An Ode to Laziness, and Gratitude

There is a Pablo Neruda poem called Ode to Laziness that starts like this:

Yesterday it seemed

the ode wouldn't leave the ground.

It was time, it should

at least show a green leaf.

I scratched the earth, 'Get up,

sister ode

- I said to her -

I've promised you,

don't be afraid of me,

I'm not going to chew you up,

ode with four leaves,

ode for four hands,

you'll take tea with me.

Rise,

I'll crown you among the odes,

we'll go out along the shore

of the sea, on a bicycle.'

No use.

Substitute the work blog for ode and it would well describe my feeling about writing in the last week.  I have a self imposed discipline of writing weekly, but this week, like Neruda, I have found laziness to be the biggest challenge in getting something out.

Indeed it was a week without much travel or other stress creating drama.  Five full days of work, complete with a sustainable morning routine.   The addition of Monday morning prayer with a growing group of men has been one of several positive improvements.

Last Sunday is a good place to start and it was highlighted by a surprise Birthday party for Kersten, one of our friends with two daughters about our kids’ age.  Her husband arranged for a small group of us to be at a local hilltop restaurant called Chez Vaya. We were there with Tim and Jeanette and Debbie and Rick, a new embassy family, and enjoyed completely shocking her when she emerged from her car.  Her husband had been very clever in his ruse by pretending to be obstinate about not going to their favorite resort in favor of this new place.  She was stewing until she found out the real reason for the change. 

We enjoyed lunch and some cakes from Café Gourmand which for those of you living in the US, I can only say you would not believe the quality of Belgian and French pastry we can get in this terribly impoverished country.  I included a picture of the mousse cake here. 

Work was fairly routine the rest of the week, in fact, I would describe it as slow.  This is actually a kind of seasonal slowness.  We are really between things in November and December, mid-term reports are in, but new projects are not yet due.  It is a time that is conducive to slowing down, perhaps even laziness.

I took the opportunity in the last two weeks to reimplement our routine of tea-time, when we come home at 5pm.  We used to do it all the time two years ago, but fell out of the habit last year with Oren’s karate schedule that went a bit late twice a week.

This year our extra-curricular activities still allow for us to have tea as a family on our porch while watching the sun set over the Congolese mountains beyond the Lake, about 4 times per week.

Tea-time is a wonderfully cultivated ritual of laziness that really allows one time for reflection, and appreciation of the beauty around us in the setting of our front porch.  I usually bring out the ipod and have a play list of classical music including some Lizst piano sonatas and Barber’s Adagio for Strings.  Even the kids appreciate this ritual of sitting around doing nothing, but appreciating each other’s company and the place where we live.

Then

high up in the pines

laziness

appeared naked,

I got up in a daze,

half asleep,

on the sand I found

little broken fragments

of oceanic substances,

wood, seaweed, shells,

feathers of sea birds.

I looked for yellow

agates but found none.

The sea

filled the spaces,

wearing away towers,

invading

the coasts of my homeland,

pushing forward

successive catastrophes of foam,

Alone on the sand

a ray opened

a ring of petals.

I saw the silvered petrels

pass, and like black crosses

the cormorants

nailed to the rocks.

I set free

a bee dying in a spider's web,

I put a little stone

in my pocket,

it was smooth, very smooth,

like a bird's egg,

meanwhile on the coast

all afternoon

the sunlight and cloud wrestled.

Sometimes

the cloud was filled

with light

like a topaz,

other times a moist

ray of sunlight fell,

and yellow drops fell after it.

We did take the opportunity to host several friends including some of the kids’ friends during lunches.  Tuesday and Thursday lunch is a great opportunity to make a playdate at noon as everyone returns to school at 2pm so pick ups are easy.  If you have a regular routine you and your spouse can enjoy a quiet lunch together once per week, in exchange for hosting some kids on one of the other days.

We don’t have it completely systematized, but do have kids over from time to time.

We invited over one of our friends/partners, the head of Help Channel, Cassien and his family on Tuesday night.  In true Burundian style he brought a huge basket of fruits and vegetables (like 50 lbs) as a gift.  We are still working through it a week later with the help of our staff as well. 

