Finding Joy in Burundi

I might have left the impression in my last post that Burundi is a joyless place – because it ranked last among the world’s countries on the “happiness” index. I know a lot of people who would take offense, for a variety of reasons, with this assessment. I’m actually one of them. It’s true that based on the criteria used in the study out of Leicester University I referred to, people in Burundi have a lot of reasons not to be happy: high mortality rate, short life expectancy, lack of educational opportunities – not to speak of the poverty and violence that are normal parts of life for most Burundians.

There are some other things about Burundi (and countries like it) that would challenge these criteria, however. I’ve attached a slideshow of smiling faces in Burundi to prove the point. (Thanks to my friend, Fuzz Kitto, for allowing me to filch some of his photos – all of the really good ones you see here.) People really do find reasons to be happy even in the worst of circumstances, and this is important to remember. And, of course, it’s equally true that not all people who have all the things named in the criteria for happiness are happy people. Duh.

Rather than writing a sermon here, I want to share the recent newsletter of Jodi Mikalachki from Burundi. But first, I have to tell you a little about Jodi for those of you who don’t know her. I first met her a year ago this past April in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the home of Steve Bonsey, a mutual friend. Jodi was a parishioner at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Cambridge where she had met Steve a number of years ago. Steve, Jodi, and I were preparing to go to the Amahoro Gathering in Rwanda. But Jodi was also preparing to leave before that for Burundi, where she had just signed on to work for the Mennonite Central Committee at a rural school among the Batwa people. Now Jodi is not your typical missionary teacher. She was a tenured English professor at Wellesley College for many years, but has now given up her position (and her tenure) to teach the poorest of the poor in what some consider to be the unhappiest little country in the world. Jodi writes the most incredible newsletters from the ground there. I want to share what she wrote just two weeks ago, with her permission. I think you’ll see her joy – mixed with a lot of sadness – in the experiences she describes. The woman in the last picture you see is Jodi.

Dear Family and Friends,
It's been great to hear from many of you over the last few weeks. We're about to start exams at the Hope Secondary School. Please do hold our students in your hearts. They've worked so hard and sacrificed so much this year, and for some of them, it's going to be a very close shave if they pass their year.

I have another story I'd like to share with you. I love the stories you send me, too, whether it's an exceptional period such as a sabbatical, or the hopes, concerns, longings, and joys of everyday life. It helps me feel connected to you, and to the part of the world that has shaped me.

Love, Jodi

Story: Weddings Bells in Mutaho
Two Saturdays ago, I attended the weddings of at least 75 Batwa couples in Mutaho. There's a movement afoot to formalize Batwa marriages, which have had neither the legal status of papers signed at the municipal office, nor the cultural status of a "dotte" (bride price) paid by one family to another. Formalizing marriages is a good thing in many ways: it helps Burundi develop its social security network by identifying couples and families; it contributes to the restabilizing of domestic and national life after the civil war; and it gives women and children some leverage when a husband or father does not fulfill his responsibilities. So I've been excited and happy for my night guards and their wives (and children) as they've gone through the many stages of this process over the last few months. When they invited me to the legal ceremony in Mutaho, I accepted with joy, as I did their request that I buy their wives imvutanos (ceremonial dress) for the occasion.

There is however, a downside to this movement. Numerous Batwa men (like many of their counterparts in other cultures) walk out on wives and children to start new families with younger women. One of the leaders of the Batwa community in Nyangungu left his first wife, Kejuru, the mother of his nine children, to marry a younger woman. He has since provided no support to Kejuru or his children with her. When Kejuru wanted to remarry herself, he told her he would kill her if she did. So she's remained a single mother, raising her large family (two of whom have died) on the little she can scrape together herself. She's an intelligent, graceful woman who still commands respect in her community, despite having been abandoned.

The eldest son of the second wife is now fifteen, and one of the brightest students in our 7th Grade. He has a great sense of humor, and I really enjoy talking with him when he comes by my house from time to time. When I first heard that his parents were preparing to formalize their marriage, I was really happy for him. Although I knew Kejuru was his father's first wife, I thought of it more in terms of a western divorce—unfortunate for her, but nothing to stop his father from making good on his second marriage. That was before I heard several Batwa women bellowing at the father all the way across our long schoolyard. They were outraged that he could think of formalizing his second marriage while his first wife was still alive. Kejuru and the leaders of our organization tried in several ways to stop him, but he remained determined to marry his second wife formally.

