Arugula and Social Security

A harvest of argula is among the small blessings I am counting this evening.  The source is our porch garden, although the seeds were from Jodi upcountry who has harvested 4 generations worth in the past year.  The original seed package was sent from Rebecca's mother by mail a year and a half ago (and passed on to Jodi).  We had arugula salad with peanuts and passion fruit vinagrette for dinner tonight.  It was our first harvest of this tasty vegetable this year and we expect to get at least a dozen or more salads from our porch planter this month.

It is at times like this, (and swimming) that I marvel that most of our family in the US are buried deep in snow.  Although I did miss having a white Christmas, it is at this time of year that I prefer the balmy Burundian climate.  We are currently beginning the second rainy season, so the air is exceptionally clear and the hills and valleys are lush and green.  Our avocado tree is producing loads of fruit as well, and bananas can be head for about a dime a dozen.  (that means lots of banana avocado smoothies.)

I had said last week that this past week and the coming weeks are very busy for us because we are closing our fiscal year for MCC this month and opening the new one.  That means a tremendous amout of translation, and data entry for Rebecca and I.  (Actually Rebecca ends up doing the majority of the data entry these days.)  We also try to meet with each of our partners to talk about plans for the coming year and the level of support we will be able to provide.

Because of this we were due for a visit to Rwanda and we made a plan to go up to Kigali this Wednesday and come back on Friday.  We try to minimize the amount of school the kids miss, but we did want to go all together so we left on Wednesday after school.   The trip to Kigali was fairly uneventful, we were in town by 6:30 pm and stayed at the Amani Guest House, near Ruth and Krystan's house.  We had an ambitious day ahead of us on Thursday; we wanted to meet with all of our Rwanda partners during the day as well as have a much needed debriefing with Ruth and Krystan about how things were going from their perspective.

We planned to divide up the day with Rebecca doing meetings with partners in the morning, and I in the afternoon.  The kids stayed home and played at the guesthouse which suited them fine.  I cannot explain why, exactly, but they love to go to Kigali eventhough they often spend most of their time at a guesthouse playing in the yard or in the room watching movies.

The day was long and we had to squeeze in a shopping trip at Nakumatt and banking at the end of the day just before dinner.  We went out with Ruth, Krystan (and baby Micha) to a fantastic Indian restaurant called Saffron.  (There are actually several great Indian restaurants in Kigali.)  Afterward we dropped Ruth and Krystan off back home then stayed our last night at the guest house.

We left midmorning on Friday.  Since we were in no rush to get home, we stopped by an area in  Northern Burundi (Kirundu) called the Bird Lakes.  There is a Catholic guesthouse up there and we were curious whether it would be big enough to host a partner's retreat in the future.  It was about 10 km off the main road and did take some time to find, but we did succeed.  The guest house was a nice place with a restaurant and 10 rooms--not big enough for a partners retreat, but maybe a team retreat in the future.

We returned to Bujumbura by Friday evening and had a quiet family dinner followed by some games together (mainly puzze building).  The puppies were very excited to see us.

Saturday morning we combined our morning exercise class with a swim.  We went over to the house of a German family (Bella and Nina) to do the class.  She works for GTZ (German Development Agency) and they have a great house with a pool, trampoline, and even 2 crowned cranes stalking about the property.  We stretched on their front porch (10 of us) then went for a dip in the pool with the kids afterwards.

We spent the afternoon at home and invited an American missionary couple Joy and Jessie Johnson over to our house with their 3 kids, Zack, Micah, and Elliot.  (All a bit younger than Oren.)  We have known them since we arrived, and Jessie actually grew up in Burundi and is an excellent Kirundi speaker and 'cultural' translator for us.  They work with a church planted by Jessie's grandparents called the Emmanuel Church, which now has many congregations throughout Burundi.  It is modelled on the 'denomination' that the Johnson's belong to, a group called the Plymouth Bretheren.  They told me that they are really in need of some volunteers to help them out in teaching and other work here, so if there are any Plymouth Bretheren who feel called to mission in Africa, you would be most welcome in Burundi.  (Am I talking to you Bruce?)

Sunday at church we heard a very inspired Kenyan woman talk about the faith of Rahab the prostitute as the message.  I can't sum it all up here, but she talked in a very relevant way about betrayal.  She mentioned among her examples, Judas' kiss as an example of how betrayal may not be an extraordinary act of evil, but rather one that is very ordinary, a simple greeting, but our intent (often hidden) defines the true nature of the act, not its outward appearance.

It was very good and Rebecca actually got to hear it as she has been able to do some rotation of Sunday school duties these days.

Sunday afternoon we went over to Astrid and Travis' new home to celebrate the 5th birthdays of their daughters Jasmine and Yaida.  We saw many of our expat. missionary friends there, including some that work upcountry.  The kids enjoyed playing on the bouncy castle (I think it is one of two in Burundi) that is rented for every Birthday the kids go to.  But they all just love it.



It is already Monday now and I want to get this posted but...

I want to close with some reflection on lessons learned in the past several weeks that continue to shape my understanding of the cultural context here.  It is interesting how this seems to deepen constantly but never hit bottom.

