Urban legend or fact?

A number of you have asked us to be a part of a little investigative journalism project that you are interested in. The conversation usually goes something like this:

"So, is Burundi in the southern hemisphere?"

"Yes, it is actually, just south of the equator. I bet you're wandering about the water drainage."

"Yes! That is exactly what I want to know! Is it true that the toilets flush the other way and that water drains counterclockwise? Will you report back/take a picture/record a video of this important phenomena?"

Now, let me take this opportunity to point out that Ron is probably more curious about this than anyone. He's invoked gravity, the Earth's magnetic field, and Tom Cruise when trying to explain why it would spin the other direction.

So. Here we are, in the southern hemisphere, with these pressing geophysical questions on our mind.

But we've discovered that we're missing a key link. We don't have enough water building up in our shower, sink, or toilet for us to have any observational luck. Our shower water pressure is about six large drops per 2.1 seconds, so no dice there. The sink water sprays out crazily in every direction but is barely enough to get your hands wet so no drainage excitement there either. And the toilet is nearly waterless and doesn't flush in a way that any Western mind would understand, so we're out of luck on that one too.

So, we're frustrated. Ron is currently threatening to drill a hole in the bottom of Lake Tanganyika and see which direction THAT drains if he can't figure it out soon.

Adventures on Rwandan Air Express...

Ok, so we posted that we got here safely, but now that we have better internet for a few minutes at least, I have to share some more about our ridiculously amusing travel experience.

So we switched back and forth a few times between flying from Kigali to Bujumbura or taking the bus. Finally, we decided to fly since that way all of our bags wouldn't be a problem, as they probably would on the public bus. So we call the airline (the illustrious Rwandan Air Express, whose stated aim is to "be the airline of obvious choice...in the markets we serve" - not an ambitious goal, since they are practically a monopoly in the markets they serve, but anyway, I digress). The airline tells us, no problem, you don't need tickets in advance. Just come to the airport, they tell us. The flight is practically empty, they tell us. Just come and pay and you will be taken care of. This is the way things are done in Africa, they say.

So we show up the next day at the airport and no one at the ticket office has any clue what we're talking about. They protest loudly that this is not the way they like to do things, oh no it isn't. They have order around here, they say. We like to do these things in advance. Hmph.

So, they eventually give us the handwritten tickets. Yes, handwritten airline tickets. Flying in an aircraft when the company lacks typewriting technology is enough to make me skittish, but we're trying to go with the flow at this point. So, an hour and half later, we have our two tickets. (We were, by the way, the only customers so we shudder to think of what would have happened if there was actually a line!). They finally call us to board, and we walk what feels like halfway to Bujumbura on the tarmac, and we line up next to this tiny plane that Ron thinks may actually be powered by remote control. Of course, while waiting to board this thing, there was a downpour and we got soaked.

We made it off the ground okay and shuddered to our cruising altitude of a measly 16,000 feet, while I look out the window and wonder lazily if we are going to collide with a child's kite at some point during this flight. Ron muses that a rock from a well-aimed slingshot would probably do it. The flight is only 30 minutes long, and the flight attendant basically pours us a glass of water, waits for us to drink it, then hand her the cup back. Unreal.

And so ended what (hopefully) will go down in the annals of the Gonskis as officially the Sketchiest Flight Ever.

And the real rub is this: at the eleventh hour, we were told that Rwandan Air Express only allows one bag per person...sorry. So our extra bags are coming to Bujumbura with a friend on Sunday. Ish. Sundayish.

Oh, Africa.

Gotta love it.

We've arrived!

Yesterday we left Rwanda and took the 30-minute flight to Burundi.  It was the smallest plane Ron had ever been in - 9 rows, with one seat in the back in the middle of the aisle.  A little propeller puddle jumper...I'm not going to lie and say that we weren't looking a bit askance at this little plane.  But it got us where we needed to go!  We landed in beautiful Bujumbura in the afternoon and made it to our house, which is completely amazing.  It has a rooftop terrace that overlooks the mountains on one side and Lake Tanganyika on the other.  How did we get so lucky?!  The house is so nice and has a little garden as well. 

So now we're just working on getting oriented and settling into the rhythm of life here.  We're still having waaaay too much trouble with the internet connection to upload many pictures, but I'll try to post one below, of Ron and I on the beach at Lake Tanganyika.  Those mountains in the background are the Congo!

