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.

We're coming to the end of the long rainy season (urushana), and have harvested over ten pounds of dry beans from my garden. We're eating gorgeous Nantes carrots, picture-perfect green peppers, and tons of lenga-lenga (amaranth), a green leafy vegetable that's as nutritious as it is delicious. I'm planting hardy vegetables now so that they can get a good start before the rains cease in ici (the long dry season). Apparently everything dries up here in ici, which is hard for me to imagine in the midst of all this lushness.

I've been told that many pastoral African societies live in seven-year cycles, so I've barely begun in rural Burundi. I am building up daily rhythms here, nevertheless. Here's what my walk home from work has been like during these last few months of rain.

Walking Home

Once I've shaken hands and said good-bye to colleagues, I carefully head down the steep, slippery, red-clay hill from the school. Soon, I hear the slap-slap-slap of small bare feet running to keep up with the muzungu who walks so quickly. When I turn to smile, I see a dozen gleeful children in mismatched rags of hand-me-down school uniforms burst into laughter, modestly shrugging their faces into their shoulders.

Down the hill from the primary and secondary schools, I pass the pre-school, heralded by enthusiastic cries of "Bonjour Madamu Joooh-di!" I usually stop to ask "Ça va?", which produces the invariable and rhythmically chanted response: "OUI-ça-va / BIEN-mer-ci!" I shake dozens of tiny little grimy snot-encrusted hands while looking into bright eyes.

Opposite the 7^th-Day Adventist church further down the hill, I call out Amahoro to Mama Sabine, an elderly widow whose children are dead, as she works her tiny plot of beans and cassava. She has a club foot and a withered hand, and walks with a stick. One day I met her in the market coming back from another hill where she'd gone to collect damages from a man whose pig had run amuck in her garden. Another day I followed her downhill as she carried firewood on her head. I try to slip her money when no other widows are around, because there's no way I can help them all.

All the way down the long, steep hill, I pass people going the other way: women with heavy baskets of produce on their heads and babies on their backs; boys pushing impossibly overladen bicycles with sweat beading their faces; old men and women leaning on sticks. We exchange greetings, and I stop to shake hands and converse a little with the elderly. "Muvuye kw'ishuri?" they ask me (Are you coming from school?). "Ego," I answer, "ndatashe" (Yes, I'm going home). "Muratashe mwebwe?" I ask them in turn (Are you also going home?)."Ego," they answer. "Urugendo rwiza," I say, wishing them a good journey. "Twese," they respond (You, too).

If it's a market day (Tues/Fri), when I get to the bottom of the hill I walk down the lines of men working sewing machines so I can shake hands with Papa Gihimbare, a tailor whose son is the principal of the Mutaho High School. The son is helping us start our own secondary school by teaching Math, Science and Technology to our 7^th Grade.

As I move through the market crowd, I greet people I've come to know a bit: school parents, Batwa elders, neighbors. At the crossroads, where our principal and his wife live (she's also one of our teachers), I usually find my legs grasped by Grace, their eighteen-month-old daughter. A typical eldest child of teachers, she can already count to ten in Kirundi and French, and greets in three languages.

Around the corner onto the main road, I slap hands with the five-year-old twins Viator and Vanessa. After many queries as to why these obviously bright children are not in pre-school, their parents have promised that they will send them in September. We'll see.

I also exchange greetings with the men who, market day or not, hang around the banana beer joints, seemingly with nothing to do all day long. Most of them are married to women who are at home working the fields so the family can eat.

As I cross the bridge over the rushing Ruvubu River that provides my electricity, I nervously dodge bicycles flying by with no more than two seconds' notice from their old-fashioned bells. The road slopes down in both directions toward the bridge, and cyclists carrying passengers or heavy loads of produce are loathe to lose their momentum. If I meet an untimely end in Burundi, it will probably be on or near that bridge on a market day.

Once I've crossed the bridge, I'm in the province of Ngozi, where I live next to the Grand Seminary of Burasira. Walking back up hill toward the seminary, I greet the many employees who've worked on my house or wall, and wave to young women who've been in the fields for several hours now, many of them with babies on their backs.

At the top of the hill, under the fragrant shade of guava trees, I turn left and walk to my gate, coming home to a clean house, clean laundry, and a delicious hot meal prepared by Hélène. We enjoy it together while sharing news from the day. A Canadian woman friend and I have remarked that we're leading the lives of nineteen-fifties' husbands in Burundi. I have to say, once you get over the guilt and awkwardness of having another woman take care of your house (especially when the other woman really needs the job), it does leave a lot more time and energy for service.

Walking home is one of my daily rhythms. It takes between twenty and thirty minutes, depending on how much meeting and greeting I do. The journey to school can take as little as fifteen minutes if I'm running late, which I usually am. "Mwara mutse. Ndacerewe," I gasp as I rudely race along (Good morning. I'm late.). "Bandanya," is the kind response-Keep going.

I do. I hope you're keeping going too, in your own rhythms of service and rest. I do appreciate hearing your news in letters and cards and email. Thank you for continuing to write, pray, and send parcels. It all means a lot to me.

Love,   Jodi

PS Happy Victoria / Memorial Day.   J.

Comments

[Julius]

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