11 Workdays and a Long Weekend in Akagera Game Park

Woodland Kingfisher on Lake Ihema.

 
It feels like I have been out of contact for ages having missed a single posting last week.  I did warn in my last entry that I might be out of internet range for some time, but even more, was the feeling that the week never really came to an end last week, but rather continued for 5 extra days before the weekend which finally began for us this past Thursday.

We are currently in Bujumbura again, after about 9 days upcountry and in Rwanda.  The reason for then extra long week had to do with a plan for a team retreat in Burasira, followed by meetings with Rwanda partners.  Rebecca and I did our best to gear up physically and spiritually for what promised to be a somewhat grueling amount of relational energy, but we also knew that at the end of it all, we would need to have some time alone with the kids so we planned to take advantage of our time in Rwanda to visit a gamepark (Akagera) on the country's eastern frontier.  It proved to be a place of much needed respite, but I will say more about that as I develop the sequence of events these past 2 weeks.

We began our work week well enough last Monday (Feb 28th).  We had quite a bit to do because we had planned a team gathering for the weekend in Burasira for several purposes.  We needed to discuss our values as part of a yearly review of our with MCC, but also, we wanted to have an opportunity to be in the place where Jodi works as she is down to her last month on assignment and this will be the last full team gathering she will be part of.
 
 Complications, though for the week began early as we found that our cook Marcelline had fallen ill again and we were expecting Ruth and Krystan to arrive on Wednesday.  Absence because of illness is a constant challenge here, and often the malady is something along the lines of malaria or thyphoid so recovery is considerably longer than the flu.
 
Having to do the cooking and other housework along with our other work is actually very difficult as cooking is far more labor intensive than running to a supermarket and popping something into an oven or microwave.  Everything is made from scratch from tomato sauce, to pasteurized milk.  ( I won't even mention the challenge of walking around a large open market to collect groceries.)

In short, this put us under stress right from the beginning of the week.  We were blessed that the children were not ill although David had Monday off from school.

To add to the stress during the week was a series of encounters we had with Burundian friends and colleagues who had told us they had been robbed.  This was very demoralizing for us, not because we feel under particular threat.  We live in a big mzungu house with a wall and a dog and night guard.  But for Burundians, even of the middle class, such luxuries are unaffordable.  My former kirundi teacher was robbed by bandits at gunpoint at night who took everything valuable in his tiny house including a precious laptop.  (Almost non-existent here- but he is a fairly well-off person.)   It is so sad and infuriating to see the poor being the victims of these crimes which are escalating rapidly.

The problem is that many of the demobilized rebels and army troops are not able to find gainful employment so are returning to their former lives, not for political reasons, but simply as criminals and thugs.  It is a very sad problem without an immediate solution.

Ruth and Krystan did arrive on Wednesday with their baby Misha.  We had some nice times with them and they did help with cooking.  They came down from Kigali where they are seconded to one of our partners in Rwanda and were down for the team retreat which was to begin on Friday.  (The reason for the early arrival was to work on getting them visa extensions so they could be in the country for a week while they were in Buja.)  This meant taking their passports to Immigration for the long uncertain process of obtaining a visa.
 
A further complication was our car which needed to be checked thoroughly after a recent breakdown.  I gave it to the mechanic Wednesday morning who promised to have it back after lunch.  (Fortunately I have been here too long to believe anything as unrealistic as that.)  I did feel that giving the car 2 days before the drive would be sufficient to get it back by the Friday.
 
Long story short:  On Friday at noon, after numerous phone calls, begging, pleading, threatening, the mechanic we were still waiting for the car.  To make matters worse the passports of Ruth and Krystan were being held hostage to a signature of the chief of immigration in order to validate the visa that had been stamped in the day before.  Felix made a last ditch effort to get the passports at the last hour before we would have to postpone our drive (1pm) and finally the mechanic brought my car back to our house, litterally tightening bolts as he pulled in the driveway.  We got the car loaded up as Felix called to say he had succeeded in getting the passports back.
 
I could not believe it.  We loaded our truck with an extraordinary amount of luggage on the roof and inside as well as 8 passengers.  (Our plan was to add 2 in Gitega--Yolanda, and a child care worker) and do the last hour and a half with 10.  The Horsts were coming up in their own landrover.
 
