Another Ho-Down In Buja

 Kids playing on the trampoline while parents danced.  Dance photos on this blog by our cook Marcelline.  

It has come to my attention that there are a lot more ex-pats, especially anglophone ex-pats in the country than there were when we moved here. It is evident in nearly every sphere, at the Ecole Belge, church, the beach, and most recently at our quarterly folk dance which we held last Saturday. We have an email list that we use to send out invitations about a week ahead and in the past we have hosted between 30 and 50 adults and children. This past week, though we had closer to 80! What was even more interesting was how many of them we did not even know. I think this event gets around by word of mouth and it seems to be a good place for newcomers to meet folks who have been around for a while.

It was, as always a great time, and it is a small offering we enjoy making several times a year to those who enjoy it. I am not sure the majority even had a chance to do some of the dances (with the exception of 'Cotton-eyed Joe' which the young girls and Jennifer Price did about 8 times during the evening). But we did have several other favorites including 'Dashing White Sargent', the Hora, and a square dance set for which we made squares in both the living and dining rooms. We finished off with the 'Virginia Reel' which again we had to make two lines, one in the living room and one in the dining room. Actually for me the dancing highlight was watching David join into the marathon set of Cotton-Eyed Joe and really try to dance it with Jennifer and the girls. I don't think I have enough bandwidth to upload the video I made but it was hilarious enough to be on 'Burundi's Funniest Home Videos'!

The dancing was followed by a pot-luck in which just about everything was eaten including a delicious Birthday cake for Nani (one of Astrid and Travis' daughters). It was good to catch up with everyone and find out who is 'still here'. I would say that fewer have left than newcomers that have arrived. We also had several members of our Burundi MCC team down for the event including Saffy, our new service worker who will be based in Bujumbura, Yolanda from Gitega, and Teri-Lynn our SALTer who is teaching up at the Hope School in Nyangungu.

Actually Saturday began with a yoga class that I taught at Stephen and Laura's house, some friends from the Ecole Belge. There were about a dozen folks there as well. We had brunch after the class then Rebecca, Teri-Lynn and the kids and I went back home and began getting ready for the party. We have it pretty much down to a science and can have the living room and dining room cleared and furniture set up outdoors in about an hour. Food takes a bit longer but is usually prepared in advance.

Breakdown is also pretty quick. Since most of the guests are families everyone is usually gone by 8:30 pm. Bt 10pm we have usually finished cleaning up and restoring everything back to normal. Since Yolanda and Teri-Lynn were staying with us over the weekend it went even faster.

Sunday was the third week in which we went to the beach following church. Swimming in the lake seems to be the preference of the children these days, particularly when it is a bit choppy. Eating out also gives us a much needed break from cleaning the kitchen. We got home in time for small group at 4pm and were very pleased to welcome a new member, Natasha, a Burundian who has been living out of the country for many years and has just emigrated from Canada with her daughter.

We had an interesting discussion about forgiveness modeled by Joseph in the Old Testament when he was reconcilled to his brothers. I had not heard the sermon because I was helping with Sunday School (David is apparently acting out a bit in class), but Rebecca did hear it and gave us a synopsis. The topic was, does Christian forgiveness replace the need for State Justice? (In short, our answer was No.)

The weekend was a restful cap on a fairly busy week. Much of it fell into our routine of office hours in the morning and splitting the parenting and work in the afternoons, but there were some exceptions. Keeping up my perfect record of traveling every week (which will continue indefinitely) I spent Wednesday in Gitega. The occasion was to take Saffy, our new volunteer to meet the partner she is seconded to. She will be working with an organization called UCEDD. This is the partner that runs the Hope School for the Batwa. Saffy will be working with them for the next 3 months to do a new action plan for the Hope School and help them with some other efforts to bring awareness of it to other donors.

I should add at this point that we continued to be without our car all last week and while we did have a small rental, I chose to go by taxi with Saffy to Gitega. Although the route is somewhat treacherous, it is the normal way most folks travel including most of our other service workers. It is always a humbling experience to be crammed into the backseat of a fairly compact car with 4 others, no seat belts and a trunk (hatchback) stuffed with various merchandise heading up the mountain.

