Bike for Burundi 5/22/13

This week, about 9 men are riding their bicycles around Burundi in an event called "Bike for Burundi."  The majority are friends of Simeon's (mentioned earlier in this blog).  Most are originally from England.  A lot of the money raised from Bike for Burundi will go toward the school I teach in, the children's home I live in, or the clinic by the children's home.

The men came and stayed in the Children's home a few days ago, and I was able to talk to them and spend some time with them.  I have to say, I was especially excited that many of them had business and science backgrounds.  It was cool to hear what they did or have done.  One works for a company that makes flash drives, and another man is a mechanical engineer.  One was a civil engineer that works on mapping oil fields using magnetic fields, and one lives in the same town as my uncle and does land development work.

The men flew in on different days.  They put their bicycles on the plane, but unfortunately, because of a baggage strike in Brussels, four of the bicycles didn't arrive until Sunday night!

Simeon has been sick, and has been riding some of the days.  Jeremy, the nurse that lives at the Children home, is also riding.  A friend of his is visiting from Canada, is also biking.  Please keep him in your prayers though...he has had a problem with his knee.  A good friend of Hanna's is riding.  He lives in the capital.  Most of the men biking this year have not done something like this before, and all of them have been training for this event.  One man lost over 100lbs from training.

I hope to see them tonight.  They are biking through my town, and will be staying at the Children's home tonight. 

If you would like more information, check out the links below.

http://www.simonguillebaud.com/bike-for-Burundi
http://www.bikeforburundi.com/what-s-the-story/

Dinner with the majority of the men riding in "Bike for Burundi."

Birthday Wishes 05/17/13

I had a wonderful birthday in April.  My birthday was on a Sunday.  Since one of the drivers wasn't available, I drove everyone to chapel at school in one of the trucks.  I enjoy driving once in awhile.  At chapel, everyone sung Happy Birthday to me.

In Burundi, the tradition on your birthday is to soak you with water!  So, the girls coaxed me up the hill to the girls dorm, and we had a massive water fight.  There aren't squirt guns or hoses...just facuets and buckets.  The girls used the 5 gallon buckets that they use to wash their clothes in.  I managed to get a couple girls wet, but I pretty much got annialiated.  I couldn't fill up a bucket fast enough, so I learned to catch the water they threw at me with a bucket, then throw it back at them.  It was a lot of fun.

That night, we got together and had a special dinner at Jeremy and Nadia's new house.  Ryan made spaghetti and garlic bread.  Calvin backed a cake!  It had chocolate icing, and was similar to banana bread.  It was delicious!  Nadia found a birthday hat, and Hanna made me a card.  She makes some of the most beautiful cards I have seen.  Jana gave me some cookies from the capital, and they all gave me a basket with some excellent chocolate, and some other packages of cookies.

Workers Day 5/12/13

Last Wednesday was Worker's Day.  It was the Burundi equivalent to Labor Day.  It was a holiday, so the kids didn't have classes.  The schools in the area celebrate by having a march or a parade.  Each school does a circuit around the stadium.  For the occasion, we dressed up.  The students wore their uniforms with their green sweaters and staff wore dark clothing.

We took three bus loads to the stadium of the staff and the students.  We didn't quite fit everyone, so Jen, Hanna and I ended up in the normal truck.  The road to the stadium was packed with children from different schools, and adults from colleges or technical schools waiting for their turn to enter the stadium.  Jen, Hanna and I walked through the mass of people to get to our school.  One guy came and hovered his arm across my shoulders and pretended to escort me.  He was showing off for the other students in his school.  Once with our school, we waited and slowly inched our way to the stadium.

Waiting in line down the street form the stadium.

 

The math teacher from Uganda pointed at my camera and said, "Do you appear in this?"
He then borrowed my camera, and took a picture.

The students wore their uniforms with their green sweaters.  They were pretty hot in the sun, but they handled it well.  The students said they got several comments that they looked "Smart" compared to the other schools.  When you look nice here, they don't say, "nice," "beautiful," "pretty," "handsome" or "cute."  They say you look smart.

We entered the stadium and walked around the stadium.  They had music playing that sounded like circus music.  When we walked in front of the stands, they announced our school.  Our school staff was invited to go into the area in front of the stands.  I thought someone wanted to take our picture, but they escorted us to some empty seats!  We got to see some of the schools and organizations walking by, and some of us got to see a drum presentation.  Some of the schools and organizations walked by with different equipment.  One group walked by with prosthetic limbs.

Our school staff, sitting in the stands.

Teacher's from one school marched by the stands holding chalk.
The drummers are in the background.

 

This technical school marched with surveying and computer equipment. 