Thursday was report card day which is a big change of pace at the Ecole Belge.  Parents stay around after school and are asked to meet the teacher one by one to receive and discuss student grades.  It is amusing as we sit outside the classroom door in a queue waiting our turn while all the kids in the school run around the yard like a bunch of maniacs with little or no supervision.

I was not displeased with Oren’s work this semester.  French continues to be a challenge, but Oren is very happy and comfortable in his class and seems to understand well.  He has the family trait of being ‘un lune reveur’ as they call it here which translates roughly to ‘space cadet’.    But he likes his teacher and his class, he did OK in Math and even got a 20/20 in spelling which was a shock to even the teacher.  I will be very curious to see how he does when he goes back and enters a school in his own language.  Something he has never experienced before.

Thoughts of moving back, like unwelcome patches of sunshine on a pleasantly cloudy day do make their way into our minds.  We continue to be aware of lasts, and are even preparing to say goodbye to several friends who are preceding us leaving in the month ahead.

Aviaja (right) with the kids' cousins Miriam and Gabriel

July is still a long way off, and I don’t want to think about the next steps.  But some planning is necessary.  Our house that we bought in the US last summer is also a bit of a preoccupation as we are now renting it to our friends the Spanners.  (Thomas and Naja, Elias and Aviaja).

If anyone does not think that the Lord work’s in mysterious ways, they should look at who we are renting our house to—Our Danish friends from Burundi who have moved to the US to work with World Relief.  We expect they will be there the following year as well which means one of Oren’s classmates will be in school with him in Baltimore from Burundi!

It is almost surreal to Skype them and see them hanging out at our house, or with our families, playing with the kids’ cousins.  This does give us something to look forward to in going back and should help ease the cultural adjustment knowing there are friends there who really ‘know what it was like.’

The weekend was good beginning with an awesome set of ballet classes.  The kids are so into ballet in both groups that I really feel a bit of pain at the thought that teaching ballet to little kids will probably not be something I do again once we leave. 

MCC team Birthday for Jennifer

Friday night we had an impromptu team gathering for Jennifer Price’ Birthday as Melody was down from Upcountry and Patrick and Michael were in for two days ofr R and R from Bukavu.  Oren helped make a Birthday cake with Jennifer on Thursday then helped Rebecca make brownies on Friday.  He will definitely be a pastry chef when he grows up.

It was a nice evening and the service workers went out together later that evening.

Saturday was a very big yoga class followed by yet another outing to Musee Vivant (the zoo).  We went with Tim Jeanette, and Lizzie and all of their kids.  (6 kids in all.)  They enjoyed watching many small birds being swallowed whole, feeding Kita the chimp, and seeing a man tease a crocodile with a stick.

Everyone came over to our house for dinner and we had a lovely, lazy, evening.

Yoga crew

Sunday was inspiring as well as Simon Guilbaud (Lizzie’s husband) was preaching this week.  He basically gave a testimony to how he has come to spend over 15 years in mission in Burundi and how his understanding of his vocation has changed over that time.  Simon is from a long line of missionaries here, and told one humorous story about visiting his Grandfather’s tomb with the inscription Imbata y’Imana, which is slave of God in Kinyarwanda, but actually would be interpreted as Duck of God in Kirundi (the language of Burundi where he is buried).  

His testimony is incredible and inspiring and at the end he allowed time for questions.  I asked him what the biggest challenge was in his time here, and the biggest surprise.

To the challenge question the answer was not unpredictable.  Coming as a mzungu, perhaps naively, he found himself losing trust in people as a result of being robbed, lied to, and cheated on many occasions, even by people he considered to be trusted friends.  I do agree that this is a hard lesson that we all learn here. 

Under the Kapok tree at Musee Vivant

But as for the biggest surprise, he said that he has come to a new understanding of gratitude.  He talked about learning it from the very hardships that afflicted him here.  When his life was threatened he came to learn a deep gratitude for being alive.  He described learning gratitude for having clothes, shoes on his feet, and so many things we take for granted.

