The big event of this past Saturday was helping to host an open
house for Zachée and Bridget,
a time when they could invite everyone they hadn’t seen adequately during their
extremely short 1 week visit to come and greet them. Honestly, the inspiration
for this came from dear friends at Poughkeepsie United Methodist Church. On
several occasions when we came back to visit Poughkeepsie since we left in
2008, church friends made an open invitation to a potluck picnic after church
so that we could at least see briefly some of the many people who have been
special to us. It was always a great gift to us. And it was the kind of event
that we imagined Zachée and Bridget would need, so together with our friends Naja and
Thomas, we started planning.
The trick is this: potluck is an American concept. It is
totally anti-hospitality here in Burundi. If you invite people, you need to be
prepared to offer food and beverage to them. And the guest list for this event
was anyone’s guess! We decided to plan for 40 adults. But what does that even
mean, in a country where people can actually eat a LOT when they have the
opportunity to enjoy a good meal? Would we have enough? Here was the menu:
For starters--
- 50 meat samosas / sambousas
- 3 crates of soft drinks (remember, we go by 375 ml glass bottles here! No 2L bottles to share around!)
- 2 crates of bottled juice
Main meal –
- 7 kg rice
- 4 kg beans in tomato sauce
- 5 kg mixed potatoes, green bananas and carrots in tomato sauce
- 1 big pot of lenga-lenga (amaranth greens cooked with little green eggplants)
- 9 kg of beef carbonade stew
- 2 kg sautéed green beans
- 3 heads of cabbage and 2 kg carrots for 4 platter salads and 1 huge Cole slaw
- 2 kg of pasta salad with veggies
- 4 loaves of bread
- 8 bunches of small bananas
- 3 cakes and 2 banana bread loaves
Naja and I ended up calling in 4 cooks total to work from
early Saturday morning until the afternoon in our 2 houses. You cannot imagine
the size of the huge pot of rice that finally finished steaming at 3:30 (along
with 2 smaller ones) when we loaded our dinner contributions in the back of our
car and headed over to Naja and Thomas’ house (I am eternally grateful that
they were willing to host this event and allow us just to bring food – our
house was in no state for visitors!).
Around 5:30 the first guests began to arrive, and by 6:30
the veranda was full of family and friends. I was really glad for the chance to
greet some of Zachée’s family members whom I hadn’t seen for quite a while. And in
addition, there were many friends who attended that are also connections for us
through MCC. So it wasn’t as if we were entertaining total strangers. On the
other hand, it was quite nice to not be the main entertainers, but just to keep
refilling dishes from the kitchen, offering people drinks and helping Naja’s
cook try to keep up with the never-ending pile of dishes. One sweet aspect of
the evening was that Bridget mobilized Timmy and his Burundian cousins as the
server crew – they actually did most of the drink distribution, collected dirty
plates and offered people cake, like very well-behaved Burundian children
should do. At a certain point in the evening, on demand, Zachée gave a short
speech, and his brother gave a counter speech. And around 8:30 most people felt
that it had been a good party and prepared to leave. A few latecomers arrived, but we were pretty-well
done with clean up by 9:30 – and ready for bed!!
So what was the outcome on our food planning? We had WAY too
much!! The only things that were really finished up were the samosas,
lenga-lenga, green beans and cake. Both Naja and I ended up with mountains of
rice and beans, to the great joy of the house staff at our respective houses.
Our original planning had been even higher: 10 kg of beans instead of 4. Thank
God we consulted with Marceline who informed us that she had fed 450 people
with 15 kg of beans at her graduation ceremony last year.
So here is a revised shopping list for 70 people (that’s
probably how many came and ate, including children) on a Saturday evening, when
they may have eaten at earlier receptions also:
- 3 kg rice (and keep some water hot so that if you need more rice you can make it quickly, but you won’t have waste)
- 5 kg meat at most.
- 2 kg beans
- 2 kg potatoes / ibitoke (plaintains)
- 2 loaves of bread
- 2 crates of Fanta
- 1 crate of juice (and just have passion fruit concentrate available if you run short)
It would have been nice to fall into bed when we got home,
but Sunday morning was a special Women’s Sunday at our church. Thus the men
were teaching Sunday school (Paul needed to prepare for that) and the women
were leading the service (I needed to do some finishing touches on the worship
song sheets).
But we were not the only ones preparing. The women of our
church started working on this service 6 weeks ago and set up committees for
every aspect of the day: décor, ushers, worship team, speeches, skit, and big
reception after the service. For me, this was another really interesting
experience in intercultural event planning. I was incredibly impressed by how
seriously the women took this event. For example, the reception committee prepared
a budget for food and drink 3 weeks in advance. It was to be a small, light
meal, of a soda and snacks (which also meant including chicken and meat balls),
and the budget was pretty high. The women decided just to mobilize all the
cultural groups of women in the church to contribute, and it seems like they
must have come up with the necessary amount. When it comes to a special
occasion here, people always find a way to make the sacrifice of giving a
little extra. I helped to mobilize the western community to contribute, and it
was really great to see how many women got involved in doing things who
normally haven’t done things outside of the Sunday school program. But I think
all the great preparations remained a bit bewildering to the occidentals, who
are so used to an informal, low-key style of celebration.
