Don’t Waste Your Time Looking At This

Students arrive at Gitega International Academy on Monday. This is the first English speaking boarding school in Burundi, and I’m proud to be a founding member. The East African Community has adopted English as its official language, so GIA is making a huge step to develop future leaders for the nation of Burundi. At the Academy, I’ll be teaching Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Typing. Bring it on! But first, I need to be rejuvenated. 

Front Gate of the Academy

My Teaching Schedule

A group of 4 guys, who are recent graduates from Colorado University and who have been travelling the world for a year, just showed up to volunteer for 2 months. They have spent time in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Belize, Fiji, Australia, Singapore, India, Uganda, and now Burundi. In 2 months they will head to Zambia, and eventually South Africa, where they will end their trip. These guys claim that the prettiest place they have been is a tie between Fiji and Burundi. It’s gorgeous in Gitega. So I think I will sign off the internet and will go run up a few mountains with them right now. You should too. Go explore and hang out with God in nature.

Ryan, one of the Colorado guys, with a kid we found on the street wearing a U of Colorado shirt

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am—a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.” 

–Edward Abbey

On a small mountaintop in Gitega

Amen! Groly to God! Good Loves Jesus!