He recounted a short story:  “I remember a young girl telling me how she had to sleep with a Priest to get $5 to pay her school fees, so she could go to school.  I am so grateful that my daughter will not be faced with that terrible choice, that we have money to send her to school, and care for her.”

Simon’s experience of re-learning gratitude really resonated with me.  I realize that I have really changed in what I would consider even basic rights or entitlements.  I feel more grateful than I have ever felt in my life from my 6 years here.  I realize that what we have is so much more than what most of the world has, and I am finding myself content with less. 

This week is Thanksgiving, we will celebrate with some Ethiopians on Thursday at our house, then with other American on Saturday.  I hope that I can take this gratitude, born from our experiences here, back to the US with us.

Gratitude, is nothing more than a perspective.  I think the poem about laziness, where the poet stops trying to write and starts noticing finally leads him to have something to write about.  To me it is about having a perspective of appreciation by taking time to notice the deep joy hidden in our circumstances.   I am thankful for the laziness of the past two weeks and my own lack of inspiration to write anything down.  It is late, and I will go to bed now.  Happy Thanksgiving.

At night

thinking of the duties of my

fugitive ode,

I took off my shoes by the fire,

poured the sand out of them

and almost at once fell

sound asleep.

Creature Comforts

David playing with Avril, his baby chimp friend who lives at Pinnacle 19.

It has been a full week since our return from our meetings in Kigali.  The transition back to normalcy was a bit bumpier than expected.  Settling back into regular rhythms again took some time.  While the kids returned directly to school Rebecca and I took a comp. day last Thursday for personal retreat.  We spent the morning in silent reflection by the beach, in listening prayer, then shared our understanding of what Jesus was telling us about the time past and time ahead this year.  One thing that was clear was that if we were not going to leave this place burned out next year, we needed to be intentional about what things we would be able to do and what we would not, and be thinking as early as January about ‘exit strategies’ from certain responsibilities outside of work.

Swimming is the heartbeat of our weekly routine and it was great to be able to do that last week and this week as the start of our day.  We usually swim about an hour and then read the One Year Bible together and pray.  If I could contribute our endurance to anything these six years, it would be that life-giving daily routine (when routine is possible.)

Friday we did return to the office for the first time in two weeks before picking the kids up from school.  Ballet was great, and I have many students in both levels.  I was also honored to have several of the mothers join in the second class last week.  I don’t know if their kids were happy or mortified by their participation, hopefully the former, as they seemed to take it more seriously at least.  In the evening we had Tim, Jeanette and Isabel over for family movie night and watched a movie about African Cats.

The weekend had its own highlights as well.  Oren had been asking for his ‘perfect’ day for over a month.  This was very clearly defined in his mind as a Saturday that started with waffles in the morning, followed by a trip to the zoo after yoga, where we have a picnic lunch, then a Fanta and fishing at Cercle Nautique (where we often see hippos.).  In the evening we were to go to Ubuntu for pizza. We did just such a day although Rebecca was doing a teaching to women at the church during our zoo trip, but was with us the rest of the day. 

The zoo is becoming more and more like the kids’ backyard and they run around to see their favorite animals.  Kita the chimp is delighted to see them and immediately tries to get them to play the bottle game with her.  My new friend is the leopard, still not full grown from DRC.  She is quite tame and I when I stand by the cage she comes over to me and waits for me to reach through and scratch her ears and neck.  It seems hard to believe she is a leopard when she acts so much like a cat around me.

The ending was a bit of a detour as we stopped by a Birthday party for our friend Nicola (of GIZ).  They have kids so Oren and David had a late night hanging out with friends at an adult party. 

Sunday we had a real treat after being gone for 2 previous Sundays to find Drs. Joel and Janette Miller giving testimony about their work as American physicians in Burundi.  I appreciated their willingness to talk about the call to be here as a examples to Burundian doctors as those doctors choose how and where they will serve.  Jeanette shared testimony of how her work in the Free Methodist clinic gave her the chance to encourage Christian doctors to show Christ’s love to everyone, regardless of their faith.  (I do notice that there is a kind of ‘team’ mentality here between denominations and especially Christians and Muslims.—If they aren’t on ‘your’ team then you don’t owe them much of anything.)