Day #4

Today Brian McLaren spoke for a bit - and hit the ball out of the park. It wasn't our first time hearing him speak, but he was in rare form today! He gave a passionate talk on how our lives are impacted deeply by our framing stories. The story of domination, or revolution, or isolation, shapes how we lived out our lives personally and as larger communities of people groups and nations. We're going to try to get his power point from the presentation uploaded on the Amahoro website, and I would highly encourage you to check it out if it is - I'll keep you updated on that!

We also heard from some of our Kenyan friends about the recent post-election violence. They spoke of the upcoming reconciliation process.

It's all been so much to take in over the last few days. We're simply amazed by the stories of our friends and the complexity which dominates our world.

Catching up on post #2

Day 3

Conversations with Annemie Bosch

The other night at dinner I (Sarah) had the amazingly wonderful opportunity to sit near Annemie Bosch, a South African and the widow of noted theologian David Bosch. Annemie is an amazing woman who is full of compelling stories. She got involved in the anti-apartheid movement as a young woman, which is quite rare and courageous for a white South African, and worked her whole life to see justice restored in her land. She kept me entertained throughout dinner with stories of “Uncle Desmond” (yes…as in Archbishop Tutu!) who is a good friend, and the mood of the country on that day in April 1994 when South Africa had their first free elections. She wasn’t able to articulate her emotions about how she felt the day of the elections without getting deeply emotional. I kept thinking how incredible that was, to invest your life in toppling a system that gives you preference but which you understand to be ultimately unjust. Quite an remarkable example of love.

The Latin American Context

This evening we heard from three representatives of La Red Del Camino, an organization that works with churches, mostly in Latin America, and comes alongside them while they practice incarnational living. Their work sounds fascinating, and if you have a heart for the Latin American community in particular, you should check them out! I feel like the best I can do is share with you a few quotes that I wrote down, since they said it far better than I can.

“It is easy to fall into the trap of entertaining ourselves talking about this kind of theology and the principles that come along with it. But to really find a church community living it out is extremely rare. Actually living it out is much more difficult than talking about it. It takes more time and is often a painful process.”

“When we talk about reconciliation we must be sure not get caught up talking about it at a macro level. The local church must be a reconciled community. The mystery of the Gospel is that there is no Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free.”

“Our authority to be the prophetic voice in the world is that we are living the alternative.”

“When the disciples and John the Baptist came to Jesus and asked him if he was the Messiah, he didn’t take out his messiah ID card and say, ‘Look at this, of course I am’. He said, come and see. Look at my life. When people come and ask us, ‘Are you the church?’, we can say, come and see.”

Catching up on posts #1

Since the internet connection here has been so painfully slow, we've been pseudo-blogging inside Word documents and are finally getting caught up on the actual posting! These posts were from the 2nd day of the conference.

Day 2

We heard from Frida Gashumba this morning, a young Rwandan woman who narrowly escaped the Rwandan genocide. Her story is one of unspeakable tragedy and also of stunning beauty.

In April 1994, Frida was with her family when the interahamwe militia came, forcing her family outside where they slaughtered them with machetes. Frida was hit on the back of the neck with a machete and was unconscious for several hours, during which time she was left for dead. She awoke to find herself buried alive and managed to break free of the shallow grave. Her entire family had been killed.

Her survival, recovery and transformation is truly inspiring. Today Frida is a beautiful woman, a mother who has taken in children from both the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes. She has been an example amongst her people of the power of forgiveness, as she has visited the prison cells of the people that killed her family and has personally forgiven them. Frida told them “I don’t know why you have done this. I have forgiven you. There is nothing you can do to hurt me anymore.”

Those words stayed with me all day. There is nothing you can do to hurt me anymore. Frida was saying that she had exhausted the evil of the man who tried to hurt her. I couldn’t help but think of the parallel between Frida’s words and God’s victory at the cross. Jesus took the evil of the world upon himself and emerged victorious. Evil gave Him its best shot and lost.

Another Rwandan shared her genocide experiences after Frida. This woman, though, was Hutu. She had played a role in perpetrating the genocide. As Tim mentions here, she feels compelled to speak a message of repentance for the entire Hutu people wherever she goes. She says that the Hutu people do not listen to her because many of them believe that all sin is personal. She stood in front of all of us and asked for us to forgive her.

The power of these stories is overwhelming. It was very hard to listen to them, even harder to try to understand.