Another insight came during our Saturday worship team
rehearsal when I found out that the Burundian ladies had all decided to rent
matching imvutanos – the special sari-like draped dresses that are customary for
special occasion. These can be rented for 3000 per day usually. But the church
ladies had decided to rent ones that cost 7000 per person. That’s only $5, but
still it is a lot of money for many of the women in our church especially when
they had already contributed for the reception. But I realized what a high
value is placed on dressing up for an occasion and making it really special.
On the worship team front – it was a very fun process that
took up much more of my “free” time than I could really afford at this moment.
The organizers had recruited ladies from all the major cultural groups in our
church to be together on the worship team and bring representative songs from
their traditions. So the 20 of us learned songs from Kenya, Congo, Burundi, Ethiopia
and the USA. A few songs were easy to sing in 4 different languages, especially
a Lingala song which says, “Christian women, let your light shine (x3) in your
home, church and everywhere” and the old favorite “How Great Thou Art!”
Things I learned along the way:
- Transportation to our far away church is really, really hard for most people in our church community
- Giving people rides to the rehearsals because of the transport issues gives you a chance to get to know one another
- People will never show up to a rehearsal on time, so it’s a good idea to see the waiting around time as relationship building time
- Learning songs (like I needed to learn the Ethiopian song) gives you a chance to visit with people and spend time with them
- The lead singer will probably start singing sharp, so be ready to transpose the song along with her (during a rehearsal of the Congolese song, it started sounding all wrong. I looked at the bass guitar player and he pointed up. I was grateful for 12 years of piano and theory lessons to help me move keys quickly)
- African musicians are incredibly adaptable and do not need to know anything about the accompaniment except what key you’re starting in. Honestly, they don’t need to be told. Most will figure it out in 30 seconds or less (though some are better than others at intuiting the real harmony)
- The permanent worship team at our church (bass, drums, piano) is REALLY good. We only rehearsed with all 3 of them a total of 40 minutes before the service and it all ended up sounding great!
- Our final rehearsal was pretty chaotic, with none of the same musicians, and it didn’t seem likely that the worship set would go smoothly at all. But that didn’t mean anything.
- Did I mention that it’s all about relationship?
On Sunday morning, we had no chance to rehearse at all,
because of generator problems. But once the service got going, it was really
fun. We’d planned 4 high-energy songs in 4 different languages right at the
beginning. And with the excellent musicians helping our voices sound good, it
was easy to make a joyful noise to the Lord. The last in that set was a
traditional Kirundi chorus with a very intricate rhythm that I needed to leave to
the Burundian musicians to play. Two women stepped out front, one singing and
the other young woman dancing. That was my favorite moment of the whole
service, seeing Arianne dancing her heart out in the graceful but boisterous
steps of Burundian women’s dance. Little
girls from the congregation began to imitate her also. To me it was a real celebration
of the best of the feminine image of God, grounded in a particular culture.
And the whole Burundian group looked fabulous in their
matching imvutano, which matched the bold orange and burgundy décor. The
Congolese ladies all came wearing matching tailored dresses sewn out of
coloring “8 March International Women’s Day” fabric, complete with photos and
lettering. Yvonne from Kenya wore Maasai beads with red kanga cloth. The sermon
was a clarifying exposition about how gender differences were never a problem
in Eden, when both men and women were demonstrating the image of God. But the
problems have come up as a result of sin and our misuse of power against one
another, and the devaluing of the image of God in women in some cultures. Azele
called us to value our cultures, but to critique them biblically and seek to be
Christian above all else. The reception
was incredibly well organized and plentiful – it looked like they had met their
fund-raising goal. Overall, it was a very, very joyful day at our church.
We went home, cleaned our house for bible study together as
a family (Oren fully helped) and then had a quiet pizza lunch at Ubuntu – where
we were surprised to find them hosting a St. Patrick’s Day event. You wouldn’t
forget that day in the USA, but here in Burundi, it takes you a bit by surprise
to find the “pub open” and Belgian teachers walking around sporting green
leprechaun hats. I didn’t realize that it had become an international holiday.
I suspect it was all about the pint of Guinness… We had our Bible study later
and Paul and Oren played games before bed – apparently Oren checkmated Paul for
the first time. So now a new week, and lots to do to prepare for team meetings
starting Thursday, and regional meetings (also hosted at our house) starting
the following Monday.
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