The testimony was particularly relevant as the scripture passage that was shared was on the Good Samaritan, a striking example of Jesus pointing out that ‘love of neighbor’ must extend beyond religious and ethnic lines.

We went to the beach with the kids in the afternoon, where I snapped this picture of David and his friend Grace petting the ‘nice’ parrot at Club du Lac T.  (There are 2 parrots and you better not pet the wrong one or it will bite your finger off.)  We saw the Millers again at the beach and played with them for a while.   Afterwards I took the kids to our small group while Rebecca caught up on some much needed sleep.

 Monday started with a new venue for the men’s prayer group that I am part of.  We are now meeting at 7:30am at Kings Conference Center, for anyone who would like to join.  After prayer I took Rebecca out to an unusual venue called Pinnacle 19.  It is one of the many resorts that dot the edge of Lake Tanganyika past Club du Lac T.  It is odd in that it is owned by a Canadian Bahaii couple.   I can’t say much about the Bahaii faith beyond what I have read on Google, but it seems to be an Oriental version of Unitarianism.  Nonetheless, statues of Osiris not withstanding, the place is quite charming with a small pool, fountains, some very nice, simple guest rooms, and a spa with sauna and massage.  The restaurant is on the beachfront and offers a panoramic view of the lake and mountains in DRC and Burundi.  It is also one of the less-frequented venues along the lake. 

Rebecca brought all of the necessary equipment for a spiritual retreat, including a Bible and an Ipod with a playlist of songs that inspire her.  I left her there on Monday and picked her back up on Wednesday afternoon.

In the meantime, I had a fairly normal work week, dropping kids at school, working in the morning, then taking them to activities.  On Monday we have added something after tennis in preparation for their return to the US.

Thanks to Debbie, one of the American Ecole Belge school moms (her husband is with the embassy), we have a new English reading and writing club!  I took Oren and David over her house Monday afternoon where we were joined by at least a dozen other Anglophone kids.  Debbie had activities organized for about 4 age groups, and with the help of other parents ran a great English reading and writing club.  Oren and David both really loved it and I think it will be a very fun and essential part of our routine this year, especially if we want to get Oren up to grade level for next year when he returns to an English school.

On Tuesday evening I took the kids to the Ubuntu restaurant again to say a final goodbye to Travis and his daughter Divine.  For those of you who have followed this saga, you know that he has been fighting for several years to win legal custody as an adoptive parent of Divine and get her a resident visa for the US.  Many of us have been praying them through this and the rest of their family left town about a month ago and are back in the US.  Travis and Divine have one more stop in Nairobi for processing then they will be back in the US, hopefully by Thanksgiving.  There were other close friends there who have been with them through this tribulation, and are happy to see it coming to an end.

On Wednesday after school, I took the kids with me out to Pinnacle 19 to get Rebecca and bring her home.  It was a great way for her to end the retreat.  We had lunch on the beach.  The kids were delighted to find that the management allows the 2 pet chimpanzees run around the grounds free.  There is an older one who was in the cage when we got there and a baby, 5 month old chimp named Avril.  Avril was thrilled to see the kids and climbed all over our table, tried to open their school bags, and danced around with David quite a bit.  Oren was a bit scared of her and kept his distance, but David and Avril went off to play alone for about an hour.  I got several photos of them dancing together.  I think we will have to return to Pinnacle 19 frequently in the next year.

I have mentioned the Swiss Family Robinson before as one of my favorite childhood movies.  I loved the way the young boy Francis had so many pets from ostriches and zebras, to baby elephants and tigers.  There is something, albeit politically incorrect, but interesting about being in a place that does not prevent human animal interaction.  I have swum with dolphins, petted leopards, crocs, and rhinos, fished beside hippos, and played with chimpanzees, all with my sons, and seen the delight and wonder in their eyes at the animal kingdom up close.  Hopefully they will treasure these memories when we return to a place where we maintain a more respectable distance from wild beasts. 