By the time we rolled out our driveway at 2pm and started heading up country I was about as stressed out as possible.  This was just too last minute for me and Rebecca as well and required a level of organizational multitasking that can turn one's hair gray quickly.
 
We were at the edge of town just starting the ascent when we saw the line of stopped cars. Nothing was moving.  Everyone had their engines off.  I pulled over and Rebecca made her way to the front of the line to ask the police what was wrong.  Apparently a convoy of wide load trucks bringing some pieces of equipment were coming down and the road was closed to vehicles ascending until they arrived.   Rebecca asked when that would be and they said, "Oh, maybe 6 pm."  (It turned out to be even later.)

I have to say there was the feeling of an inner smile--a dam burst in me.   Like a zen koan, I had this sense of instant revelation-enlightement.  All of the hard work, the stress, the challenges to succeeded were suddenly and categorically ended.  There was no way we were going up at all that day... and that was going to be OK.

Perhaps with relief our team headed over to the Lake and had a swim at Club du Lac.  It was fun to play with David and Oren in the lake, as they had been neglected in all of this hustle and bustle for days.  We had a great evening together then headed up the mountain the next morning (Saturday), to begin our team gathering a day late.

Despite the late start, I felt our team gathering was quite rewarding albeit shorter than we planned and with less free time.

Our meetings were interesting as we reflected on values that we are challenged to uphold as service workers with MCC.  They are meant to give us a framework in which we can seek to live as salt and light, an effort to show Christ in the work we do here.
 
Here they are in brief:

Relationships: Relationship-building is central to human development and mutual transformation..


Learning: As part of God's good creation, every culture, community and person is a source of wisdom


Flexibility: The counsel of respected partners will help shape MCC programs.
 
Solidarity: Standing with the marginalized and oppressed is a mark of those who follow Jesus


Nonviolence:  Relationships that do not rely on violence are the building blocks for lasting change.


Servanthood:  Service is using our power for the good of others without assuming control or ownership.


Collaborative Decision-Making:  Problems are best addressed, and solutions best found, through a participatory process.


Involvement with the Church:  The church is called to be a channel for God's transformative work in the world.

Two events of note in the course of the weekend were a fishing trip for Oren and the Horst's son Jal, and Jodi's testimony about her work with the Hope School on our last evening together. 



The fishing trip was suggested by Jal who had brought along some rods and lures (from the US).   Jodi asked her nightguard (a batwa man) if he could teach the kids some traditional twa fishing techniques.   Unfortunately this was a set up for some disappointment because of parental expectations which would not be fulfilled by the participating children.  -- I call it the Karate Kid syndrome,  and it goes something like this:  Expat parent in 3rd world culture arranges a special opportunity for their privileged child in hopes that said child will form some kind of bond with an elder of a traditional culture and learn some ancient technique from that culture and a deep respect for their ways.   -- What inevitably happens is the child behaves like a little spoiled monsters, rude, arrogant, audibly bored, goes kicking and screaming to the planned actvity and all but refuses to participate, while the parent embarassingly struggles to manage the dreadful impression the child is making the whole time. 



OK, it was not that bad, but it was not all that good either.  The twa fishermen saw Jal's fishing equipment and immediately asked for some hooks and a rubber worm.  (So much for traditional methods.)  We went down to the swollen river where Oren tried hard to fall in and get sucked downstream and put our 4 foot lines in the rushing water.  After 45 minutes of trying to catch something on the hooks, the Twa elders went and got a net and caught a few small fish by taking the net in the water and trolling along the bank a few feet.  The height of the expedition for Oren was taking one tiny cat fish home as a pet.  (The problem is he carried it in his hand and not in the water so it was dead by the time we got back to Jodi's.)



Jodi's testimony was far more interesting.  It was truly inspiring to hear her reflect on her successes and failures, here triumphs and heartbreaks in working at the school.  She is definitely unique in our team in that her assignment is the most isolated and works most directly with the local population.  It is amazing to see how she has made a life for herself in the community there and is deeply involved in the lives and struggles of many. 