So I set out this morning with some mixed feelings—happy for Lazare and Luminata, for Joël and Luce, and even for my student, but very unhappy for Kejuru and other women who might be in her position. My night guards had arranged a motorcycle ride for me, which I underwent in my imvutano, clinging (against all cultural norms) to the drivers' shoulders as we wound our way through the hills on rutted roads. We arrived in Mutaho to find a crowd of brightly dressed women, many with nursing babies, and somberly clad men waiting outside the municipal offices for the ceremony to start. As I began to greet the women, I noticed Kejuru among them, dressed as finely as anyone, and hugged her along with the others.

About two hours after the stated time, a municipal administrator arrived and started calling couples into the hall, two at a time. I stood by the door to watch them come in, recognizing many from Nyangungu. I was moved to see many of the older people I shake hands with on the road coming forward after however many decades of marriage, children and grandchildren to formalize their unions. There were others who looked to be no more than teenagers. Every woman under forty had a baby on her back or at her breast.

One of the Batwa elders was seating them on benches—three couples to a bench made for four people. When half the benches were taken without making much of a dent in the crowd, there was a pause while two men went off and returned with one additional bench. Seating resumed until all the benches were full, leaving at least as many outside as in. There was another pause while the same two men went off and came back with one more additional bench. That was immediately filled, and from then on, it was standing room only.

After more waiting, something official seemed to be starting. When I saw Joël and Luce step forward, I went to stand with them, assuming they were being married, and wanting to show my support. The municipal official, a tall slender middle-aged woman who could be a model, smiled at me and began a long conversation with the Mutwa elder sponsoring the couple. Finally, she motioned me to sit in a chair at her side and explained that I could not be the bride's maid of honor because I wasn't a Burundian citizen. I apologized, explaining that I had naïvely joined them simply to offer my support.

While I was sitting there, a middle-class Burundian man walked up and spoke vigorously to the official. She turned back a page in her book and scratched out a pair of names with a flourish. Then pandemonium broke out. The middle-class man had come to stop one of the marriages from proceeding because the husband was legally married to another woman. Much shouting went up from other men, and finally a Mutwa elder brought calm. He asked a question, and I heard the crowd answer, "Nta numwe"—None! I realized he was asking if there were any other men in the same situation. The moment the crowd answered, "Nta numwe," the matrons of Nyangungu rose in a body to say there was indeed another man whose first wife was still living. Kejuru approached the official and I presume made her case. Because her union with the father of her nine children was not a legal marriage, however, she was powerless to stop him from formalizing his second marriage. [My colleague Béatrice has since informed me that in Batwa culture Kejuru's marriage was and is legal. Her husband's own sister, now quite elderly, walked from another province to try to stop her brother's remarriage. She slept that night in Kejuru's house.]

About an hour later after the uproar was quieted, the municipal secretary arrived, wearing something like a graduation gown in red, green and white, and an engineer's cap in the same colors with streamers of red, green and white hanging down the back. He put a deacon's stole in the same colors on the other official, and they started calling couples to the front. In a voice that all could hear, he asked each person if they were willing to take the other as their sole man/woman. After they affirmed that they were, the woman official grabbed their hands, stuck their thumbs on an ink pad, and then on a page in her register.

I thought this was a bit of a shame, especially for the women who'd made such an effort to dress so beautifully. Although it is the case that most Batwa old enough to marry don't have much formal education, many have recently taken adult literacy classes and can at least sign their names. (My night guards, for instance, sign every month for their salaries.) But no-one seemed to mind.
I was sitting next to representatives of two NGOs working with Batwa. They had come with boxes of soap and airmail envelopes, each of which held 1000 francs (700 francs is a day-laborer's wage). After being thumb-printed and applauded, each man and woman received a bar of soap and 1000 francs "to encourage them," as the lovely young Burundian woman working for a German NGO explained to me. She asked me to hand out envelopes so she would be free to take pictures. I shook hands with each couple, saying "Muragira ngeni," the appropriate form of "congratulations" for weddings. After a while, I saw that the back of one of my hands was blue with ink from the stamp pad. "I'm married, too" I announced to much laughter.

After a while, the municipal secretary asked couples to come up in groups of ten to save time. That's when the whole thing took on the air of the Moonies for me. But I kept handing out envelopes and saying "Muragira ngeni." When Kejuru's husband, whom I know fairly well, came towards me beaming, I handed him his envelope with a smile only. ("Muragira ngeni" literally means, "You're making a bride.")