It was great to have Rebecca back home on Wednesday evening and we enjoyed our morning routine together today, swimming, and reading the One Year Bible.  One thing I noticed during this week where we were a bit weakened--there is a community around us watching, aware, concerned, we may not notice them watching, but if you stumble, there are hands at the ready to catch you under the arm and get you back up on your feet.  We do a lot of that care for others ourselves, but it is good to know that we don't always have to be strong, we can be the ones who need a hand from time to time.  

Bonus Photo:  Ubuntu Sunset over DRC mountains

Rwanda: A Regional Meeting and Team Retreat

Giving kids a push on a local carousel in a Kigali park during some down time at our regional meetings.

Finally back in Bujumbura, after a long drive from Gisenyi, in Northern Rwanda.  About 9 hours on the road not counting lunch in Kigali where we dropped off our Area Directors Mark and Angela Sprunger.  The occasion was a team retreat along lake Kivu with the Rwanda Burundi and Congo MCC teams.  Fifteen of us drove up and spent 3 days together at the Stipp hotel along the lake.  It was an enjoyable and meaningful time in a very beautiful setting.  It seemed a bit surreal that this town abuts Goma on the DRC side of the edge of the lake, a place which has been embroiled in conflict and fighting between the UN security forces and the M-23 Rebel groups.  Interestingly we were retreating there on the day that a truce was called by M-23 who have been fairly effectively routed from their strongholds in the region.

For us, though, our lodging offered us a view of the best the region has to offer.  Lake Kivu is beautiful, and our accommodations had the feel of a resort complete with swimming pool and fitness room.   The town of Gisenyi is nestled beneath a range of 8 volcanoes that are visible as you drive toward the lake.  Some are still active and the one in neighboring Goma has erupted at least once in the last decade.  This is also the region of the famed ‘Gorillas in the mist’ and although we did not take any tours up into the forests surrounding the volcanoes, they were nearby.  Truth be told, such excursions are extremely expensive and going as an MCC group would have been prohibitively costly.

Present were Tim Lind, the MCC DRC Rep., Patrick and Michael, the 2 service workers in Bukavu, Melody, Matt, Jennifer and Felix (with his wife Alice), from Burundi, Teresa, Julia, and Matt Gates, from Rwanda, Mark and Angela Sprunger, our Area Directors who are currently based in Burkina Faso, and of course our family. 

Rebecca and I were hosting the retreat, with Rebecca taking responsibility for many of the logistics and preparation of the materials for spiritual reflection, although many of us contributed to the latter. 

We stayed at the Stipp hotel, having made it up there in 3 vehicles with the MCC Congo team coming across the border from Goma where they had been doing a field visit with Mark Sprunger. 

In general, we spent the mornings in some kind of intentional activity of worship and sharing.  We had some prepared liturgies and songs featuring Rebecca on guitar, followed by different opportunities to share on the different days.  We began by just taking turns listening to each other share some things about our assignments very generally, but later had opportunities to talk about the ways in which we are challenged or struggling.  On the last day we broke into smaller groups to pray for each other.

It is hard to explain how important creating space for this kind of activity is in doing work here.  Actually that may be true of all work, but it is great to work for an organization that recognizes the need for ongoing debriefing during a cross cultural assignment and effectively requires us to make space for this. 

There are common themes in the challenges we face.  Here the constant affront of poverty vis-à-vis our relative affluence and what that means as far as how we steward privilege is a big question.  We are often perceived as potential benefactors for any number of needs and face constant attempts to have money begged, borrowed, or stolen from us.  It is quite wearing and often every request needs to be considered on its own merit and blanket ‘rules of thumb’ just aren’t adequate in every situation.

Frustration with work are also a common theme.  In a hierarchical culture it is usually only the highest ranking person in an organization who may make decisions no matter how substantive or trivial.  For a westerner, this can run smack into our ‘getting things done’ value system as there can be a huge bottleneck in decision-making on even fairly small and non-substantive changes.  Part of some of the capacity building work of our service workers is to help our partner organizations find ways to better delegate power.

