I'm Dreaming of a (Fill in the Blank) Christmas

Dreaming of a WHITE Christmas? It may not stick around that long, but look at the bounty of snow we have floating down in my yard! My kids are stranded at their cousins' house so I entertained myself by playing fetch with Jasmine and Bunter in the yard. Curiously enough, they love the snow. It may remind them of plowing through the waves at the ocean, another favorite pastime.







Dreaming of a PEACEFUL Christmas? For many this is a stressful time of year with broken relationships, bills piling up, and little hope in their lives. Our Christmas will be very simple this year, but also peaceful. I am reminded that Jesus was foretold as the Prince of Peace in Isaiah.

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

Even though Jesus was probably really not born in December, Christmas is a time to be reminded of his birth and teachings. My favorite Christmas song of all time is O Holy Night declaring Jesus' birth. Here's Jewel doing a pretty good version of it:



If you need more...there's a great gospel version of O Holy Night done by Mariah Carey.

So whether you be friend or stranger, may you experience a lasting joy and peace this Christmas. I'll be thinking of you as I romp in the snow.

Not to be redundant or anything, but...

I drag a boat over the ocean

I drag a boat over the ocean
with a solid rope.
Will God hear?
Will he take me all the way?
Like water in goblets of unbaked clay
I drip out slowly,
and dry.
My soul whirls. Dizzy. Let me
discover my home.

(Lal Ded)

60th anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights by UN

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, "On this Human Rights Day, it is my hope that we will all act on our collective responsibility to uphold the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration. We can only honour the towering vision of that inspiring document when its principles are fully applied everywhere, for everyone."

Inform yourself and check out the website for the UN Human Rights Day 2008.

Americana

Football: a game played by two teams of 11 players each on a rectangular, 100-yard-long field with goal lines and goal posts at either end, the object being to gain possession of the ball and advance it in running or passing plays across the opponent's goal line or kick it through the air between the opponent's goal posts.

I’ve never really liked watching football on television…it’s too passive. However, being a former cheerleader, I love watching it in person. Last night I went back to Corvallis to watch the Oregon High School Football Class 6A championship game with my friends, Martha and Steven. We had a tailgate party (my first ever!) and enjoyed a lovely, cold, winter evening. Our team didn’t win, but Martha (another former cheerleader) and I stood almost the whole game stomping our feet and cheering, “We’ve got spirit, yes we do. We’ve got spirit, how about you?” Old cheerleaders never lose their spirit!

Thankfulness

I find that an attitude of thankfulness serves me well. Even in turbulent times I’m able to see truth and beauty. Bad things certainly happen…more so to some than others. I don’t claim to understand why, but I do have a constant faith in God and will continue seeking to understand.

This Thanksgiving I have many things to be thankful for…

…a part-time job at Argyle with my old buddies and customers.

…two children that are relating more and more to me as adults, but still show glimpses of their dear childhoods.

…two dogs that don’t provide enough warmth for a three-dog night, but in Oregon (thankfully) the most we require is a two-dog night.

…a cozy home with yellow walls, plants inside and out, music playing constantly, and a place that I desire to be welcoming. Come see us!

…Walt’s Sherwood Appliance Shop. They helped me once again troubleshoot my washer/dryer problems and helped me fix the problem myself! I love small, locally owned businesses!

…Jacqui, Jenny and Becky, who are patiently teaching me how to play pinochle on ladies’ game night!

…the YMCA where I go to participate in circuit training, yoga, spinning, etc…I’m staying healthy even without health insurance!

…my family, Mom, Dad, Laurie, Dan and Sue and each of your spouses and children…you mean so much to me. Thanks, Dan, for sharing Thanksgiving with me.

…Emmanuel, you were my pastor in Bujumbura. It was great to share over 7 hours of one-on-one time with you on our way to and from Yachats. Our discussion on reconciliation will stay with me.

Advent Conspiracy

My sister, Laurie, had this video on her blog and it really spoke to me. I hope it resonates with you as well. Season's best!

Wordstock

Perhaps it's because our mother was a teacher (and made us look up the spelling of words we didn't know in a giant dictionary by the front door), but I love words in poetry, in books, when talking. Portland is a city obsessed with words too and has an annual event called Wordstock where writers get together and discuss their work. I missed it this year, but found some great quotes in the newspaper this morning. One was from Alexandre Poussin who made a journey across Africa with his wife on mostly the good graces of strangers. He says, "I believe you must have very little goals, but you must follow them to the end. You ought to wish little, but for a long period of time." The only other choice, " is to be unfocused, dispersed and to achieve nothing."

This same article quoted G.K. Chesterton, "An adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." I LOVE that!

Yes, We Can!

I went to the Obama rally in Portland on May 18, 2008 when 72,000 people showed up on the banks of the Willamette River. A young fellow OSU alum next to me shot this picture of Obama with his telephoto lens...we were about 35,000 people back. The Decembrists, a local band that is one of my fav's, was playing when we made our way to the rally. To the tune of O' Valencia, we (my friend, Jacqui, and I) smooshed ourselves into the throng. I'd have to say it was a moving moment to be among so many people and to hear Obama speak.