As things were winding down and the young woman from the German NGO was preparing to leave, I asked her if I could have two bars of soap for Kejuru, whose situation I had already explained to her. "Yes, indeed," she said. I put them under the folds of my imvutano and carried them across to Kejuru. Later, when beers and soft drinks were being passed out to the couples, I took her a Coke. The following Monday, I sent her two thousand francs with Hélène, who is a good friend of hers.
Once the beers came out (also, I presume, "to encourage them"), things started getting a little out-of-hand. Lazare made his way through the crowd to say it was time to leave. I worked my out after him and waited for my motorcycle driver, who took me safely and slowly home in the cool evening wind that heralds the advent of the dry season. About halfway there, he gestured out over the lush valley and forested hills to our right. "Abantu benshi barapfuye hariya," he said—many people died over there. Since he had showed me moments before where his father and brother had land, I asked him whether he had lost any family during the civil war. "Ego," he said emphatically—yes. "Ntakundi," I answered—I'm sorry. "Were they killed by other people from this area, or by soldiers?" "Ego," he said again. I guess there was plenty of killing to go around—civilians killing civilians with clubs and machetes, and soldiers killing civilians with guns and grenades. Nothing could look more pastoral now than that valley and the hills on the other side.

Along our way we passed Joël and Luce, Lazare and Luminata, and many other couples on bicycles, the husbands pedaling, and their newly legal wives sitting side saddle on the back in their bright clothes, holding their babies. We all waved to each other and called out greetings. Everyone looked very happy. [end quote]

Happiness, indeed.

The Happiest Place on Earth

About a year ago I had just returned from a month in Africa when I read a story on the BBC website about a British social psychologist who had created a "world map of happiness." The author had studied the subjective sense of well-being in people all over the world to determine "the happiest place on earth." Countries are rank ordered from highest to lowest.

I had just come from the country at the bottom of the list: Burundi.

And I was just beginning to write a proposal to the Lilly Endowment for my sabbatical, which I was focusing around the theme of joy. So, I took note of this study. And I was especially interested in the fact that the country at the top of the happiness list was... Denmark. I had been to Denmark a couple of times. In fact, I have friends in Denmark. I even have a "Danish brother" -- Michael Balmer (formerly Michael Knudsen) who lived with us for a year as an exchange student when I was in high school. We've stayed in touch these past 38 years and visited in each others' homes from time to time.

So, I thought it would be a great idea to visit Michael and his wife, Aase (pronounced Oh-sa), during my sabbatical, and just see what it was about Denmark that made it "the happiest place on earth."



The BBC article contained some initial analysis of this auspicious designation. "A nation's level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels. Prosperity and education were the next strongest determinants of national happiness." The author suggested that "...there is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjunction with measures of wealth..." suggesting that we might do better to work toward increasing our happiness levels rather than simply our level of wealth, since wealth does not necessarily determine happiness.

Anyway, partly to make a convincing case for my grant proposal, and partly out of sheer self-interest in seeing friends in Denmark, I decided to make the happiest place on earth one of my sabbatical destinations. And I decided to try to pay particular attention to what I was seeing and hearing from people here.

Here are just a few observations:

1) People indeed seem very healthy. Why? Perhaps because they have universal health care. I didn't say free. They pay for it -- with their taxes, not private insurance. And the people I have asked seem very happy with the national health care system. There are things you have to wait for, and some wealthier people supplement their health care coverage with private insurance, too. But everyone has basic health care, and it's very high quality. No one is worried about losing their health insurance. No one has to be concerned about insurability because of a pre-existing condition. Everyone, whether a corporate CEO, government employee, self-employed or unemployed, gets the same health coverage. This takes a lot of the anxiety out of life for the Danes.

2) Education is free -- including university and graduate school. In fact, even high school students, from the time they are eighteen years old, get a monthly stipend from the government for being in school. The stipend amounts to about $1000 a month for university students, meaning they don't have to worry about going into debt for education. If you happen to have children while you're a student, you get an additional allowance, and free child care. Danish society has determined that an educated population is a high priority.

3) There is less inequality in Denmark than in many countries. Some people call this socialism. The Danes don't seem to care what it is called. Relative equality is achieved, at least partially, through taxation. The lowest income tax rate is 30% and the highest is 63%. The average is 47%. No one that I've talked to seems to mind. They all, including those in the top bracket I've spoken to, seem to think they get a pretty good deal for what they pay.

