In Rememberance

In some ways it really is a small world, but when your family is thousands of kilometers away and something sad happens, the world seems achingly huge. My grandfather died this weekend.

He was diagnosed with cancer a year and a half ago but went into remission and had been doing better. Recently he had started getting worse again, with a series of infections and having a lot of pain in his back. The cancer was back. He was admitted into hospice only about a week ago, and this weekend he passed away. We celebrated my Dad’s 60^th birthday the last weekend I was home in Canada, and my grandpa was well enough to come. It was cold and rainy so he sat inside near the patio door with a blanket and held court while people came to visit with him. It was a really good day.

My sister sent me a text message today at 4am (I don’t think she was thinking about the time difference, or that I use my phone as an alarm) telling me that she is going to say something at the funeral on Wednesday, and was there anything I wanted her to say on my behalf.

So, I've been thinking about him, and about what I would say if I were there. I'm really not sure. I've been thinking about how I'm glad I got to go visit with him after my dentist appointment in June. My dentist is in the same small town where he lived. I also think about when I hugged him goodbye at dad's birthday party. He held on longer and squeezed tighter than normal. I told him I would come see him when I was home in September.

I've also been thinking a lot about his hands. I remember as a kid thinking he had big, strong hands. He had an electrician's hands; a carpenter's hands; a gardener's hands. I have memories of holding his hand as a child. I remember taking his hand at my Aunt Rhonda's funeral. I think about how he squeezed my hand tight when he arrived at dad's birthday party just before I left to come here to Burundi.

I don't know what I would say if I were able to be there. I've been thinking about how much he loved, how much he was loved. And I've been thinking about how full of joy he must be right now, in heaven with Grandma and Beulah and Aunt Rhonda. With Jesus, where there is no more pain and no more cancer, where his hands are once again strong and he is whole. And as I think about that, I am still sad, but I am also comforted and at peace.

Because cancer has not won, death is not the victor. Love has won, through the blood of Christ. Jesus is the victor. So while he will be missed, he is not lost. He is safe in the arms of our Saviour, held in the hands of another Carpenter. And although I am another world away and can’t be with my family, I am also safe and at peace in the arms of my Saviour. All of a sudden the size of the world does not seem to matter as much as the size of my God and the strength of his arms.

Grocery Shopping - this is how we do it.

On the way home from Kirundo we stopped to do some grocery shopping, Burundi style.

vegetable stand on the side of the road

I bought all of this, and the basket it came in for about $8

Now, to figure out how to use this all up before it goes bad! Yum.

Long Weekends and Boat Rides

This long weekend I got a chance to leave Bujumbura and go ‘up country’. (Anywhere that is not Bujumbura is considered upcountry). I had a meeting my first week here with someone from the Spanish Red Cross about a grant that may or may not be announced by a large donor sometime in the next couple of months. The meeting went well, but the best outcome was that I made a new friend. Monique is originally from Peru and has worked in Burundi for two years. She has been an invaluable guide and companion since we met and I will be very sad to see her go when her contract is up at the end of August.

Monique and I, along with another Red Cross worker Maren, hired a Red Cross driver to take us up to the province of Kirundo on the Rwandan border. We were met there by Maren’s Rwandan boyfriend and together we had a really relaxing and enjoyable time.  We got to celebrate Canada Day and Burundi Independence Day by the lake. The trip up to Kirundo takes about 3 and a half hours and it gave us a great opportunity to absorb some of the beautiful scenery. This country is stunningly beautiful. Bujumbura is in a flat valley and the road out of the city is a breath-taking, heart stopping winding trail up the mountains. The vibrant red of the earth contrasted against the green of the countryside as the road rises and falls with the winding hills. The banana trees, the sorghum crops and coffee trees dotting the landscape and rice patties in the valleys give the impression of a lush and fertile land. It is the dry season now and so there is a wilted, muted quality to the green, as if there is a layer of dust over everything.