I hung out in the seats for awhile, then joined the kids in the concrete seats surrounding the stadium.  The kids wanted water, but I didn't see anyone selling water until it was time to leave.  Hanna and I did buy a bunch of peanuts, and gave them to the kids.  One kids found his parents, and they snuck him a Fanta and some food.  :)  For security reasons, we discourage the kids buying things.  I was thankful there wasn't much to buy!  There was a water spiket, and but there was fighting between people to get to it.  Who knows if it was clean drinking water.

There were a ton of people, a ton of kids, and I saw one other muzungu (white person) outside of my organization.  A midget marched in the parade, and then came and talked to Hanna afterwards.  His English was pretty good.  A group of people gathered around the two of them and just listened to them having an English conversation.  It's funny how the crowd mentality works.  If there's a group of people, it doesn't mean there is always something to see.  :) 

After the last bus left, Jen, Hanna and I waited outside the stadium with some other YFC staff.  A group of kids gathered around us.  It's not uncommon that if we are in an area for some time, a group gathers around us...especially kids.  It can be awkward.  But...I gave a shot at teaching them Peace Like a River in English with hand motions.  It went alright, but I think was better then just staring at each other.  :)  I need to work on learning more Kirundi.

Dodgeball 5/12/13

Calvin plays sports with the kids at the primary school close to noon, and the kids at my school for club time after school.  This week, he's been teaching the kids dodgeball.  I joined the girls sports club on Wednesday, and gave it a shot.  I haven't played in about 12 years.  I was afraid of playing with soccer balls, and afraid for the kids.  I did hit one girl in the side of the face with a ball.  She took it well, and is doing alright.  Calvin and some of the boys can throw hard enough I can't catch the balls.  I really enjoyed it, and managed to be the first on to get Calvin out.

On Thursday, there was a holiday and no school.  So, we had a dodgeball tournament.  Jen was the referee.  I was on the last team with some boys and Hanna.  We lost both our matches and were one of the first two teams eliminated.  Hanna told me her favorite part was when someone hit my feet with a ball.  I went down just like a tree and I remember hearing the "Yo!" exclamation from the crowd.  I sat up laughing, and walked away with a big bruise on my rear end as a souvenir.  I don't know who hit me.  Must have been someone with a bad grade on the last science quiz.  Maybe I will stick to playing with the girls.  :)



Kids watching from the steps.

One of the kids left on his team against six on the other.

This student probably threw balls the fastest.  The girls would scream when he threw.

 

One of the problems with the court is that balls do go over the wall and down the hill.  We are working on putting up a net.  On the other side of the wall generally there is someone that will retrieve the balls and throw them back over.  When I first arrived we lost some balls and all of our
volleyballs.  Some were stolen.  Others were lost.  We are doing better with that now.

New Toy 5/10/13

Jeremy and Nadia have spent the majority of the last few weeks in Bujumbura looking for a truck, and looking for a motor bike.  Hats off to them...they finally were able to settle on a truck and purchase a motor bike. 

When Jeremy and Nadia brought the vehicles back to the Children's home, it was hard to tell whose new toy it was.  The motor bike has an alarm on it.  The kids were excited to see it and they loved going over to the bike and making the alarm go off.  One day, I caught the kids at school doing the same thing.

 

 

 

Hair 5/5/13

 

 

 

Often, I will be standing in a group of people somewhere, and someone behind me will start fiddling  with my hair.  I've gotten used to it, but at first it was odd.  One day, the kids at the Children's home decided to braid Hanna's hair.  She let them do it, but at times it hurt (you can hear her whimpers in the video).  :)  One of the older boys told her in English, "Be quiet, Hanna."  When I was a kid, Mom would braid my hair in small braids.  I might have wanted to be the next in line when I was a child, but now I think I will pass.

Solar Sisters 5/5/13

Here's a couple interesting articles. One is about providing clean water in Liberia, and one is about solar lighting in Uganda, and the organization that sells the lighting.

I have a solar light similar to the ones in the pictures in the articles. I use it when we run out of electricity from our solar panels. Sometimes, we don't have much sun during the day, so we are only able to store a couple hours of solar power. The lights in the picture will collect enough solar power to stay on for 4 hours at night. I think if they are low on power, they are dimmer, but they still work. The muzungu price (white person) is $12.

Light has a big impact on education. The light allows students to study and do their homework at night. In Haiti, kids will gather underneath the street lights to study for national exams. If they don't pass the exams, they don't get to continue in school. I think the same is true for kids in government schools in Burundi.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/17/world/africa/solar-sister-africa-light/index.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/22/world/africa/face-africa-water-liberia/index.html?hpt=iaf_bn3