One of the interesting possibilities for the relationship of this equalizing factor to the happiness index could be this: if you know you are going to pay a lot more in taxes if you have a high paying job, there might be a greater incentive to choose your profession not on the basis of how much money you will make, but on the basis of what you really enjoy doing. Now there's a thought! Could it have something to do with overall happiness??? And by the same token, if there is a very strong social safety network, and no one really falls through the cracks even if they have a lower paying job -- and you just happen to like doing something like caring for children -- you don't have a disincentive for doing what you really love to do, and you still make a reasonable living. Speaking of which, the minimum wage in Denmark is roughly $20 an hour. Even the fast food worker or school janitor or day care center worker makes this amount. The minimum wage is actually a living wage -- even after the 30% income tax. Two parents each making minimum wage can support a family of four in relative comfort and security.

Our obsession in the US and many other countries with wealth just might be misplaced -- surprise, surprise. I like the idea of measuring happiness instead of (or in addition to) wealth; and it seems clear to me that the two really are not necessarily linked. I know that from my experience in Denmark, and my experience in Burundi as well. I think Jesus even had something to say about it.

One final observation. When Michael and I were out on a bike ride around town a couple of days ago, he pointed out the home of the wealthiest man in town. Maribo is a town of about 5000 people. It was a nice home, but it was neither enormous nor ostentatious. I think Michael said he's worth about $100 million. Within about 100 yards, he started pointing out to me a neat little row of "poor people's cottages." These are not homes, but little one or two room "vacation houses" with garden plots around them that are available upon request to low income people as a place to get away to, plant a garden, and experience some peace away from the cares of life at home. The idea seemed amazing in itself. But the fact that it was only yards away from the wealthiest person in town was astounding. No "nimby" factor here. Everyone from the poorest Somali immigrant (of which there are quite a few in town) to the folks in the 63% bracket have the chance at living with dignity and security.

I shouldn't make it sound like there are no problems here, social or economic or otherwise. Yes, politicians and citizens still debate the tax code and the level of services that people should get. But I do think there are some broad, general indicators here that the rest of us could learn from as we face the ongoing challenges in the US and the rest of the world.

Oh yes, and you might be interested in where the US stands in this happiness study. Not too bad, actually. Out of 178 countries studied, the USA ranks 23rd. The UK is 41st and Japan is 90th. That one was a surprise to me.

And now, off for another bicycle ride -- on Denmark's flat-as-a-pancake countryside. No grueling northern California hills to climb. Another reason for happiness!!

A few pictures from the safari

We continue to have slow connections to the internet, so uploading pictures is hard. I've reduced the size of a few here just to give some of the highlights of our three day stay in the Pilanesberg National Game Park. Carolyn was able to get some to load to her Facebook, so check them out there, too, if you're on Facebook with her.
Pilanesberg is one of the smaller game parks in South Africa, but it has a lot of wildlife, including all of the so-called "big five" -- lion, leopard, buffalo, rhinoceros (both white and black), and African elephant. We saw them all (actually saw cheetah, not leopard). Our good friend John de Beer, who is from South Africa, got the recommendation for us from a school friend of his, and it turned out to be a great choice of parks -- neither as big nor as far away as the more famous Kruger. It was only a two hour drive from Johannesburg (driving at 140 km/hr like everyone around here seems to do). We stayed in the park in a small chalet with some mischievous vervet monkeys running around, sitting on our wall, and running across the rooftop at night. We were able to drive through the game park on our own for as much time as we liked during our stay. We did early morning drives, afternoon and evening ones, too. We went on a three-hour night ride with a tour guide to see all the interesting nocturnal activity.
We enjoyed the scenery nearly as much as the wildlife. Pilanesberg sits in the crater of an ancient volcano that formed the geology of this area 1.3 billion years ago. It sits a few hundred feet above the plain surrounding it. It is a mixed environment including desert-like areas similar to the nearby Kalahari Desert, as well as more lush areas. Sitting on this kind of boundary enables the park to be a home to many different species within a relatively small area.
The safari experience was a nice way to round out our South African adventure, and to experience some of the beauty and wonder of creation in this part of the world. We have returned now to Johannesburg for our final two nights. We got up this morning and drove into the center of Johannesburg to attend the 9:30 High Mass at St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Cathedral. It was a wonderful and welcoming experience. We definitely stood out in the crowd, but people could not have been more friendly. All the visitors were asked to introduce themselves during the service, which we did, and lots of people made their way to us to welcome us and speak with us after the service. Several people warned us about the possibility of getting mugged outside the Cathedral, so we were careful leaving and driving through the somewhat chaotic urban neighborhood in which the cathedral sits. We drove from there to the suburban area north and east of downtown, the neighborhood where Nelson Mandela now lives. It's a rather posh area of the city with walls around all the houses. The security business is booming in Johannesburg with alarm company signs at every gated house, and guards
standing at the ends of driveways. We found a shopping mall with a lovely restaurant where Carolyn took me for Father's Day lunch, followed by an Argentinian film, Café de los Maestros, and then a stroll through an open air bazaar with every manner of African handmade crafts. All in all, a good day in Johannesburg.
Tomorrow we leave South Africa. We fly to London together. Carolyn will head home to Boston from there, and I'll continue on to Denmark, where I'll be visiting my Danish exchange brother, Michael Balmer, and his family.