We did not make great time primarily because there were about 8 police checks on the way. Usually cabs are stopped at all of these while non-commercial vehicles are not. I don't know if this is for heightened security because of some recent threats to security, or just a chance to shake the drivers down for a 'fanta'. But we did stop frequently and at one we waited for about 15 minutes.

We did eventually get to Gitega and met Innocent and Beatrice along with the Honorable Alfred, a Batwa parliamentarian who is also their legal rep. We had a very productive exchange outlining Saffy's duties and where she would be based. After talking for several hours we had some lunch and then got in a cab to head back down the mountain. This one was less crowded because Alfred had hired one for himself and we rode along.

It started to rain as we headed out of Gitega in the late afternoon. That is never good news if one is headed down the mountain, but a daily reality of rainy season. Accidents are frequent on this road but it seems like the rain is the underlying cause of many of the really bad ones. Our driver did not drive insanely fast but I did feel like he was going faster than was safe for a slick road. We had gone most of the way down though before we came to a line of cars ahead of us as far as we could see just over the plain of Bujumbura. We knew there was an accident ahead and by the number of cars waiting, we expected a big one. The wait delayed us about an hour and the reason was evident when we got to the sight of the wreck.

Apparently a large truck heading down hill carrying a container lost its brakes in the rain and was speeding out of control. He hit one taxi and slammed it into the embankment. Next he hit another taxi and pushed it backwards until it slammed into another container truck coming up the hill. All 3 vehicles went off the road just inches away from the cliff. The 2 trucks were on their side on top of each other and the taxi and several bicycles were crushed underneath the whole mess. I do not know how many perished in the wreck. Yolanda and Jennifer Price, who were in a bus coming down the mountain from Kigali at the same time but a bit ahead of us, apparently took several of the injured to the hospital on the way down when they got through.

The scene was a sobering reminder of the danger of driving here. I think it is actually more dangerous to drive up the hill than down, especially in the rain. This is because going down, you can control your speed, but going up, you cannot control the recklessness of the other drivers coming down. Many will happily pass on blind curves, or have a mechanical failure like the container truck. I will think twice about driving up in the rain.

Rainy season, though, does have its benefits and it is great to enjoy the cooler air and the settling of dust. Our mango trees are full of fruit this year and I am hoping that we get to eat some before it is all stolen. (It seems that everyone steals mangoes—especially school kids.) We don't want to be greedy but we do want to have at least a crack at the best mangoes that come off of the tree to the left of the house which are exceptionally good mangoes.

Oren had a good week as well, going to karate at the French School Tuesday and Thursday. It rained both days he was there so David got a bit wet waiting for him in the playground. Oren went to karate quite willingly and even said on Tuesday “You know, I'm really beginning to like karate.” I was surprised to hear that since he did not seem to be doing it by choice the entire last year.

It was good to finally get our car back on Friday. It actually took about 2 weeks of repair on what seems likely to have been caused by putting contaminated gas into the fuel tank. Apparently the whole fuel system was gummed up and several pumps, spark plugs and other things had to be replaced and the whole system flushed several times. It was an expensive repair and I really want to go back to Kigali and complain to the gas station, but there is little recourse in terms of recuperating the cost since it would be almost impossible to prove and there really is no well functioning 'consumer protection bureau' here.

We loved having our car back over the weekend and returning the rental. The only small annoyance was that I failed to do it all in a single trip and in fact had to make several trips to each place for various reasons. It ended up taking 4 hours to return the rental and pick-up our car. I am used to this now, but do marvel at how efficient things like rental car returns and store check-outs are in my own country in general. Here everything takes 3 to 4 times as long. (Don't even get me started on waiting for a check at a restaurant)

This coming week I have another trip up to Gitega and the Hope School. I do like to visit the latter and should only be gone overnight. I will be dropping Teri-Lynn and Saffy off up there. Saffy is going to do some research and hopefully give Teri-Lynn some company for a few days.

Just about finished all of our reporting for the mid-year period only a day after the deadline so we are feeling pretty good.

Bonus Video:  David, the ladies man trying to do Cotton-Eyed Joe with the big girls.