We finished the retreat on Monday with a visit to the school where Jodi showed us how they had transformed the preschool into a much more modern pedagogical method.  It was quite amazing.  I am used to seeing a class of small children sitting in rows at desks learning by rote repetition.  There is absolutely no encouragement of creative thinking.  But in these classes the kids were sitting around in a circle, on their desks and doing exercises in exciting ways, like playing a game of writing phonems on the floor and matching them to words.



It still amazes me how much they do with absolutely no books or supplies.  But these kids were truly the testimony of Jodi's work here.  Despite their poor circumstances, they truly radiated hope and were obviously loving school. 

It was a great ending to our time together.



We left midday Monday for Kigali with Ruth and Krystan and Misha in tow.  We had plans to meet partners there and give Ruth and Krystan a ride back home in the process.  The trip was uneventful and shorter than leaving from Bujumbura.  We stayed fairly near R and K's house at the Amani guest house. We were there for 3 days (Mon-Thurs morning.)  

I have to say this was very hard.  Rebecca and I took turn in meetings but they were difficult as they took a lot of relational work and diplomacy as there were some sensitive matters to discuss.  We could not really support each other as we had to tag-team everything while the other managed the children.  We did our best to share the work equally and debrief each other after each event.



By the end of this time we had gone, 11 days straight with no time off.  We were shot.  

Fortunately we had anticipated this and had 3 days of comp. time planned at the end of this.  

We had heard about a game park in Eastern Rwanda called Akagera which was about a 2 hour drive from Kigali.  With some difficulty we booked a room at the game lodge there.  (I say some difficulty because while they do have a gorgeous website, it has not been updated since 2005 so all the phone #s and emails are wrong for it.) 

It was not hard to find, and our family headed out there on Thursday morning.  I have to say, I did not know there was such a nice game park in Rwanda (not counting the gorilla tours up north.)  It was really awesome! We started seeing antelope even on our drive up.  The lodge is located on the top of a ridge and overlooks about 6 lakes on one side and the park on the other side.  

The park would take about 8 hours to drive through from North to South and we had a lot of luck spotting game.  We saw, about 10 types of antelope, cape buffalo, giraffes, hippos, tons of baboons, warthogs, and even a leopard.  (We did not go far north enough to see the zebra and elephants.)



The lodge had a pool and playground for the kids so it was really incredible.  The cost, $100 per night was for all 4 of us in a nice room and included a full fantastic breakfast.  It was great to relax and play with the kids.  Admittedly they were not as excited about driving around in the car as Rebecca and I to spot game so our trips were fairly short, but all well worth it.  The kids preferred playing on the playground and in the swimming pool which was round and had a small diving board that Oren could do flips off of.



Rebecca was enamored of the fantastic number of birds (500 species in the park).  We saw about 40 of them including a rare turaco, and many lilac breasted rollers which we have not seen in Central Africa before.



We had some amusing (and not so amusing) encounters with baboons.  We had been told that a family that hung around the lodge could be mischevious at times and even had the ability to open doors by turning knobs (so we instructed to keep them locked at all times). We had even heard that some had learned to knock on doors to get people to open them.  When we told Oren this he became a bit nervous and at one point when he was in the room alone and Rebecca was outside trying to get in she knocked and he refused to open the door.  Even when she yelled at him through the door he insisted that there was a baboon out there with her knocking and refused to let her in. 
 


On the last day a baboon actually did come in as we were packing.  David was playing right outside the door and I do not know how he did not see him.  Oren and Rebecca were in the bathroom and I was packing when I looked up at the door and saw a baboon standing (the height of Oren) and entering the room.  I made some scary noises and shooed him away.  But we did keep the door closed after that.



All in all it was a perfect get away, probably made more perfect that through all of this we did not have any consistent internet connection.  (Rwanda has good internet but we did not have it at the hotel we were at, and the game lodge's was not working those days.) 



We headed back to Bujumbura on Saturday which was quite a long drive.  The kids were not bad on the ride albeit very disappointed to leave the park.  Bella was the only one to greet us when we got home and was probably the most happy about our return.



Ready for another week of work, (I hope.)



Postscript:
For those of you living in this part of the world the email for Akagera Game Lodge is: akagera01@yahoo.de and phone # is +250-788-537-494.