Safari

It's going to be hard to do this one justice with words, so I'm going to let the pictures do the talking. We've just finished a three-day safari at the Pilanesberg National Park in North West Province, not too far from the border with Botswana. It was an amazing experience. We saw all of the "Big Five" game -- the lion, African elephant, Cape Buffalo, the cheetah, and rhinoceros -- and hundreds of other species.



The highlight had to be this morning, when before breakfast, we took an early morning swing through a corner of the park where we had seen lots of animals before. Until now we hadn't gotten a good view of lions. Our only sighting so far was during a night ride with a tour guide. We had seen two young males just leaving the carcass of a hippo, but our view was limited. This morning made up for it all. Coming down a road we noticed a herd of giraffes on a hillside across a ravine from us. We noticed that they were all standing still with necks straining -- all in the same direction. Not far from them was a herd of wildebeest (or gnu), also facing all in one direction. Looking closely we saw four lions -- two female, two male -- walking in a line along the bottom of the hill about a quarter of a mile from us. We sat patiently, following them and watching as the giraffe and wildebeest nervously reacted to their presence. We backed the car back up the hill we had just come down to be able to keep them all in view. At one point the herd of wildebeest ran and scattered as the nervous giraffes, by now feeling somewhat safer themselves, looked on. We continued following the lions as the wildebeest kept moving away -- in our direction. Eventually the herd ended up right where we were sitting, the lions by now quite a ways behind them. But we knew the lions would keep coming in their direction, and as they did, we were able to watch the two pairs separate to try to outflank the wildebeest. We were sure we were going to see them get their breakfast from the herd.



That did not happen, but we did get to follow the lions -- only three of them by now, one of the females having left the group -- as they came right past us and the other cars who by now had also gathered in the area. We sat for about a half hour watching the three of them, sometimes no more than ten feet from our car. It was an unforgettable experience.

Youth Day -- June 16

At last week's Amahoro Gathering, many of us were taken aback by comments made by Trevor Ntlhola, a pastor from South Africa, during a session having to do with the role of money in the relationships between Africa and the West. Trevor is a pastor in Soweto, made famous by the Soweto Uprising on June 16, 1976 -- 33 years ago today. More about that later. But what Trevor said that caught our attention was this. "Don't send your money to South Africa. South Africa has plenty of money. We're 18th on the list of wealthy nations in the world."



It was surprising to hear this coming from a black South African pastor, in a country that has a lot of poverty and a lot of need. However, from the perspective of the rest of Africa, he was stating the obvious. South Africa is the wealthiest country on the continent. Immigrants stream into South Africa from the neighboring states and all across the continent. There are gleaming cities in South Africa and pockets of wealth that rival the seventeen wealthier countries of the world.



Carolyn and I have been struck by the incredible contradictions we see and have to face on a daily basis in this country. For the past two days we've been sitting in the lap of luxury, staying at the lovely Zandberg B&B and winery near Stellenbosch, about an hour outside of Cape Town. Stellenbosch is in the heart of South African wine country in the Western Cape province, which includes the city of Cape Town. Western Cape is the most "Western" (as in European) of the provinces, and the one province in South Africa that is not dominated by the ANC (African National Congress -- the party of Nelson Mandela and the current government). It is also historically the area most dominated by Afrikaner culture. It is the most conservative in its politics, and the wealthiest area of the country. It is also a exquisitely beautiful part of the country.



