An Update; I'll get better at this...

Good news! I figured out how to compress pictures! We don’t have internet or power in Kigutu (where the clinic is) yet, so my online time has been limited. I came into Bujumbura for a couple days to round up supplies; power and internet at my fingertips. It’s quite slow, but it works.

I was excited to compose the perfect soil mix for my nursery the other day. Compost, sand, crushed charcoal, humus from the forest floor, and topsoil from where the farm is going to be. It looks so good I could eat it! The search begins tomorrow for nursery supplies; I hope to have the shade structure built and the first round of seeds planted by the end of next week. We’ll see how it goes; progress is slow in rural Burundi.

My daily schedule at this point is…

6:00 am - Water Existing Garden & Walk Site
7:00 am - Breakfast
7:30 am - Site Crew Meeting
12:30 pm - Lunch
5:00 pm - Exercise
6:30 pm - Study Kirundi
7:30 pm - Dinner

Still adjusting to the many differences all around me. Coming out of shock. Feeling VERY excited about the plans I’ve developed for the farm, nursery, and landscape projects.

I’m kind of drawing a blank here….there’s been so much to take in; I’m trying to think of how to structure the communication of it all. I spent time in a village the other day where it is estimated that over 60% of the villagers are HIV positive. I’m stared at by everyone I pass, everywhere I go. I saw a hippo in the lake the other day. I’ve probably seen over a thousand AK-47s in the last couple weeks. Most of the work here is done by women with children on their backs; most of the men seem to drink all day. The average temperature has been around 83 degrees, with an average of 54% humidity. I killed about fifty mosquitoes last night before going to sleep. I talked the Governor of Bururi into giving the clinic a bunch of land the other day. I helped stop a brush fire that was rapidly approaching our clinic yesterday. Someone in Belgium hacked their way into my bank account the other day and withdrew over $1200; Wells Fargo has since closed down my account. I’ve drunk about twenty Fantas so far, have eaten meat three times, and my stomach is doing great! I’m already missing the TLC of my female friend, Christina. Night time smells like Plumeria. I’m making good friends among the staff at the clinic and the surrounding community. I just ate an avocado that was about nine inches wide. I have almost 300 variety of seeds to plant, and I can’t wait to have the nursery built so I can grow them. Lake Tanganyika is the perfect temperature, but you can’t stay in long because of crocodiles and hippos. I saw an animal the other night that looked like a mixture between a fox and a deer. I can speak Kirundi at the developmental level of a two year old. I saw about a thousand fruit bats swooping in on mango trees the other day in Rumonge. I’ve been rocking roots reggae pretty hard on my ipod lately; the political stances make more and more sense. We can’t drive on the roads here after 4:00 pm. A man who makes $1 bought me a Fanta two days ago, and if I’d turned it down he would have been really offended. Everyone keeps talking about famous infectious disease and global health doctors all the time. There are large fires burning in beautiful hills all the time. The staff at the clinic do good work; they’re saving lives left and right!

This has been a really potent and pregnant experience so far; I’m sure it will continue to be so. It has been really good to be with my friend, Joey upon entering this place. He went through the shock of it all a year ago, so he knows what it’s like. We’ve had a lot of fun.

I’m planning a trip north through Burundi and Rwanda for later this month to collect some supplies and plant material. I’ll keep taking pictures.

Hope everyone is surviving the current economic situation in the States. It’s easy to say this having never lost much, but even after the market goes to hell and a hand basket, we all have a whole lot more than most of the people on Earth. Seeing the many lives I could have been born into is giving me a new appreciation for the expansive wealth I have often taken for granted in my life.