Buke, buke (Kirundi), Pole, pole (Swahili), Slowly, slowly (English)

This past week was full of small successes. Our first promoters were initially trained to drive the piki-piki (motorcycles)! Their teacher was truly gifted, giving them incremental goals. Emanuel is a trained instructor with Yamaha in Bujumbura and coaches/plays on the Burundian national rugby team. (They’re flying to Libya to compete this weekend.) He told me that he enjoyed his time at Kibuye because it felt like a family. You don’t know how happy that made me. You see it is very important for me to work in an environment where it is comfortable to work, eat, talk, laugh, cry, walk, and play together. It’s how every family should be.

So I bid “adieu” to my new, extended family…to the promoters who change their hairstyles every week, who live away from their families so they can help other Burundian families, who are afraid to drive a motorbike, but go for it anyhow…to Peggy, the new accountant, who is affectionately referred to as “Mama CSP” because she takes care of everybody and laughs at their jokes…to Cyriaque, our driver for the past five weeks, who we call “Rambo” because of his endurance driving all the promoters around to their care groups from morning ‘til night, who is the eldest son and takes care of his siblings, who deserves a lovely wife…to Jean Baptiste, who is simple and yet complicated, who walks and talks with me in the early morning, who translates for me until he gets tired or I have sympathy, who has developed a health information system with me, who is my brother…to Emile, who will fake karate fight with me, who has stepped up to the plate to cover Chantal’s position and his own, who loves his wife and children, who I respect immensely, and who is also my brother. So goodbye, Kibuye, and the others I haven’t mentioned, but will remember. May God bless the work of your hands and heart and keep you safe.

There are stories I have yet to tell you. There is my new friend, Val, who came to Burundi a month ago from Scotland with her dear (hilarious) family to build homes for orphans and their “mamas.” There is Enoch, Seth and Trina’s young cook, who took me to visit his church and home last weekend. This was my first bus ride in Buja…remember Kigali, Josiah and Gabrielle, where we were 25 people to a 12 passenger van…same idea. There are also many more stories that I will either blog about as postscripts or tell you about in person.

I hope those of you who have followed along with me have come to understand at least a little bit of why I love this place and its people. I think my parents are a big reason for this passion. They didn’t just come to work in Burundi during the 50’s-90’s, but they came to be friends with the sick and the poor. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

The next chapter of my story is still unwritten. I am applying for jobs in public health and hope to officially finish my degree on September 17^th with my final oral exam and presentation. I look forward to seeing many of you soon.

With love, Beth

Undercurrents

What started out to be another promising week with the delivery of the motorbikes and the installation of a new member to the team turned out to be disturbing. It all revolved around three separate incidents, the first involving subtle police extortion, the second involving a young man near death at the side of the road after a horrific bicycle accident, and the third involving an attempt to rob me complete with an angry mob and “justice.” I can recollect these incidents for you from my viewpoint, but there are too many details that can’t be talked about here and some viewpoints might differ. Suffice it to say, I hate, and hate is not too strong a word here, when power is used to intimidate people both on the micro and macro levels.

So in the midst of these power inequities we talk about transformational development and transformed lives. What does this look like in practice? I believe it looks very similar to liberation theology. Paul Farmer says in his book Pathologies of Power that for us to even get beneath the first level of “silence” with the poor and vulnerable, we must have compassion and solidarity. My journey brings me to this place where I must ask, “Who are the poor and vulnerable around me?” Certainly the mothers and children who are participants in the Child Survival Project are poor and vulnerable, but could the poor and vulnerable also be the young man dying on the side of the road who was traveling to the market to sell his crates of beer and the homeless man who tried to steal from me as he was looking for a place to lay his head by the lake?

My brother told me that I would just begin to understand the layers of what was actually happening in Burundi during my short time here. He was right, but there is also the challenge to look further to the layers of what is happening outside Burundi that directly affect it internally.

This intense week was balanced by the presence of Jean Baptiste’s family and niece with us at Kibuye. The tenderness and playfulness that I shared with the children made my heart happy.

Other Things I Haven't Told You

You can receive “snail mail” in Burundi. I know because I have received two handwritten letters from my dear friend, Martha. However, it takes about a month to get here from the States.

I iron my underwear now. No, I haven’t become overly prim and proper. I wash my clothes at Trina and Seth’s on the weekends and hang it out to dry. Supposedly, there is something called a mango fly that can burrow into your clothes on the line and then infect your skin. Heat kills them. Urban legend?! Maybe, but I’m not taking any chances.

I have super powers. Some of you already know about my ability to turn off street lamps. Well, since there are no street lamps in Burundi, my skills have turned to knocking off door handles. If only I could find a meaningful use for these special powers.

Snakes can fly. At least that’s what Jean Baptiste said about the snake that our cook killed in our yard. It was fluorescent, bright green, poisonous and hiding in the bushes right at the entrance of our walkway. About an hour after its demise, we spotted another one nearby. I guess there are quite a few in the eucalyptus grove. Ignorance is bliss!