Following the Amahoro Gathering in the Johannesburg area, we flew to Cape Town where we spent two days with fellow Amahoro pilgrims, getting to know the city as we were led by two local Amahoro guides, Rene August and Marius Brand. They introduced us to this remarkable city, with all of its contradictions and complexity. We started with a visit to The Warehouse, a ministry of St. John's Parish, which includes six Anglican congregations who have partnered to reach out to the very poor in the Cape Town area. Their ministry includes providing food and clothing to local churches of all denominations for distribution to the poor, as well as spiritual guidance, facilitation and technical assistance to congregations wishing to develop ministries of justice and compassion at the local level. It is an impressive ministry led by a group of very committed, very intentional Christians with a lot of wisdom, compassion, and grace. We followed that up with a trip to top of Table Mountain, the stunning backdrop to this amazing city, 3500 feet straight up from the coast just below, to watch the sun set on a picture perfect partly cloudy day. Later that evening we were introduced to our host families where we would spend the next two nights in one of Cape Town's large townships -- Guguletu.



Guguletu is a huge area that most white South Africans have never seen. They just don't go there. It is an area of very modest housing, some of it run down and some of it well kept, but an area that under apartheid would only have been for blacks. And although anyone can now legally live there, it is hard to find anyone there who is not black. Our host was a lovely woman named Noxie. (The X is a click sound in the Xhosa language, and Noxie is actually a nickname for her surname, Noxolo. For us she pronounced it Nok-see since the click is very hard for non-Xhosa-speakers to pronounce.) She drove us to her beautifully kept but modest home, where we spent two nights in a detached bedroom behind her house in a neighborhood of houses that were substantially less desireable than hers. Some of them were shacks. They're all, including hers, on very small plots, side by side. If something is going on in the house next door, you hear it all. We fell in love with Noxie, and she was able after a day to share with us some of the real pain in her own life -- the death of her only child, an eighteen year old son, who was murdered in 2003. She told us how, as he lay on the hospital table dying, she was presented with the possibility of donating his organs, which she did. She gains comfort knowing that other people were enabled to live because of that decision. She hears from at least one of them, who stays in touch to express his deep gratitude. She also talked to us about what it was like to be in the crowd of hundreds of thousands of people who gathered to hear Nelson Mandela speak in downtown Cape Town after his release from prison, and to vote for the first time in her life after the fall of apartheid in 1994.



Guguletu is not the worst slum in Cape Town. There are massive shantytowns where virtually all of the housing is shacks made of corrugated tin or other semi-permanent materials. Some of them began as "informal settlements" when the people who moved there had been the victims of forced removals under the Group Areas Act of the apartheid government. Some have now been made "formal" settlements, the only change being that there are now utilities and addresses.



We began our second day in Cape Town with a visit to Mannenberg. This name also strikes terror into the hearts of many people here. Under apartheid it was a "colored" area -- that is, the mixed race, Afrikaans-speaking people who are descendents of Malaysian workers in South Africa. We met with Jonathan, a man who grew up in Mannenberg and now runs a ministry called Fusion that works with gangs and gang leaders. Eighty percent of all young people in Mannenberg belong to a gang. Jonathan walks the streets, befriends them and their leaders -- and he prays. When people ask him what Fusion does, he says, "Walk and pray. We walk and pray." I left our meeting with Jonathan in tears, moved by his courage, and his love for the young people he gets to know. I was humbled and deeply grateful for people like him who do this kind of work on behalf of the rest of us.



From that experience we took a driving tour around the Cape of Good Hope. It's hard to describe the sheer beauty of this area. The interplay of mountains and sky makes for an often breathtaking display of natural beauty. At Cape Point, we stood on a precipice at the very southern tip of the Cape of Good Hope looking across the intersection of the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic with no land between us and Antarctica. Dinner that evening was in a rather posh restaurant in a large modern shopping mall on the Cape Town waterfront -- "the other Cape Town" from where we had been staying. It was hard not to think of our hosts in Guguletu or the people in the Khayelitsha shantytown or Mannenberg.

