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August 7, 2008
Gitega, Burundi
One
more night and I'll be off what has proven to be a difficult bed. The
slats run lengthwise and I sort of go through the foam mattress. I try
to rest my spine between the slats , but if I move a bit or roll over
it's wakeup time. Then try to find a comfortable position and start
over. I had a small air mattress that I thought I'd never use, so I
left it in Uvira for some kids to sleep on. I hope they are using it.
Women here have the gift of the walk. A well dressed woman wearing
spike heels can walk over a lava bed and make it look easy. I'm baffled
how they do it. No gym bag with a pair of running shoes to wear on the
street like we see at home. These ladies have a sense of balance that
probably comes from learning to carry things on their head at a young
age and it transfers over to posture and carraige. Today I felt a bit
discouraged when I got up, because more than half the class (12 of 20)
had to leave after the second day to go back to work. I knew it was
going to happen but I didn't anticipate the void that was left. The
class yesterday was struggling with the mediation process, falling into
counseling and advising and being a bit lost as to when to make
interventions. But today they got it! Just have to stay in the game and
they learn. I sometimes forget how I struggled with a lot of the stuff
I'm now teaching, so there. Hard to believe I've been gone a month and
will be back in 13 days. I've been reading a book on traditional
methods of conflict resolution by three tribes in the area of Uvira
where I was last week. It's in french and a lot of terminology I need
to use is there, and it has helped me with my presentations. A third
party is a tiers. I was calling it a troisieme partie which is a
literal translation but I don't know if it is used much or understood.
Other expressions like that as well. I met the author, a Congolese man,
in Uvira. He does some consulting with the Peace Center and we started
talking and he told me about his book and said he would bring me one
for $10 which turned out to be a good investment. We also talked a lot
about Restorative Justice, another conflict res. technique, and he was
very interested in that as well, so we had a meeting of the minds.
Maybe I will teach that next year if I return. Ciao
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