July 29 '08 - from Burundi - "Symbolism"

Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 6:44 AM
Subject: AGLI--Report from Burundi--"Symbolism"--July 29, 2008

Dear All,

Symbolism

Gladys and I spent July 21 to 27 in Burundi visiting the AGLI and other programs, HROC, the Friends Women's Association's Kamenge Clinic, the Mutaho Widows Group, the HIV+ Gitega Women's group, Kibimba Hospital, school, and church, and Mi-PAREC (Peace and Reconciliation under the Cross in Gitega.

Symbolism: In upcountry Mutaho, I heard this testimony from a HROC workshop that had just been completed. A Tutsi man and a neighboring Hutu man were invited to the workshop. It is clear that the facilitators purposely chose these two because they knew there was an issue between them. During the workshop the Tutsi man pointed to the Hutu man and said that he was the person who tracked him during the violence in 1993. With that man's help, a Hutu gang attacked him with machetes but luckily he survived. When he healed and went home, the Hutu man continued to track him and he was attacked a second time, only again to survive. Now whenever he was walking down the road or path and saw the Hutu man behind him, he would become afraid and stop or detour until the Hutu man was no longer behind him. This was discussed in the workshop. On the third day the Tutsi man gave the Hutu man a ride home on the seat behind him on his bicycle.

John McKendy from New Brunswick, Canada, has been a workcamper at the Kamenge Clinic for the last two years. John has a sabbatical next year and is planning to return, probably in January, to begin a workshop on "Non-violent Direct Action," which is what he teaches. I have suggested that he start in Kenya where there has been a great demand for teaching non-violent direct action to the youth who seem to resort to violence whenever they protest -- over three hundred secondary schools have had riots in the last few weeks, frequently destroying school property. Once he has developed the workshop he will then take it to Burundi, Rwanda, and eastern Congo. This will be a great addition to AGLI's work.

In Mutaho we visited the dynamic Mutaho Widow's Coop, led by Pastor Sarah Golobwa, the only woman pastor in Burundi Yearly Meeting. When Adrien Niyongabo was on his recent speaking tour in the US, the meetings and churches in Oregon and Washington contributed $3500 for the Widow's group to build a center. The building includes a large meeting room, a place for an income-generating shop, and three rooms for overnight guests (so in the future we may not have to sleep at the nearby Catholic seminary/retreat house). The main building was almost complete to the top of the windows and they were working on the foundations of the other two parts. Mutaho Church had given them a nice plot for this center. While men had been hired to do the construction work, the women (and other church members) did not just stand and watch. This is the dry season and as usual in this part of Africa the houses are on the top of the hills and the water source is near the bottom of the hill. So the women carried water up-hill to the site every work day. This saved a considerable amount of money as they would have had to pay people to bring water. About two years ago a goat project was started where one person in the 56 member group who was given a goat gave the first female kid to another woman--frequently one was Hutu and the other Tutsi. Now the second group who received the kids, which are now grown up, are giving their first-born female kid to other women. The big advantage of the goats to the women is that the manure is put on their gardens (rather than very expensive fertilizer). I have seen that this doubles or triples the yield. Note that except for Pastor Sarah and the secretary (who is not a widow) most of the women are literate or semi-literate; the group members include Hutu, Tutsi, and one Twa (pygmy).

Clearly Burundi is more prosperous than it was a few years ago, but the people are still much poorer than those in Kenya. I am always amazed by the small number of domestic animals -- cows, goats, sheep, pigs, and even chickens -- when compared to Kenya where there are probably too many animals. I have never even seen a donkey in Burundi, yet they are quite common in Kenya. Burundians also do not plow with oxen as is common in Kenya. I think that this is very important since men take care of the cows and oxen first, then they do the plowing and become involved in agricultural work. Gladys kept commenting on how very few men she saw cultivating. The Burundians who were with us kept trying to give excuses for the lack of men in the field ("this was building season and the men were building", "the women were carrying the hoes home for the men"), but I think she (and certainly I) were reluctant to accept these excuses. If farm work is only done by women and children, I doubt that there will be much agricultural progress.

Politically the peace deal between the various Hutu factions seems to be holding up.

Now we are in Rwanda and I'll give send a report on Rwanda when we return to Kenya.

Peace,
Dave