Just two days later is a national holiday here in South Africa -- June 16 -- Youth Day. It is named for the 500 youth of Soweto township in Johannesburg who were killed in a day of rioting known as The Soweto Uprising on this day in 1976. A few days ago we were in Soweto and visited the memorial to the first and the youngest of the youth who died that day, Hastings Ndlovu. The Soweto Uprising took place in response to the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 which forced all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in a 50-50 mix as languages of instruction. Afrikaans is the first language of about 13% of South Africans -- both Afrikaaners (people of Dutch descent) and the mixed race (or "colored" under apartheid) people. Hardly anyone in the black townships, including the teachers, spoke Afrikaans, and hence the uprising. This event is looked upon in this country as a watershed moment in the effort to put a stop to apartheid.

It's hard not to think about those young gang members in Mannenberg who don't really have a lot of other options, or Noxie's son who was murdered, or the children who grow up in the shantytowns across South Africa today -- even as we bask in the beauty and gentility of Stellenbosch and South Africa's wine country. As in all of life, there are competing realities that must be held in some kind of creative tension that keeps us aware of the multiple truths around us -- and keeps us working for justice and freedom for all people.

So much to do, so little time

We've been in South Africa now for three days, and I've hardly had a minute to blog. Lack of time, combined with problems of slow internet connections and keeping batteries well charged have made it more difficult to share it all here than I had expected. Consequently, this will be short tonight.

The program has been very full -- and powerful. Just as we heard stories last year of people who had lived through the Rwandan genocide, we're hearing the stories this year of the experience of living under apartheid, working to overthrow apartheid, and now learning to be a new kind of society in the post-apartheid era.

For those not familiar with Amahoro (see blog posts from May of 2008), it is a gathering of emerging church leaders from across the continent of Africa, together with friends and partners from around the globe. I'm so impressed with the people I meet here. The young people here truly give me hope for the future of our global community -- young people both from Africa and other parts of the world.

For me this experience has been an opportunity to renew many friendships I made last year in Rwanda and to meet many, many new friends both from South Africa and other countries. It's also been wonderful this year to have Carolyn with me. She has thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and is now beginning to understand why I wouldn't stop talking about it when I got home last year! Her presence with me has brought another whole dimension to the experience -- and something we now share together. She is eager for us to find a way to come again next year when it will be held in Nairobi.

The gathering closed tonight with a communion service, followed by a banquet with some fabulous South African entertainment. We leave early tomorrow morning for a few days in Cape Town. I'll do my best to find some time to be a bit more reflective and articulate about the whole experience along the way. It's hard to do.

And now, on to South Africa

Early tomorrow morning Carolyn and I will leave for Johannesburg, South Africa, on the next leg of our sabbatical travels. We're packing our winter clothes (didn't we just put them away?!), and preparing ourselves for winter in the southern hemisphere. Friends on the ground there warned us today to "bring your woolies!"

Some of you have asked, "so what are you going to be doing in South Africa?" We'll be part of a gathering of emerging church leaders from all across the continent of Africa and beyond, sponsored by an organization called Amahoro-Africa. Amahoro is a Kirundi word used as a greeting (with variations in many other African languages) for Peace. As Westerners, we'll be there as participant-observers and partners, but the main conversation is one between and among Africans, on the topic of The African Reformation. If my experience last year in Rwanda is any indication, it will be a powerful experience to witness the vibrancy of a new generation of leaders emerging into the post-colonial, post-apartheid context, finding new ways of being and doing church -- ways that don't depend on some of the unhelpful (and downright hurtful) aspects of the Christianity brought to them in the colonial period, ways of being authentically African while authentically following in the Way of Jesus. We go as learners, companions, and fellow travellers, hoping that we might see better what it means to follow Jesus in our own context as well, and engaging in partnerships with those who have so much to teach us about what the gospel really means for the transformation of our world.

At the end of the main part of the Gathering, we'll go on a field trip with some of our fellow Western participants to Cape Town. There we'll visit Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years), visit the Khayelitsha township, and witness the context for ministry in some of the city's more challenging areas.

Carolyn and I will be staying in South Africa for an extra week after The Gathering, so we're taking a couple of extra days in Cape Town right off. We've booked two nights at the Zandberg Bed & Breakfast outside of the city in wine country. We'll fly back to Johannesburg where we've also planned to take a three-day sarari in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve. We'll be sleeping out in the bush in a tent (in the cold winter nights!) and hopefully seeing lots of amazing wildlife. We're told we'll be pretty much guaranteed to see "the big five" -- lions, elephants, giraffes, hippos, and rhinoceros (rhinoceri?) -- and many other exotic mammals, birds, and reptiles -- hopefully all outside the tent.

We expect to have good internet service along the way, so we'll let you know how it all goes!