Monday morning's swim felt especially good this past week. Having missed swimming for more than a week as a result of our recent travels made the first day back especially sweet. Also what it represented--the return to routine. I even think the kids were ready to go back to school.
Actually there was a small but not insignificant addition to our weekly routine. Rebecca and I started a diet. It was something we had been discussing over our long weekend and decided to implement it on Monday. The problem is that our pattern of fasting (Sunday night -Tuesday night) which we have done for the last year, had recently led us to some pretty unhealthy eating (snacking) the rest of the days. We decided to fast only one day a week and be more intentional about eating the rest of the time.
The diet we chose is one we have done before called The South Beach diet. It is basically a diabetic diet, eliminating sugar and carbohydrates. This was to be a challenge here in Burundi where a Burundian buffet would typically include french fries, rice, spaghetti, cassava root, plaintain, and bread all in the same meal. Nonetheless, there are also excellent vegetables available year round and we were able to find good substitutes for the recipes suggested in the cookbook (aimed at a modern western consumer.)
While getting the eating of meals and the avoidance of snacks under control was the goal, I have experienced some very surprising results from the first week. I have been struggling for several months now with what I can only call anger management. In short, everything has been annoying me from people asking for money to bad behavior in my children. I have been feeling like my reaction is excessive and a bit out of control. I have been asking my mens prayer group for prayer on this frequently.
I would call the change in my disposition since beginning this diet dramatic to the point of miraculous. I have become very calm and 'centered' since beginning and have handled all my work and home situations with great patience and calmness. I don't know what it is, but it seems that sugar and carbohydrates have contributed significantly to my agitation in the past several months here.
Anyway, I have considered this diet a blessing in a quite unexpected way.
I have talked in the past about the challenges of accomplishing these kinds of tasks, particularly ones that involve going to various government (or private) offices to file paperwork or get signatures. The recent case in point was the trip on Wednesday to the US embassy to get Oren's passport.
We had an appointment for 2:15 pm on Wednesday and the first complication we encountered is that both parents and Oren have to go to the embassy to get the passport. That meant taking all of us including David. About a half hour before we left we realized that the photos we had for Oren for visas here were not the legal size for a US passport. This meant we drove frantically around the town looking for a photo store open at the end of lunch hour (most people don't come back to work before 3:30) to get the correct size photo. We did manage to succeed in this eventually, but it put us about 20 minutes behind schedule.
The next task was entering the US embassy itself. I have entered max security prisons in my life as part of prison ministry I have participated in, but none of that comes close to the security to enter the embassy in Burundi. We passed through at least 4 checkpoints with full security scans at each. We could bring nothing in with us but passports.
By the time we got to the last guard (25 minute process) he asked us what we wanted. We explained we were here for a passport renewal appointment. He looked at our card and said curtly, "Oh, that is already over, you missed it." After all that we were not going to be put off that easily so we begged to go in and see the consular officer. We were eventually let in, but the kids were pretty stir crazy by then.
The process would have been perfect except the fee was $105 and I had $100 on me. So we went back out and I had to come back and do the whole entry process again to bring the $5. In my opinion, any official business that less than 3 visits is a great success.
I met Yolanda while I was there and she got a ride back to Bujumbura that day since she had an appointment at the Belgium Embassy in the next morning.
On the way home she told me she had talked to a friend who happened to be on a field trip for some college undergrads (Burundians) who had been riding in a 70 passenger bus. There had been a terrible wreck when the bus flipped over and news of this tragedy was heard in Bujumbura.
Yolanda's friend told her that, in fact, all the students on the trip knew the driver was roaring drunk as soon as they got in the bus. Her friend described them at annoyed at the driver.
What really struck me was that no one on the bus did anything. They accepted the drunkeness of the driver as fate in a way and went on the trip despite their displeasure about it.
I don't know whether to read something cultural into this or not. I honestly cannot imagine a group of Americans put in the same situation, getting willingly onto a bus with a drunk driver without physically preventing him from driving. But maybe there were other factors. The number of accidents involving large passenger vehicles or lorries hitting things makes me sick. Once again I appreciate the fact that I am a citizen of a country that strictly enforces drunk driving laws and regulates the quality of drivers of public vehicles.
The weekend was relaxing. It rained all day Saturday and Rebecca and I stayed home and played with the kids. Sunday was a day at the beach after church. All good.
1 comment:
Your words about getting on a bus with a drunk driver remind me of a trip we (Muriel and I and another couple who are Indian but live in the Washington DC area) took to visit churches in Kenya and Uganda in 2000.
We started in Nairobi and later traveled to Kampala via a bus line named Akamba. We took Royal Akamba (the expensive, first class bus)
instead of Executive Akamba (cheaper) because we were told it was less likely to be hit by bandits (the extra fare money is used to pay off the bandits).
When we crossed the border, we went through a "no mans land" about half a mile to a mile long in which everyone gets off the bus, then checks out of Kenya, then checks into Uganda (multiple steps; check your passport, your immunizations, etc), then gets back on the bus.
Muriel and I sailed through, I think because we were white Americans (don't want to discourage tourism!). They decided to delay the husband of the other couple, I think because he was Indian, on the grounds he did not have a cholera vaccination (neither did the other three of us, and it was not required; the official was hoping for a bribe, which our friend refused to give. So my Indian friend sent me ahead to hold the bus while he reasoned with them and waited.
This process took about an hour, which was a nervous experience for me, because I was not sure I could detain a bus in that situation. But I need not have been concerned, because the bus driver chose to spend 2 hours in a bar (why do they have a bar in no-mans land?).
When he finally arrived, off we went at crazy fast speeds. The road was very bad, and Muriel and I were in the front passenger seat. I could see very wide and deep potholes disappear between the wheels of the front axle, and this involved weaving on the part of the driver. His being drunk obviously didn't help, but we never hit one of the holes (angels?).
That trip made me understand why so many really bad accidents happen in Africa and other parts of the third world (bad roads; bad equipment; bad drivers; alcohol; and life is cheap).
Why did we get on the bus? There seemed to be no good alternative; what would we do, stay the night there? No hotel in sight . . . When is the next bus? . . . Would the next driver go to the bar as well?
Would I get on the bus again in the same situation? I don't know, but I guess I would unless the Lord spoke clearly to me not to. And I'd pray as we traveled, as I did then.
I heard a story from a guy who took a short island to island flight (small plane, sat next to the pilot!) in the Caribbean. The pilot had brought a bottle and he consumed most of it as they flew. He was much less than sober as they made their landing. Another case of no good alternatives.
Bruce Hempel
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