren's school this year is tall, skinny, and wears a cardinal's mitre.)

Oren's Christmas pageant was a small part of a very large art and craft fair at his school called Marche de Noel. It features a lot of local crafts by artists and artisans as well as tons of food.  Oren made a brief appearance on stage with other children in the maternelle (preschool) to sing an English rendition of We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and Jingle Bells.  It was a lot of fun and I think every expatriate in Burundi was there.

This was the last full week of school for David and Oren only has classes this coming Monday and Wednesday before the Christmas break.  I taught my last ballet class this week for the semester.  I had an ambitious plan to teach the kids a few variations from the Nutcracker but was not able to get them to a point where it was presentable.  They will be ready for the spring though.  The problem is that the classes this year a really huge and trying to teach even a simple dance takes forever.   I still enjoy doing it  though.

House painting continues, and my goal is to have the living room and dining room done by our Christmas Party this Thursday evening.  We have invited many of our friends from all countries to bring a dish and traditional Christmas song from their country.  There will also be contradancing and we will be clearing all the furniture out of the living room.

In the theme of putting recipes into the blog, which seems to be a recurring theme this month, Rebecca was invited to a 'gal's only' cookie exchange on Friday.  She was to bring 4 dozen cookies and was told she would return with 3 dozen of mixed variety (a dozen would be eaten on site).   She made a sort of Christmas ginger molasses cookie that you might be familiar with.  The difference is, that she used Scottish treacle in place of molasses.  (Treacle is to molasses what heavy cream is to skimmed milk).  I could not believe how incredibly rich and delicious these cookies were!  If you can get your hands on some treacle, you should try it.

I will mention another small work victory.  We have been approved to have a container of books sent by MCC to us.  This idea came out of many requests from partners with schools for books to make a library.  It is hard to imagine that virtually no primary or secondary schools in the country have libraries here or even a single book in any classrooms.  There are virtually no texts.  Things are written on a board and copied.  

Even at Universities the entire library might be the size of a library at a preschool in the US.  Books are very expensive here and quite rare.  Not surprisingly, literacy is about 40%.   The only bookstore that exists in the country gets 1 container of books per year and sells them at exorbitant prices.   (There is a library at the French Cultural Center but its membership fees would make it prohibitive for most Burundians to join.)

Rebecca's mom, who is a librarian was interested in helping us get some books here and offered to help MCC sort donated books (french and english language).  When we receive them we will be able to distribute them to the Hope School to help them create a library, as well as 2 libraries we support through the Friends Church in Rwanda.

We have been excited about this, but are also a bit concerned about how effective this input would be.  We talked to a friend who is a school teacher here (Joy Johnson) who did warn us that many of our children's books make a lot of cultural assumptions.  For instance, there are many about friendly animals or pets.  To a Burundian a dog, for instance, is a terrifying attack animal and having one in the house would be tantamount (to us) of having a pet rat or pig.  

Also, in her experience, Burundian children do not make distinctions between reality and fantasy as easily as children in our culture because of lack of exposure, so stories about fairies or fantasy creatures would be quite terrifying and presumed to be true and of demonic origin.

She suggested some kids books, non-fiction, with real photos of people from other cultures for instance as good teaching material.  We will see what we get, hopefully it will do more good than harm.  It is easy to see a need, but I am learning more and more that we have to be careful about the assumptions we make when we try to find a solution.  

My biggest concern is that books have such commodity value that it would be hard to imagine that they would not be stolen and sold (even by teachers).  I think the idea of a reading room open at certain hours in a school is more realistic than a library that lends books out for people to keep overnight.  I will let you  all know how this all develops.

I will close with a nice picture of a letter that came in our mail recently.  We frequently get letters that are misaddressed to our box and have to be resorted.  Last month we got one that was supposed to go to the French Ambassador.  This week however, we got a card destined for one SEM Pierre Nkurunziza.  That is Son Excellence Monsieur Pierre Nkurunziza, who happens to be the President of Burundi!  Somehow the sender had put our box # on it.  (I scratched it out so it would not come back to us again.  Hopefully the post office will get it right the next time.