I apologize for the late posting. I was aware that our hour of departure from Burundi would be Sunday evening and that traveling would delay a posting by at least a day, but I am committed to letting those who are interested know that we are now here in Baltimore for the beginning of our two and a half month home leave.
The Monday of last week though, made this adventure seem like a dim hope in the distant future. We had to deal with a lot of work in our last week. As country representatives for Burundi AND Rwanda, and responsible for about a dozen partners and a half dozen volunteers and local staff, means leaving takes quite a bit of thought and preparation for handover of responsibilities. We do a lot from providing grants on a particular schedule, review reports on outcomes, and provide support (financial, spiritual, emotional) to volunteers. This does not even include our own house staff, pets, yard, etc.
In short, planning to go on vacation requires training someone and providing mechanisms to insure that all of these responsibilities continue to be fulfilled. Our program cannot take a vacation just because we are.
Fortunately we have a very confident program assistant in Felix and he has been left in charge of our program, volunteers, and unfortunately, our household as well. I say unfortunately because the last 2 years, during our vacation, we have found someone to housesit in our absence. But this year we were not successful. Leaving a house in Burundi is far more complicated than leaving one here, we have 3 housestaff who need to be paid and need to continue to work. Because of security someone must always be on the premises, not to mention the fact that during the dry season the entire house needs to be cleaned thoroughly (of a quarter inch of dust) at least twice per week. Our dogs also need daily care and our cook needs to prepare meals for the other staff and herself as well as do the marketing so they and the dogs can be fed.
All that to say, even leaving home is a very complicated enterprise. But it was further complicated by the matter of helping our service worker family who had had the medical emergency in the final week of their term get packed and leave for good as well.
The husband came back on Tuesday to finish up the packing and he and I worked together between Tuesday and Friday to pack, empty and clean the house, give away the pets, end staff contracts, meet the landlord, finish MCC business, etc. He left on Friday and barely made the Kenya Airways flight back to Nairobi. There was still stuff to do after their departure as well which left precious little time (1 day for Rebecca and I to get our house in order as well for a 3 month absence).
Saturday was complicated by the fact that we needed to take the 2 dogs the other family had owned and find new owners for them. For most of Saturday and part of Sunday we had 4 dogs at our house who got along reasonably well together but were pretty rambunctious with David (who loves to play with dogs) and knocked him flat over numerous times in their frolicking.
Despite all of this we did make steady progress in cleaning out our house and threw out about a dozen boxes of junk as part of a spring cleaning effort. We worked most of the day Sunday as well after church. Our flight left at 8pm and we actually ready when it was time to leave.
 |
| Timmy and us at the airport. I don't why I have such a weird expression on my face. |
The 8pm flight on Sunday is somewhat unique in Burundi as it is a Brussels Airlines flight, the only European carrier that lands in Burundi. Unlike the Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi, Brussels Airlines sends an enormous Airbus A300 jetliner. It is a surreal sight as it lands after dark and dwarfs the entire terminal building and shimmers from its brightly lit interior, like some strange extraterrestrial apparition. And that is the effect of entering it. We walk out to the 2 story movable staircase and ascend past the enormous engine that I could stand in twice. As soon as you cross the threshold you are out of Burundi and into Europe, the music, airconditioning, carpeting, cushioned chairs, etc.
It stops briefly in Nairobi before heading to Brussels. This is quite a different experience than going Kenya Airways to Nairobi and switching planes to go to Europe. Kenya Airways and Nairobi airport still feel very African, Brussels Airlines takes out this transitional step and consequently feels very other-worldly.
We flew through the night to Brussels and got there at about 6 am. (not much time change as we were flying almost due north.) We spent 4 hours in the Brussels airport (which is interesting as Belgium is the home of some very interesting exports including Smurfs, Tintin comicbooks, and Godiva Chocolates!
At noon we took a United Airlines flight to Dulles. This was a day flight so the kids were awake for most of it. I will say though, that they are veteran travelers and had brought many of their toys and activities so they kept themselves entertained for much of it. There were on flight movies as well so all in all it was not bad.
 |
| Our kids and cousins playing at my parents' house. |
They drove us the 2 hours to Baltimore where we went to my parents house and had a fabulous homecoming dinner with my parents, Rebecca's parents, my parents, and Rebecca brother and sister and law and Oren and David's 2 cousins Miriam and Gabriel.
It was great to be back, for Oren especially who really does not see Burundi as 'home' eventhough he has lived there for 3 of the 5 years of his life.
After dinner we went to Rebecca's parents' house where we will stay for the first part of our trip here. The kids fell asleep early but then were up again by 4 am and wanted to play. Oren was very excited to do things with Grandma Jean, especially berry picking and cooking. They went out on Tuesday morning and picked several quarts of cherries from a pie-cherry tree in her yard. They made a fabulous cherry cobbler together which we ate after dinner. It was definitely the best cherry pie I have ever tasted.
There has been one unfortunate downside. Yesterday afternoon I was in the kitchen and slipped on some water on the floor. I fell very hard and my ribcage fell right into the pointed edge of a kitchen counter. It knocked the wind out of me and I laid on the ground unable to move for about 5 minutes.
I now have an extremely painful area of my ribcage and have probably cracked at least one. It will certainly limit my capacity to do some of things I like to do as far as exercise, so please pray for a speedy recovery.
This home leave is a longer one, 2 and a half months and marks the end of our third year in Burundi. It is hard to say how many more years we will be there, but I imagine at least 3 more. So this is a kind of half-way point. Burundi definitely feels like home at this point, but it is so good to come back and enjoy the comforts of being back in our own culture.
I have not decided yet whether I will keep up a weekly posting during homeleave. I may make entries less frequently, unless there seems to be too much to say about being here. Until next time... Au revoir.
No comments:
Post a Comment