In the city it can be easy to overlook the full extent of the poverty in this country. Along the road in the rural areas it is at times painfully obvious. The tiny, shabby houses; the thin cows and goats with their ribs showing, the children playing by the road dressed in dirty clothes with their stomachs sticking out like something out of one of those commercials on TV that I hate so much. There is poverty here and there is hardship. But there is more than that and it would be unfair to the industry and spirit of the people here if I stopped at describing the heartbreaking poverty.  Driving through the countryside you can see everyday life going on as you pass by. People working in their fields, weeding and hoeing and watering their crops. Bricks are being made, some out of the mud and some out of cement, to feed the need created by the construction going on all over the country. Slate and rock have been dug up and carried to the road to be picked up by trucks. Carpentry, weaving and other crafts are available for sale along the road. There is a new private coffee company, cell phone towers, road construction and a factory for sunflower oil. The countryside is not a quiet, relaxing place. These people work hard.

We spent the weekend with some nuns on the shores of a lack just outside of the town of Kirundo, which is the main city in the province of Kirundo. We had breakfast by the lake, dinner away from the lake to avoid the worst of the mosquitos and we went to bed to the sound of the crickets, birds and frogs. Saturday we went to another lake, lac d'oiseau, and paid two boats to take us around the lake and over to an island. It was relaxing and beautiful and I'll let the pictures do the talking since this post is already long enough! Enjoy.

The Burundi version of a canoe

In some ways it reminded me of lakes at home in Canada....

...except the trees were a little different.

Two boats of Muzungus out in the sun

Settling in and Strategies

A lot has been going on around here since my last post. I moved into my new apartment on Monday afternoon. It is so great to have my own space and my own kitchen. The apartment is tiny but it is really cute and has a little terrace out the back and a garden. It is also right beside a busy main road so the peace and quiet of the garden is a bit of an illusion. Once I am a little more unpacked I will post a couple of photos here. Now I am busy trying to buy everything I need for the apartment, such as dishes and so on. After work on Monday I stopped by T2000, a store I am familiar with because of it's counterpart in Kigali, to buy some of the main essentials like a kettle and mugs, plates, a pot and pan, knives, forks and spoons, a pillow, sheets etc. Then I did a quick stop at a supermarket for some basic food supplies and went home. It soon became apparent that I had forgotten some of the main essentials of life. Like toilet paper and dish soap. Luckily my friend Monique took me shopping for a few more things at Mutoyi, a fantastic store that I will be spending a lot of time at. I am keeping a list of things that I still need. I added to it last night after trying to make dinner and burning my fingers on the pot. Oven mitts.

Also this week the new Director of my department at work started. She is spending most of this week on things like housing and finding a school for her kids but already I am feeling energized and like there is direction in my job. I never thought I would be this type of person, but guys, we have a Strategy. A Strategy! I am seriously excited about this. It is not done and so I will be spending part of my time over the next little while consulting with other staff members about it, but a strategy means direction, and purpose and steps that need to be taken. It means that what I do over the next five months will be part of something long term instead of a piecemeal mush of things that get forgotten after I leave. It means that this office will be better positioned to sustainably acquire and manage the funding needed to continue meeting the development needs of our communities. So while to some it is just a document of priorities and guidelines, really it is so much more!

I also had several meetings this week of varying degrees of interest. One was about a project that will be funded through one of our support offices and it was great to be part of the discussion about a peacebuilding project focused on children and youth in one of our communities. One thing about my current position is that I feel very removed from the everyday implementation and running of our activities in the field so it was great to finally see how my role fits into these field level activities.

This coming weekend is a long weekend. Did you know, Canada and Burundi share the same birthday? Burundi got it's independence on July 1, 1962. Monique and I are going to explore a bit upcountry, along with one of her colleagues and her colleagues' boyfriend. I haven't met them yet but I am really looking forward to getting out of the city. We're going to explore the Kirundo province which boasts some hot springs and beautiful lakes and we'll be doing some hiking as well. Lots of pictures to come!