MONEY and its availability seems to be a subtext, undercurrent, or perhaps elephant in the room, of most every interaction we have here.  It is true that as representatives of a Christian NGO, we get our share of people seeking partnerships, but I will say that even if I go to a party, wedding, or any other gathering, and am introduced to a new person, no one seems to consider it 'forward' to ask about the possibility of partnering (getting money) or other favors within the first 5 minutes of conversation.  I am blessed that our church, PTI, is one haven from this most of the time, but we are asked for favors from time to time by random individuals even there.

Since we are, by Burundi standards, definitely people of means (filthy rich?) it always is difficult to not feel a paign of guilt about saying no to even the most immodest requests.  But after 2 and a half years I have become better at it.

What I have struggled more with, though is our failed efforts to use our money to give others here a 'hand-up' instead of a hand-out.  That is, to provide money in the form of education, land purchase, training, or even to buy a piece of equipment to help others 'help themselves' get out of the poverty trap.

To date I would say my efforts have been abysmally bad and several I have tried to help are actually worse off than before because I have gravely misunderstood the network of social relations and how they function here.  Some cases in point:

We lent our nightguard money to buy land near his homestead upcountry so his family could grow some crops and have extra income.  Before buying the land, he seemed to be poor but able to meet his and his family's basic needs.  Since purchasing the land he is in constant need of loans to buy cow dung, seeds, fencing materials, etc.  On top of that, it seems his status in the family has risen and he now pays school fees for his family and the families of his brother and sister.  He now usually sends his whole paycheck upcountry and virtually starves himself while working at our house because he has nothing left for himself.

Lesson learned:  Individuals are deeply connected in social care networks.  To help a single person here to 'get out' is really not possible.  When we improved his economic position in his community, he was expected to bear a greater economic burden for his clan.  Since he had taken a loan from us to do this, he has in fact become poorer because he receives less money than before from us, but bears a greater social burden in his community.  Even the harvest that his land will yield cannot offset this burden.

Our cook expressed to us a similar challenge when she asked for a raise last month.  Both of her parents have passed away and she is head of household.  (Although there are at least 3 adults among her 8 remaining brothers and sisters who live together.)  She explained to us that because of her having a salaried job, her other family members refuse to work doing 'petit commerce' for smaller amounts of money.  She and them perceive that it is her that should provide for all since she is making the most money.  The fact that we pay for her to finish high-school has made her an even more privileged hence financially burdened member of her community.

I have had a similar experience with another individual who I have helped with tuition for college.  When his elder brother saw that this person was receiving tuition money, he made this person head of household and responsible for younger siblings.  (It had been the elder brother's job prior to that.)  To make matters worse, my friend, who also runs a stall at the market selling shirts, took a month off to do an internship for school.  (I helped him with food at that time.)  While he was at the internship all of his inventory was stolen so he has not been able to continue working at the market.  He is finishing his education but he is now a jobless head of family, responsible for his other family members.

In all 3 cases it seems that at least in the short run, our interventions to give a hand-up have put our 'beneficiaries' into a worse economic position than before.  Hopefully something will improve in the long run, but it seems like a micro-cosmic model of the problem that many aid giving NGOs find in Africa.  To wit:  Development has to take into account the social networks in which people live here.  One cannot improve the lives of a few, economically, without considering the effect on the group.

The last example I have is an interesting case study in how the social network functions very counter-intuitively to western values.

I mentioned last week that I had to dismiss several workers from the household of one of our service workers.  Happily though, the next day, because we had identified a thief, I was able to hire an honest one back.  I called her and asked to come in and told her we were rehiring her to her old job and would sign a new contract.  I explained that since she had been dismissed the day before she would need to return the 2 month severance pay we have given her, or take it as a credit and pay it back over time.

She opted for the latter because she said she had already spent it all and had only a few 'dollars' left.  I tried not to show how stunned I was that this person, who had been told she was unemployed the day before and was given 2 months pay plus the end of Jan salary would have absolutely nothing by the very next morning when unemployment is about 50% here and the prospects of finding a new job soon were very slim.

But then I remembered the social network.  I have no doubt that she took that money and payed off debts of all her family, friends, neighbors, basically leveraging herself out as much as possible in her community to be sure that she had a secure set of lifelines upon which she could rely for the hard times ahead.  I imagine that the idea of hoarding the money and using it on herself judiciously over time to make it last as long as possible would have been unimaginable to her and unacceptable to her friends and family.

I try hard not to judge.  I realize there are things to be said good and bad about coping strategies in our cultural context as well as this one.  I am always surprised to find that there are other 'rational' ways of behaving that might fly in the face of my notion of 'common sense'.  Indeed, there are many ways that Burundian traditional society resembles the early church with its communitarian ideals better than community structures in my own culture.  But I admit that understanding better has not necessarily drawn me closer.  I do find that I cling to core values that have defined me since birth and from time to time regard others as just plain 'weird'.  This is a change from my naive earlier perspective that we are all basically the same.  We are not.  For me understanding is the first step toward  honest respect, even if I cannot necesarily embrace or even accept the all the practices of 'the other'.  I do pray that from all of this I might truly have a heart of wisdom in my old age.