A Letter from Jodi (November 2011)

I'd like to tell you a bit about the main road that links Gitega, Burundi's second largest city and center for some branches of national government, and Ngozi, the country's third largest city and my provincial town, a bumpy forty-five minute drive from where I live at Burasira. This is the road whose widening and paving will soon be underway. Much as I long for a good paved road between me and any other destination in Burundi, I'm conscious that something will be lost when the old dirt road lies under asphalt. Old roads carry stories. Some of this road's stories have been told to me. Others I intuit as I walk along it, glimpsing signs of what this region went through before I came here, and the changes it's undergoing now.

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A Letter from Jodi (October 2011)

I recently visited Bishop Sixbert Macumi of the Anglican Diocese of Buye in northern Burundi. We had a wonderful meeting, during which Bishop Sixbert shared with me his understanding about partnership. He said it's about learning to know one another, learning about the world, learning about how we can pray for one another. He illustrated this with a Burundian proverb: Umwana atagenda yibaza ko nyina wiwe ariwe azi guteka. (The child who has not traveled thinks that only its own mother knows how to cook.)

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A Letter from Jodi (September 2011)

During my time in the US and Canada, I founded a charitable organization called ON THE GROUND IN BURUNDI to support education and grassroots community development in rural Burundi. Its purpose is to raise awareness in North America about the struggles and great potential of rural Burundi, and to engage North Americans and Burundians alike in developing a rural community finding its feet after decades of war, injustice, and extreme poverty. ON THE GROUND IN BURUNDI is incorporated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and has applied for status as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. We have five excellent board members, and the support of St. James's Episcopal Church in Cambridge, MA, and St. Anne's Anglican Church in London, Ontario.

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Update from Jodi, April 2011

The News from Nyangungu: Final Report

Dear Family and Friends,

I've been looking over the letters I've written to you over the last three years, and thought I'd give you some updates on those I've written about before I fly out of Bujumbura tomorrow evening

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Update from Jodi, late October 2009

Dear Family and Friends,  

I've had several responses to my recent letter from people who would like to know how to offer some financial support to our students. Others among you have written before, wanting to know how you might make a contribution to the Hope School. Thank you to all who have written, and to all who hold us in their hearts.  

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Update from Jodi Mikalachki: Oct. 2009

Dear Family and Friends,
 
It's a foggy morning in the mountains, cool enough that I'm wearing a wool turtleneck and sweater, and baking rice pudding for Sunday breakfast. The rains have finally returned, almost a month late, and I've been planting parsnips, peppers, herbs, arugula, spinach, squash, and flowers. Still, unreasonably, I feel that it should be fall, that nights should be growing longer and mornings nippier. I wonder how many years it will take me to internalize the see-saw of wet and dry, rather than the wheel of four seasons that has shaped my inner life as much as my outer.

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Update from Jodi - June 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

It's been great to hear from many of you over the last few weeks. We're about to start exams at the Hope Secondary School. Please do hold our students in your hearts. They've worked so hard and sacrificed so much this year, and for some of them, it's going to be a very close shave if they pass their year. I have another story I'd like to share with you. I love the stories you send me, too, whether it's an exceptional period such as a sabbatical, or the hopes, concerns, longings, and joys of everyday life. It helps me feel connected to you, and to the part of the world that has shaped me.

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Update from Jodi - May 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Misi myinshi, as they say in Burundi. It's been a long time. You are often in my thoughts, and I have composed many letters to you that I just didn't write down.

I'm reflecting this weekend on several anniversaries. I landed in Bujumbura last year on April 30^th, exactly four years after I flew out of Johannesburg to return to the US. May 1^st was my first full day in Burundi, and it happened to be Ascension Day last year. On Thursday we celebrated Ascension again (a bit later this year), and in a few days, it will be the first anniversary of my father's death. There's a lot to reflect on, and I ask your prayers for my family and me, especially on May 27th.

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A letter from Jodi Mikalachki: Feb. 14, 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of the day, I’d like to share a story of love.

You may remember that in December I described two boys – Jean “I Speak Even If No-one Listens” and Philbert “I Have No Home.” They’re the boys who cross the river and walk every day from the neighboring province of Karusi (at least a 3-hour round trip). Jean came first in the class at the end of the first term, and Philbert, tenth. I don’t think either has missed a day of classes since the beginning of the school year, despite their long journey and the prevalence of illness in this area.

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