A PSA and a Serendipitous Day

Like Father like son, or maybe it is mother—daughter.  These were among the 8 hippos we watched basking at Cercle Nautique Saturday.

PSA--  For any ex-pats living in Burundi or planning to come to Burundi, I need to advise you all that laptop theft is completely out of control these days.  Besides the two we had stolen at least 8 other friends have had theirs stolen in the past 3 months.  It is an easy target to snatch.  Light, portable and in unbelievably high demand here.  Armed robbery is not the modus operandi here, but expect your car to be broken to, or any carrying case left momentarily unguarded or carried casually to be snatched.  Best strategy is to have a well-maintained back-up drive.  --And don’t come with one you can’t afford to lose here.

David and Isabel

There is change in the air.   Although we are getting a few last throes of thunderstorm, the rains are coming much fewer and further between.  The mountains of DRC are starting to fade into the haze that will keep them hidden for the next 4 months. 

Besides the weather, there is a certain agitation that begins as the academic year draws to an end.  This is the time when we get the final word on who will be staying and who will be leaving as the summer break is the main time of transition between long-term arrivals and departures.

Minotaur sandwich
and homemade battleaxe

We are moving into the end game with several of our close friends this year.  Our German missionary friends, the Hoffman’s will be returning home this year after 4 years here, as well as our very close Danish friends, the Spanners.  They are actually taking a job with World Relief in Baltimore, so it is very likely we will see them again in the future in the US.  Another family from the UN is leaving as well who we have enjoyed through yoga, children’s ballet, and early music singing.  Others are just departing for the summer, including us. 

In all of this there is a certain jostling of social events to try and have some final meaningful times together.  So we are going out a lot with friends in various groupings quite a bit these days.  It is actually enjoyable but there is also a certain giddiness as people  begin to look forward, with excitement or trepidation to imminent departures.

This is also the time for those staying to watch for great sales on things others are leaving, although after 5 years, Rebecca and I are definitely stocked to capacity.

Among the social events that populated the week were the following:

A Birthday party for Zack Johnson.  His family are American missionaries who have been her for generations.  Zack is about Oren’s age and had a Star Wars party.  I took Oren and David last Saturday as Rebecca was at an overnight meeting and returning from Gitega.  It was a nice event with many mutual friends there, including a few newcomers.  The kids had a great time playing together and Joy had planned several Star Wars themed games and food, including a cake with Yoda, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leah and CP30 all made out of marzipan!! 

An outing up to Ijenda with the Hoffman’s as well as the Van Aardes, our South African friends.  It was a chance to have another final get together with the Hoffmans and the kids all enjoyed playing together.  David and Isabel were the featured children with Oren and the older boys setting up a wedding for them under a little shelter which houses a peculiar wooden lion statue

A dinner with the Millers at Ubuntu.  They our American missionary friends who are here as physicians with the Free Methodist Church.  We had a pleasant evening with them over pizza while the kids ran around the garden like maniacs.  They will be going back to the US for the summer, but fortunately not leaving.

Michael, Melody, Yolanda with
Julie

This weekend we are also hosting several of our service workers who are down for the weekend from Gitega, as well as Michael who is visiting from Bukavu.  He had also recently had his computer stolen and needed a little break from Eastern Congo.  Yolanda and Melody were down as well with a friend of Yolanda’s who is visiting for a few weeks. 

David and Isabel looking
at the hippos in the lake.

A Serendipitous outing to Cercle Nautique.  After having successful outing with our kids one on one, we decided to repeat that on Saturday.  Rebecca went with Oren to Cercle Nautique but then immediately called David and I because there were 8 hippos lounging there as well as 2 different groups of our friends--the Van Aardes, and the Johnsons.  Jessie Johnson had brought fishing equipment so the kids fished while the adults visited and we all enjoyed watching the hippos bask in the sun.  After that we stopped by the Cercle Hippique to see the horses and found Naja Spanner and Courtney Ivaska and their kids there as well!  Rebecca remarked that we could not have planned it better if we had tried.

Besides hosting and socializing we have had a fair amount of work between the two of us.  Rebecca was asked to preach last Sunday and continuing in the theme of stewardship that we have been exploring, she was asked to talk about a Christian approach to environmental stewardship.  She worked hard to great a visual, prophetic image to go along with the sermon and succeeded in her attempt. 

She began by reading the creation story while wrapping a box in beautiful paper on a table in front of her.  When it was wrapped she finished the story saying that God found it all very good before he rested.

She then unwrapped and opened the box to reveal a very nice, very colorful dress.  She talked about certain theologies that go against a notion that we have, as Christians, a responsibility to protect the environment.  As she talked she began to cut chunks out of the dress that was hanging on a stand on the table.  When she finished she took many of the cuttings and set fire to them on a plate.  The dress was completely ruined as she finished her discussion of these errant doctrines.

In the rest of the sermon she used a passage in Leviticus to talk about Sabbath and how God even instructed those using land to give it a Sabbath rest as well every seventh year.  She talked about the Jubilee year as well and tied environmental stewardship and economic justice together as a unified idea in the levitical laws.  I also sensed that in all of this she brought home the reality that God expects us to steward our resources in a way that allows for renewal.  Not using up, but rather restoring, as a commandment coming from the idea of Sabbath, for man, the animals, and the land.

Her sermon was well received and we enjoyed a very nice Sabbath day after that on Sunday with the kids at the beach. 

Children participating in YPI conference.

The other work event that took some of my time was a conference in Gitega on using children as peacemakers.  The person presenting the program was adamant that children were one of the most effective means of disseminating a message of peace and reconciliation as they even had capacity to influence parents.

There were quite a number of people in attendance representing several major institutions in the country including the Catholic and Anglican churches, several Universities, and other donors like World Vision.

My favorite part of the conference was on the first day when we sat in a plenary session.  We were a group of adults, mainly men, sitting at a large semicircle of tables facing a projector.  I noticed about a dozen places empty and thought there had been quite a few no-shows.  Then suddenly a dozen 6^th grade Burundian children came and took the empty places like they were adults.

They had been invited to participate and give feedback.  It was really interesting to be sitting in the room of grown-ups with them as we sat and discussed obstacles to the plan, possible solutions, and worked in small break-out groups to do strategic planning.

We are always trying to find ways to have beneficiary involvement in the planning of a project but this was a stroke of genius.

I was away on Wednesday and Thursday, but did get back in the evening despite some heavy rain upcountry.  I needed to be home of Friday because we are getting to the last two weeks of ballet classes and the little girls classes are preparing a presentation for their parents.  They are pretty excited about this and have been working hard to get ready.

That brings us back to today through a quick synopsis of the past 10 days.

In other non-chronological news, we have had several challenges in the past week, the hardest being the news that our one year volunteers in Rwanda (the SALTers Alyssa and Janelle) were actually denied visas that they have been in the process of applying for for the past 10 months.  It is a bit ironic because they have been in limbo this whole time and are only here for an 11 month term.  They will be able to finish their last month in Burundi as visa requirements are much less strict here, but it does leave us puzzled as to why. 

The immigration office claims that it is because of lack of qualifications but that does not really make sense.  The fact that there is some tension between the Canadian and Rwandan government could be another reason. We are also aware that Rwanda is getting much more strict about visa requirement since the M-23 crisis in Eastern DRC.  Anyway, we don’t understand completely what happened, but it does mean we will need to think hard about what we can do about bringing volunteers there in the future.

I will be traveling to Rwanda next week to talk to some of the leaders of the church that is sponsoring them.  Hopefully they will be able to shed some light on the situation.