Karibu (Welcome) to Burundi

So I have officially been in Africa for 1 week. On a surface level Burundi is a lot like I thought it would be, but there are still obviously tons of things I don't understand about the culture and the people. In my experience so far, however, the people are very friendly and hospitable. The people I have been working with at the Youth for Christ office in Bujumbura are great. You can see pictures of them and learn about them at www.burundiyfc.org/staff/ For the past few days I have actually been completely remodeling the Youth for Christ website. I'm close to being finished, but you can check out the organization I'm volunteering with at www.burundiyfc.org Hopefully the new updates will bless the ministry, as before I started working on it, the front page was still talking about the Christmas season. Also, here's a little video of my buddy Simon talking about Burundi and Youth for Christ. It's 5 years dated, so the ministry has actually grown a lot since.

I'm in the hot city of Bujumbura now, which is on Lake Tanganyika, the worlds longest freshwater lake, 2nd deepest in the world, and 2nd biggest in volume of water. I saw my 1st wild hippo there a few days ago.

A few days ago Freddy, the national director of YFC, and I went to Gitega to check the progress on construction at the Gitega International Academy (GIA), the school where I will be teaching. Gitega is 100 km from Bujumbura, but it takes 2 hours to get there because driving on these roads is nuts. On the drive up to Gitega, there were tons of people walking on the side of the road. Some carried huge loads of stuff on top of their heads. They must have strong necks. Anyway, one quick funny story...on the way up to check out GIA and visit the precious kids at the YFC orphanage, Freddy takes his plastic soda bottle and chucks it out the window, missing a little 3 year old kid's head by maybe a foot. I thought to myself. "Dang, I thought Freddy was a good guy, but he's a jerk!" Then Freddy proceeds to say, "The little kids up here love to have bottles like that." I told him I thought he was being mean, but he insisted "No! I was blessing him." Ha. It's great how appreciative the kids are for even a little gift like a plastic water bottle.

Once we arrived at the orphanage I was very revitalized by the probably 1000 hugs that I received. The kids were so joyful and well looked after that it was a bit tough to remember the rough past that each of them has had. The trip was great, but there are still a lot of things that need to get situated before the opening of GIA in September, so pray for the money to hire enough builders.

View from the bathroom at the YFC office in Bujumbura 

I found this on my desk when I arrived. This is the yearbook of a school that is less than 2 miles from where I grew up in Annapolis. Crazy! It made it 7000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to where I am...so weird!

Some crests up in the mountains on the way to Gitega. At about 6000 ft elevation. I sort of expected a Gorilla to jump out in the middle of the road when we were driving up there. Beautiful country!

Since there's over 70% unemployment in the country, everybody is out and about during the day. The sun rises at 6 am and sets at 6 pm every day. At 6, everybody gets up. Then it seems that they all walk or ride bicycles / mopeds / cars in the middle of the road. There are seemingly no rules of the road here, and I feel like I'm in real life Mario Kart. But even while safely in a car, I definitely stick out. Very little kids get scared when they see me because they are not used to seeing white people. In fact, during my first 5 days here I saw thousands of people, and only 4 were white. So kids who are old enough to talk, they point and yell "Muzungu! Muzungu!" aka white person. It's pretty ridiculous that I'm seen by them as a novelty, but I should probably get used to it. It would be nice, however, if they realized that I'm just a normal person.

A few of the classroom buildings at Gitega International Academy

I feel very blessed to be here and am thankful to those who helped get me here. I'm trying to help out wherever I can, and I am excited for JD and Zack, the two other Americans that will be helping run Gitega International Academy, to arrive in 2 days. Once they get here, we will start working out curriculum and school procedures. It should make for an exciting summer.

More updates to come...

Grace and Peace in Christ,

jeff

Freddy in the middle of the construction at Gitega International Academy