August 2, 2008
Burundi
I'm sitting in an office
Saturday afternoon/evening almost 6pm. I was in this place last year at
this time and feel like a bit of a homecoming. My stay in the Uvira,
South Kivu, Democratic Rep. of the Congo, was very rewarding in seeing
how participants were so eager and responding to the idea of mediation(see photo).
They had had a training three weeks prior to me over the same material.
I presented the process probably somewhat differently, spending more
time on practice than theory, mainly because my French wasn't
sufficient to talk theory. The interesting thing is I'm hearing English
spoken for the first time in six days. We lived, ate, slept and
breathed French and Swahili. If I stayed there a month I would be
fairly competent.
Congo is an easy place to love, fear and be
overwhelmed. The fear part I didn't really experience like the adults
in my class have during much of their lives. They've been widowed, lost
children, and put into a refugee situation by war over the years.Many
had fled up the hills behind where I was staying. Then when the
guerrillas got chased out of town, they too went up in the hills and
took advantage of the refugees.
They left the town in ruins and
eventually the refugees came crawling back. There are lots of orphans
in the town. One of the coordinateurs of the event, Mannaseh Kisopa,
has adopted five children plus his and his wife's two , and there are
six others living at his house that he plans to adopt by the end of the
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He works at a number of jobs teaching and his wife does as well.
Their house is small and all of the children sleep on matts on a dirt
floor sqeezed tightly together. It is beyond our ability to understand
, but these kids have it better than the ones on the street that lack a
set of loving adults.

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I fell for a little one that came to the Center
and is loved and looked after by everyone there. The staff call her
Cherie, but her real name is Rosine(photo). She is outgoing and boisterous and
shy and has a beautiful smile. She calls me white guy, 'mzungu' , but I
taught her to say, George. She is about two and a half and lives with
her maternal grandmother(photo). No means of income that I can tell. Grandma
keeps her clean and cared for. She was trimining her toenails with a
razor blade yesterday when I came up to talk to them. Apparently the
mother went crazy and is nowhere to be found. No one knows anything
about the father. She could be a child of rape, but that is only
speculation. |
She and I said goodbye and Leon Alenga the center director
was in town getting a cab and sent a mototaxi up for me. I road it down
to the main road and we headed downtown til a taxi honked for us to
stop. It contained Leon. We travelled in style to the border and sailed
through both sides.. They told me at the Rwandan border that my visa
would only be good for three days , so I may be late again to start the
next class if I have to stay here until Monday when the visa office
opens. We'll see. Adrien Nyiangobo the local director, said it may be
possible that someone does the visa thing for me and that I go up to
Gitega tomorrow, Sunday and thus be on time. Andrew Peterson was in the
Friends Peace Center Office here in Bujumbura. We had met up in Kigali
several weeks ago. He will spend most of his time down here.
Leon
had
to go for another taxi, but we went throught the big market where I got
pickpocketed last year and also someone tried to cut into my rucksack
then. This year I got out with everything. I wanted to buy something
for Rosine that Leon would take back. Found a little skirt and tee
shirt and jacket that she will like. Real girly girl. Jane Skogstrom,
there's a great project for you here in the Congo teaching sewing to
ladies. The Peace Center trains women for six months on sewing clothing
and then they are out. They have made some quilts but could use some
design expertise and also all the other stuff. They have treadle
machines. They cost about $150 but the ladies can't afford one when
they get out, so their only hope is to get a job working for someone
else if that is possilble. They need a coop organizer or someone in
Microfinance to help them into working at home with their own machine
if they can ever find a way. The living conditions are a bit rough but
manageable. If someone wants more information. Just ask. When I was in
Uvira, I was curious how people with so few means could afford glasses.
I learned from them that some had eye exams in Bujumbura for ten
dollars and paid twenty dollars for prescription glasses. Did a bit of
shopping around this afternoon and bought a pair. The prescription was
taken off my lenses, and I got an upscal frame for sixty dollars and
bifocal lenses for sixty. At home they were over five hundred. They
send
the order to India and they are ground, assembled and shipped here in
ten days. If they don't make it before I leave in twelve days, they
will send them on. Last night at the Center a Mr. Saidi Sango, a
sociologist, researcher came to see what I was doing. He is from here,
a member of the Bembe tribe. We talked about culture and he was quite
intersted in Restorative Justice and was able to elaborate and compare
it to traditional Congolese justice and British Law. He has published a
book on local culture and sold me a copy and when he brought it to me
showed me a revue that had some references to Restorative Justice. I
gave him the name of Mark Umbreit at U. of Minnesota, who is one of the
American proponents of the process which came to us from the Aborigines
of Australia and the Maoi's of New Zealand. The Congo is rewriting
their laws and does not want to use any local , traditional law as
there are over 400 tribes there and if one's laws were used, they
others might be offended. But maybe the Restorative Justice process
could in some way be in corporated. He has some contacts and input into
this, I think. I think you might get some pictures with this. I've
managed to compress the pictures and they may transmit. We'll see.
Thursday
we walked down the hill into town to go to the internet cafe in Uvira.
Stopped at the beach first. A few ladies selling sun dried fish that
smell awful but are very nutritious. In Zimbabwe they were caught in
Lake Kariba and called kapenta. Don't know the name here. They are
about the size of a minnow. The internet cafe was the fastest that I've
seen in Africa. Got a lot of reading done in an hour for two dollars.
Twice as expensive as elsewhere. After the internet cafe, we stopped at
the Blue Cat House Restaurant(photo). I explained the meaning of the term in
my culture to their less than enthusiastic understanding. I probably
already mentioned my one host , Mannaseh Kisopa. He and his wife Rachel
have a child, two and a half and an eighteen year old. Quite a spread.
One in between had died. They are taking care of 9 other children, all
found on the streets. Lots of school fees, clothes and food to keep
going, so if any of you are looking for a family for a fundraiser or a
donation, keep them in mind. I left him a hundred dollars to make sure
the oldest finished school this year. He was going to hold her out to
enable a bunch of the little ones to go to school. We have one chief of
a village in our class, Bahuga Rayembe. His wife had a new baby
Wednesday, number 12. The class broke out in spontaneous song when he
announce that news. All for tonight, August 2, 2008.
More recent photos:
George
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August
21, 2008
August 19, 2008
August 15, 2008
August 14, 2008
August 13, 2008
August 10, 2008
August 9, 2008
August 8, 2008
August 7, 2008
August 4, 2008
August 3, 2008
August 2, 2008
July 30, 2008
July 29, 2008
July 28, 2008
July
27, 2008
July
26, 2008
July
23, 2008
July
22, 2008
July
21, 2008
July
18, 2008
July
16, 2008
July
14, 2008
July
11, 2008
July 10, 2008
June 19, 2008



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