ADVENTURE

Last week, with World Relief HQ visitor (and new friend) Caroline, I jumped in the WR Landcruiser and headed out on a Thelma and Louise type adventure to show her World Relief Burundi programs. Our formula: HUGE vehicle + 2 white girls + Burundi = ADVENTURE.

As always, it was great to get out of the office and see the work that is actualized by our efforts in our respective Bujumbura / Baltimore offices. I absolutely LOVE getting to the field and after two years here, generally feel confident about taking guests on the WRB program tour... driving myself upcountry and meeting up with program staff along the way.

This trip seemed to have a few more hitches, however. Good thing Caroline was a sport! Without incident, we drove two hours from Bujumbura to the southern province of Makamba to see our work with refugees and internally displaced persons. We visited the family who gave me the chicken, saw families with goats (pictured above), and those in the process of rebuilding their homes. After several hours on the field... talking with beneficiaries, meeting with staff, and petting goats... we jumped back in the cruiser and headed another two and a half hours to Gitega, central Burundi.

That trip... and our time in Gitega... was where our adventures began. Honestly, it was nothing too crazy. Just classic- "this would only happen in Africa" type things. Things like not finding a place to use the restroom... so instead, we stopped at a random guest house to get a "tour"of the facility and then delicately asked at the end to use their toilettes. Caroline thought I was pretty smooth. We later sipped incredibly strong coffee at "Antonio's Cyber Cafe" in Gitega with fresh cow's milk that was a bit curdled, out of coffee cups that still had the lip marks of the former user. Generally NOT advisable. We weren't sure if it was the milk or the unclean cups that later gave us the diarrhea!

And the fun in Gitega continued... a walking tour of the town and market and then a late night, off-road drive to the orphanage of our friend where we got to join in some before bed-time singing and received good night hugs from all the kids. That was a treat!

The following morning we woke up refreshed (despite the pain and queasiness from the diahrrea from the coffee incident). And then, before 9am, we had QUITE the morning. We got a tour of the orphanage (complete with a beautiful health clinic and school, housing with a family style set-up, and randomly, several blind cows!), stopped along the road to buy some delicious avocadoes for 10 cents each, managed to fall through a rickety bridge in our landcruiser (paying 10+ Burundian guys to help haul us out), sideswiped a bicyclist who veered in front of us (he was just fine! no damage to person, vehicle, or bike, fortunately!), all before joining our Child Survival team just outside of Gitega. Whew! What a morning.

Our day visiting the Child Survival project went beautifully, and we returned the same day to Bujumbura without further incident, stopping (as we always do) in the town of Bugarame to buy fresh strawberries, lettuce, carrots, and green peppers from vendors who shove their goods in our car windows as we barter for the best price.

One thing I appreciate about Burundi: the adventure of daily life and that there is ALWAYS some story to tell.