The Dinner Party

Tonight’s dinner was a celebration complete with singing, dancing, and an address by the Mayor of Kigali. The highlight of the evening was a drumming group from Burundi. The young boys had driven from Bujumbura just to play for us that night. They came marching in single file, each with a very heavy drum balanced on their head. They then put all the drums down in a circle, with one drum at its center, and began to play.

Unfortunately, about 20 minutes after they started to play it began to rain heavily. The fun part was Sarah and I ran for cover underneath a tent with them and had a great time trying to talk to them with our broken Kirundi (which they thought was hysterical) and them talking to us in their broken English. When the rain stopped the boys left the tent to begin playing again. He turned to Sarah and said "I must go. It is time to pray."

Sarah looked at me quizzically, wondering if she misunderstood him or if he had misspoke, intending to say "play" instead of "pray". She asked him, and he said that indeed yes, he had meant to say "pray" - that their drumming and dancing routines are prayers. Some are prayers for Burundi, others are prayers for the world, some are deeply personal prayers of forgiveness. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more beautiful expression of worship. The enthusiasm those boys sang and drummed with was awe-inspiring.

It really made me think about the misplaced suspicion we in the West have often had about physical forms of worship. We accuse yoga of being Buddhist, Native American song and dancing as pagan, and meditation as being "so New Age". But this is a God who enjoyed diversity so much that he created all of us. It seems to me that the same God is unlikely to quibble over the diversity of expressions of worship we've created.

And we made it!

**Editor's note: I wrote this post 2 nights ago but had trouble posting it (the internet is a little slower here), and I decided to preserve the original content. - Ron

May 19, 2008

Whew! After something like 22 hours of travel we arrived safely in Kigali, Rwanda, earlier today, with ALL of our bags (***huuuuuuge sigh of relief***). We'll be in Kigali the rest of this week while we're attending the second annual Amahoro Gathering. We're staying at the Hotel la Palisse which is a really cool place with a beautiful view of the rolling capital city. Rwanda is known as the land of a thousand hills, and after today, I believe it. We've got our own little bungalow/one-room-cottage complete with a domed roof (pretty sweet eh?).

We arrived at the hotel around 1 p.m., made a few new friends, got a bite to eat, and then took a much needed power nap. We managed to wake up for the first session of the Gathering where we heard from a few veterans of the first Gathering last year in Uganda and got to partake in some awesome African worship music. We're lucky enough to have Jean Paul Samputu leading our music, who's a pretty big star in Africa (he's won the African equivalent of our "Grammys" a few times). He's great!

It's getting pretty late over here (it's 6 hours ahead of the east coast) and we're pretty beat from the travel. Time for the first night under the wide African sky.

And off we go!

Well, we leave tomorrow morning bright and early.  It is a long, long, LONG trek so we're bracing ourselves with lots of Benadryl and some comfy neck pillows (thanks to a certain Eric Sass who came through with that last clutch suggestion!).  Our flight goes from DC - Rome - Addis Abbaba (Ethiopia) - Kigali (Rwanda).  We'll be in Rwanda for about a week before we head to Burundi.

And with that, we're signing off.  Our next post will be from Africa!

Oh Happy Day!

Today Ron and I got a joyful gift - a 7 pound, 11 ounce little gift-  our first niece! Miss Victoria May was born this afternoon with no troubles.  Ten fingers, ten toes =)   She has a beautiful sweet sleepy face and looks just like her gorgeous Mama.  We have two nephews (now big brothers) who defy the laws of cuteness and we're so excited to have another little one around!

On a less fun note, packing and other preparations are going fairly well.  Today was Ron's last day at Lockheed.  Things are coming together.  We're down to less than a week!

2 More Weeks of Cheeseburgers!

Today is officially the two week mark until we leave!  We aren't going straight to Burundi though - we're flying to DC first for two days to see our sweet baby niece, who is currently still in utero but is planning to make her world debut on May 7th.  Then we'll be heading for about 10 days in Rwanda before we travel to Bujumbura.  We're scrambling to get everything done in the next two weeks but are also trying to remember to take time and enjoy this period of excitement and anticipation!

My friend Christie sent me a link to this video awhile ago.  It's been so significant to me over the past few months, and now that I have the technical knowledge to embed a video, I'm sharing it!  It's  a beautiful song by Sara Groves, which she wrote after spending some time in Rwanda.