Then there is the constant assault of tragedy, past and present, that we negotiate here.  Sudden news of the death of a colleague or one of their immediate family is fairly common.  Sadly, the stories of wives dying in childbirth among our staff and colleagues is far too common.  Death is such a part of life her for young and old here in a way that would be unimaginable in the US.

All of this and more makes retreating a necessity, and not just vacationing, but deliberate debriefing with an opportunity to share and pray as well.

There was ample opportunity for fun as well.  We enjoyed very good food at the hotel, and took advantage of its fitness room and small swimming pool.  The kids liked the grounds which had quite a bit of old playground equipment on it.  Their favorite thing by far was the gigantic fountain in the shape of a volcano with 2 gorilla statues on it.  The fountain was not working, but the mountain was like a gigantic piece of play equipment where the kids could practice bouldering.  

Outside the gate of the hotel, one could walk along the lake where there was some park land and the opportunity to swim.  Oren and David were particularly enamored of the huge amount of volcanic rocks there were in the area.  In fact, along the lake there are some very interesting rock formations created by what was obviously lava flowing into the lake at one time.

Oren was especially fond of finding the very light, porous pumice-like stone that could be as large as one’s head, but would float in water!  He collected quite a bit and has the inspiration of bringing it back to the US next year and opening a store to sell it to other kids.  He even brought a piece to school with him to show his teacher for show and tell when he went back yesterday.  It was apparently a big hit in the class.

Among the fun activities we did were watercolors, yoga, and a fierce game of ultimate Frisbee in the aforementioned park.  All three of our SALT volunteers as well as Melody and the two guys from the DRC program (Michael and Patrick) –and me, were a pretty fearsome group.  We played 4 on 3 for over an hour and attracted quite a few onlookers.  I was not aware of what a good ultimate Frisbee team our regional program has become.  I think we could easily field a team of 8 very competent players--- Burundi Doctors and Coffee Buyers you can consider the gauntlet thrown down!

A particularly meaningful moment of reflection came from Tim Lind who invited us to remember that we are the bearers of good news and that coming to a region where we are accustomed to focus on the bad—conflict, poverty, etc. we often miss what is ‘good’ here, the daily acts of mercy and compassion, the beauty of the lake.  It was a sober reminder that in order to bring Good News, we need to have the perspective of Jesus, someone who could see the good in a fallen woman at the well, or a tax collector hiding in a tree.  We need to see this region where we work with Jesus’ eyes—to see the good hidden amidst all that is wrong.  He shared a very beautiful poem about Lake Kivu as well. 

We ended our last evening, Monday, with communion as a group.  It was special to share that together as a team.  On Tuesday morning we headed our separate ways, the DRC team returning on foot back across the border to Goma, while the rest of us headed South to Kigali.  We had Mark and Angela in our car and took them to a guesthouse as they were flying out of Kigali.  Matt and the Rwanda SALTers did some field visits on the way back, and Felix took his car with Melody, Jennifer and Matt back to Buja.  After getting caught in a rainstorm in Kigali, our family continued the rest of the trip to Bujumbura, making for a very long day of driving.  We arrived after dark, about 7pm.  It was very good to be back home after more than 12 days out of town.

Selaph:

I would be remiss in not mentioning what happened the first week of our stay in Rwanda.  Prior to our retreat we had arrived a week earlier for regional meetings for country programs in the Central West African region.  These meetings usually happen once a year and October during the children’s fall break is usually the ideal time to schedule them.  As hosts this year, we decided upon Kigali as there is a plan to locate our regional office here in the next year.

MCC programs who belong to Central West African region include Rwanda and Burundi, DRCongo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Chad.  These are primarily francophone (except Nigeria) and do not share much else in common as West Africa is both climatically different and faces food security issues related to drought and conflict related more to inter-faith issues.  It might seem a bit of an odd mix, but I have really grown to appreciate the people and programs we meet when we are together.