There is a song about “Beth” or “Betta” in Kirundi. I know because Emile and Jean Baptiste sing it to me! I got them to sing and dance for me so I could videotape it! I promised I would only show it to Josiah and Gabrielle so you’ll have to take my word for it.

La Promotricé

I was asked to interview one of our health promoters by World Relief so people could hear the story of one promoter’s life and better understand the Child Survival Project. I want to share a bit of her story with you, but first I need to tell you that World Relief works hard to employ local people, the heart and soul of the work.

Here is part of Spes’ story. She is the oldest promoter on staff, about my age. The others average about 26 years of age. Spes was born in rural Burundi to parents who are subsistence farmers. She grew up and was able to attend college in Kenya with her husband because of a scholarship from the Free Methodist Church. So she was married, had children and finished college all at once. She came back to Burundi to teach Bible and English classes at a local Bible school while her husband worked as a pastor. This ended abruptly in 1994 when she and her family had to flee to Rwanda and then back to Kenya because of the civil war. Her time away wasn’t easy. While in Kenya, she experienced a stroke that paralyzed her left side. Mind you, she was only about 37 years old at the time. She forgot how to do many menial things, including typing, but amazingly she remembered both Kirundi and English. Her rehabilitation occurred at a local missionary hospital where she was renewed physically and spiritually.

The family came back to Burundi in 1999 and worked as before for 3 years, but they again feared for their lives and Spes’ health. So the family took up residence in Bujumbura where Spes did not have a job. It was hard to make ends meet with 4 children, especially as they were entering secondary school and university. A friend of hers who works at Turame, a microfinance arm of World Relief, told Spes about the Child Survival Project. Spes was hired and spends her week days with us in Kibuye and her weekends with her family in Bujumbura.

In Spes’ words, the reason she enjoys her work spreading health messages are, “I love working with children; everywhere I pass I see children. Also, I enjoy it when I know I am helping my own people especially the life of ‘small people’ here, ordinary people who are not very rich and do not have everything. If I go back to my family (mother and father), I see they are living the same type of life.” She also said, “The community needs more teaching to develop. They look as if they are 'forgotten' people.”

Spes is my kindred sister.

There are two sides to every coin

I've been told that I am both an encourager and an enabler while here in Burundi. To be honest, this is true. Sometimes what I actually think is encouraging is keeping someone dependent.

I have been ruminating over these thoughts in relation to aid in Africa, especially while reading Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux. In it he states, "It is for someone else, not me, to evaluate the success or failure of charitable efforts in Africa. Offhand, I would say the whole push has been misguided, because it has gone on too long with negligible results. If anyone had asked me to explain, my reasoning would have been: Where are the Africans in all this? In my view, aid is a failure if in forty years of charity the only people still dishing out the food and dolling out the money are foreigners. No Africans are involved-there is not even a concept of African volunteerism or labor-intensive projects. If all you have done is spend money and have not inspired anyone, you can teach the sharpest lesson by turning your back and going home."

An inflammatory statement, for sure, but worth looking at for a grain of truth. I'm still observing and learning. And as usual, I love Africa and want to see it thrive.

Kibuye

The last time I was at Kibuye was in 1978 when I was 16. Our family came out to Burundi for the summer to open up a hospital. I remember a lot of painting and “assisting” Dad in surgery (it was the first time I saw the large intestine in its entirety- how does it all fit?). The house in this picture is the Child Survival Team’s residence and offices, and it’s where we lived “way back when.” Talk about “déjà vu.” Another house that I remember visiting often was replaced after the war in 1993 when 17 people came to hide there and were massacred. There’s a memorial grave near the sight.

Thank God for peace. We live quite safely there now. This picture is of our cook Berchamus, a young chap of 21, who makes us ibitoke (plantains), beans, rice and chai every day…not to mention the hot water he has been boiling for my morning wash. The next guy is “Herman,” which is not his whole name, but I mangle it, so Herman seems to work. He is our guard, groundsman, “go-to” guy, as is Christoph, the last guy in the picture. They are willing to put up with my Engirundi (English mixed with Kirundi) and lots of hand signals to get my point across. Without their assistance, we would be hurting.

However, one thing nobody in Burundi seems to be able to fix is the common door handle. Some company has a monopoly on the thing, and they fall off in my hands literally wherever I go…every home I’ve been in, church, hospital, restaurant, Governor’s office, etc… You get the picture. Someone would get rich, okay maybe not rich, if they could figure out how to make a better door handle!

I had to throw in this picture of Emile playing checkers with bottle tops with a local policeman in our front yard. Emile says he played for hours with his fellow students after exams in university. His prowess was evident! I’m glad we take time for play. I’ll let you know more about how the work part of it is going in my next blog. Counting down the final days with anticipation of seeing many of you soon (especially you, Josiah & Gabrielle), but also with some sadness because I am starting to put down some roots again.