So on this day after Barack Obama has been elected the forty-fourth President of the United States of America, I hope for change. My hopes are for a national healthcare system for all our citizens, for renewed diplomacy among the world's nations, for the end to the war in Iraq, and for our youth to retain their new hope by volunteering at home and abroad.

Beth in Vancouver, B.C.

There is almost nothing more beautiful than fall in the Northwest. I had a chance to experience it via train as I rode up to the International Conference on Urban Health in British Columbia, Canada. A cohort, Emily, and I were presenting a study from our Geographic Information Systems class last winter. We connected with another couple of friends of ours who were going to the conference and toured Vancouver together. I know these conferences are meant for networking, but I'd have to say the best part of the whole trip was getting to hang with the girls. They're some pretty remarkable women!

Dancing Child

That's the name of this Cauzal Coffee, and it's liquid sunshine. Part of the proceeds from purchases can be donated to specific causes...for instance, to World Relief's Child Survival Project that I was involved with in Burundi. So do the children in Burundi dance? Many do...especially if they have enough to eat, are free from malaria, are immunized against measles, and have clean water to drink. You can tell where my heart lies. Children are the same everywhere. They love to play games, go to school, make music, and explore. If you want to join the cause, check out Cauzal's website: http://cauzal.com/mycauze1242.

Happy Birthday (yesterday), Gabrielle!

Gabrielle had a birthday yesterday. I'm trying to remember what it was like to birth her 23 years ago...I remember the c-section and her coming out looking a bit like a little, old man. Wow! She's changed into a stunning, young woman. I was so proud of her yesterday. She wanted a haircut for her gift and donated 10 inches of her hair to Locks of Love. Look at her "before" and "after" pictures:


Then we had a blast in the evening going to Portland to meet two of our other favorite 23 year olds (cousin, Alana, with baby, Adelina, and best "sis," Cherise) at Marrakesh. Of course, big bro, Josiah, came along too.




Not only did we get to eat with our fingers, but Gabrielle got her own personal belly dancing lesson. Finished off the night at our car with the birthday cupcakes that Suzanne helped us decorate. Have a good year dear, Gaby! You are a bright spot in our lives with your exuberance and kindness. I love you!

Crush (noun)

The harvest crush has begun right on schedule! These pinot noir grapes, Dijon clones from France, look just beautiful.

Steven, Martha's husband, is the tractor man. Do you see the forklift on front? It's used to pick up these bins of grapes and move them around the farm. Good thing for us because we're hauling a lot of grapes already!
Martha is doing what she does best...taking care of others. Josiah has a nasty case of poison oak, so Martha is applying calamine lotion before the day gets underway. (He didn't get the poison oak on their farm).
These are the farm dogs...black one is Maddie and the yellow lab is Warnie. Couldn't ask for two better dogs (except maybe my two dogs, Jas and Bee).
Isidra is picking grapes and has done so for about 3o years! Ditto for Mario, her husband.
It's Josiah's first year...look at him dumping those buckets....yea, for the bucket brigade! It's my second year, and a much better one than last year when it poured down rain!!!

Let the Birthday Week Commence!

Gabrielle turns 23 this week! She said she felt like she was still young at 22, but 23 seems OLD!! We celebrated her birthday early with Mom and Dad since they're going back to Arizona the day before her birthday. We went to our favorite Thai restaurant in Newberg, The Golden Leaf, with our special server, Lec, who feeds us delectable curries and pad thai. Afterward, we each made our own banana split and played a game of hearts. Gabrielle often wins, but this time she let the really OLD player (sorry, Dad) win! While I was gone this summer, Gabrielle was invited over for dinner and games quite a bit. We're going to miss them, but this week is all about celebrating.

Martha's Vineyard

I've been spending some time with my dear friend, Martha. She invited me to her place in the Dundee Hills. This is the sight I woke up to the following morning, Mt. Hood and the Willamette Valley in all it's glory:

The next day we hiked her vineyards and talked
about grape harvest. The grapes look and taste
great. Harvest should be about the second week
of October.

I worked at the Maresh Red Hills Vineyard Retreat today and was
able to continue enjoying the view. Ahhh!

It's Official!

My presentation on my internship in Burundi and final oral exam were this past Wednesday. It's official...I passed and have my MPH! Some of the highlights of this program were my amazing fellow students...the Malaria Rangers...classes at all three campuses (OSU, PSU & OHSU)...our inspirational mentor, Dr. Chi...acronyms...going to the APHA conference in D.C. with Lisa...making lifelong friends...and finding joy in my work!

...and at the Oregon coast with Gaby girl!

Beth in Oregon

I live in the suburbs...it's a lot different than Burundi, and I am having some difficulty adjusting. Today was a good day, though. I went out to my favorite Lebanese joint, Nicholas Restaurant, and to Stumptown Coffee with my crazy friend, Suzanne. The coffee buyer for Stumptown stays with Trina and Seth when he comes to Burundi...small world!

We saw some beautiful sunflowers and a random plastic horse tied up to an old hitching post! It made me remember why Portland is also my home. Beautiful, weird, quirky, fun!

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.