The attendees this year included:

Jon and Angela and their 4 kids who are reps in Chad (Caleb, Jonny, Hannah, Lilly).  They are all around the ages of Oren and David, and were great playmates during the 4 days of meetings.  I have tremendous admiration for this young family who have committed to 5 years in one of the most climactically challenging places to live in the world, and least developed.  They faced tremendous health difficulties last year, but have courageously pressed on for another year. 

David and Marylou from Nigeria.  Their kids are grown and they have several previous turns as reps in their past.  They come with many years of experience to the position there.

Tim and Suzanne from DRC.  They began shortly before we did and, like us, they are finishing their last year as reps this year.  I have great appreciation for the challenging work they have working in the DRC.

Mark and Angela, who are our Area Directors have also had to play a fill-in role as reps. for Burkina Faso as well.  They are currently there and we are all praying that some interim reps for the country will be found until the new permanent ones arrive next summer.

Also in attendance were several folks from our national offices in the US and Canada.  Ruth Clemens, the director of International Programs from MCC US came, she goes to our church in Baltimore so we have a personal connection and were very happy to have her come and bring greetings (and gifts) from family.   There were also several other specialists, Kathy who works with the volunteer program, Beth who works with health and HIV programs, Sam from IT, and Jean from HR. 

It is an added bonus to have people who work in the national offices visit us in the field as there can sometimes be a disconnect between our experiences.  I think the biggest surprise for them is how we all survive with such slow internet connections!

We had four days of meetings that covered a range of topics.  Julia, our SALTer volunteered to do childcare for us.  It was extremely helpful.  The  kids got along very well in general and played, colored, watched videos, did some VBS and even went to a playground with Rebecca and I one afternoon.

The week was probably hardest on Rebecca and I as we had to deal with a considerable number of logistical issues.  Picking people up from the airport at 2 in the morning and dropping them off at midnight  when they left were among them.  Changing money, paying bills, arranging meals, and field visits were also necessary.

The highlight of the week may have been the field visit.  Thanks to Matt, our Kigali agronomist, we were able to get a bus to take our group out to a visit to some of our conservation agriculture projects.  I have talked about this project in the past, but to be able to show how this technique is appreciated in the places were are doing it was impressive.

The bus ride was about 2 hours up into the mountain region of Gicumbi.  It was rainy that day and the place was, quite frankly, very, very cold!  We went and visited four different sites including a farm where a member of one of the women’s groups had decided on her own to adopt the method in her own field based on what she had learned from participating on the collective field.  Since adoption of the method is our ultimate goal, it was great to see it already catching on.  After several hours of visiting sites and meeting with the local authority, we headed back to Kigali for dinner. 

Besides meetings we did manage to have our share of good food as the guest house did not offer dinner on the premises.  We had in our 5 days there, Thai, Indian, Mexican and Ethiopian food from the many excellent restaurants in Kigali.

The days ended with each of the reps departing to their respective country programs, and the ones from the US and Canada returning home as well after a brief visit to Goma.  Rebecca and I headed up to our team retreat with the Sprungers, but that is another story….which I have already told.

Among the extra bonuses during the week was the very unexpected news that the SALTers in Rwanda received approval for their one year residents visas.  This was something we spent 9 months trying to secure for last year’s volunteers and ultimately failed.  The fact that they came so suddenly this year was a real surprise and in my opinion, an act of God.

For Rebecca and I, the 2 weeks were the source of much stress and much joy, the completion was cause for a major sigh of relief and a retreat day which we took today.  Some friends even helped out by taking the kids after school.  We reflected on the significance of this, another last—the last regional meetings we will participate in, in our term.  They have taken us to Ouagadugu--Burkina Faso, Jos--Nigeria, Kinshasa--DRC, Accra--Ghana, Addis Ababa--Ethiopia, Kigali--Rwanda, Livingston--Zambia, and Nairobi--Kenya.  I think there will be a part of me that misses the exciting travel opportunities they have afforded us--after some time of rest.

For more photos go to:  https://plus.google.com/photos/111462534583731820408/albums/5942253355208180625?banner=pwa